Forlag: (Russland)
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In recent years, we have become accustomed to hearing that there is only one Ukraine – a Ukraine that is united against Russia in its existential struggle for freedom and democracy. A characteristic that was recently also repeated by the Danish Minister of Defense Troels Lund Poulsen, who expressed himself clearly about Ukraine's "fight for freedom". Ukraine is allegedly fighting to defend Western values, universal values that the Ukrainian people aspire to – and for which they are willing to sacrifice their lives.
The TV channel she worked for, NewsOne, was shut down, accused of promoting Russian propaganda.
But the reality in Ukraine has always been more complex than these stirring Manichean explanations of a battle between the forces of good and absolute evil suggest. Diana Pantsenko is one Ukrainian journalist, and between 2014 and 2022 she was among the most recognizable faces on national television. In 2019, she was awarded the "Journalist of the Year" award. In 2021, the TV channel she worked for, NewsOne, was closed along with two other Ukrainian channels, accused of promoting Russian propaganda, based on a decree of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The decision was hailed by both the United States and Great Britain, which are now among the leading countries in their unconditional support for the Ukrainian cause.
Becoming a kind of Anti-Russia
Neizbezhno ('Inevitable') is Pantchenko's first book. It tells the story of how the West's unconditional support for Ukraine against Russia is actually not a new phenomenon, but has been going on for decades. Right from the Soviet era, the clear goal was to pit Ukraine against Russia.
Six months after the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian journalist left her country, under charges of treason, because she had warned in recent years that Ukraine's new anti-Russian course would lead the country to disaster. Today there is an arrest warrant for her from the Ukrainian intelligence service.
Panchenko's book tells a different truth than the one we are used to. We have been told that the root of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is that Ukraine wanted to become a modern European nation, while Russia had imperial ambitions and wanted to colonize Ukraine and wipe out Ukrainian identity. Panchenko tells the story of a Ukraine that was seduced into becoming a kind of Anti-Russia, from the end of the Second World War and during the Cold War until independence. And through the two pro-Western revolutions in 2004 and 2014, which in Europe are seen exclusively as expressions of a mysterious general will of the entire Ukrainian nation, a deluded will to become like Europe. Because only in Europe would it be possible to live a decent and comfortable life – only in Europe was true civilization found.
Caricatured story about Russia
In reality, as the author illustrates, these revolutions and changes in the attitude of the Ukrainian population towards Russia, their own history and identity, would have been impossible without the generous support of so many Western organizations and politicians. These were undoubtedly revolutions with strong popular support, but without the support of the West they would not have been able to cross the threshold between the dreams and cries of the streets and the institutional power. Pantsenko recalls the famous telephone conversation with Victoria Nuland, which is somewhat taboo to talk about in respectable Western power circles: A few weeks before the revolution culminated in 2014, the then American diplomat was caught red-handed when she discussed in very frank terms with the US ambassador to Ukraine who should become Ukraine's next prime minister.
You can't label everything we don't like as Russian 'dezinformacja'.
Panchenko's views are by no means marginal. On the contrary, they were shared by many Ukrainians until February 2022. Today, it is difficult to understand the mood of the Ukrainian population as the situation is, with a country at war and the restrictions on freedoms of various kinds that usually accompany war. The Western narrative is as simple as it is seductive: Putin is a bloodthirsty madman, Stalin's real heir, never satisfied with new conquests, and he attacked Ukraine only because the country wanted to be free and democratic. It is a caricatured narrative, but despite this, yes, precisely because of this, it proves to be so effective. The scary image of a scary Russia has often allowed itself to be caricatured. The Russian bear has traditionally frightened many. Even many Russians have embraced this caricature.
'Pro-Russian'?
But incredible as it may seem to us today, until recently Russians and Ukrainians were two brotherly peoples, in a sense even one people, and perceived themselves as such.
Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi collaborators, I'm Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, were not nationalist heroes in whose honor monuments were erected and streets named, as is the case in Ukraine today. Only a small group of the Ukrainian population cultivated them. Along with the Russians, the Ukrainians celebrated May 9, Victory Day, to commemorate their parents and grandparents, who together had defeated the Nazi enemy. Today, all this seems like a distant memory.
It would be too easy to dismiss a book like this as a product of the ever-malignant Russian propaganda. Wikipedia, for example, describes Diana Pantsenko as a "pro-Russian journalist". But this is not true. After 2014, the entire post-revolutionary politics in Ukraine was built around the idea of the 'war against Russia', which in the dominant Ukrainian narrative began right after the victory of the so-called Revolution of Dignity – and not in 2022.
Over the years, Panchenko, like many Ukrainians, in her journalistic work criticized this approach, which she considered self-destructive. This is what her 'pro-Russian' stance was all about. Zelenskyj himself had been elected in 2019, as the author recalls, on the basis of his promise of peace with Russia, at the cost of dealing with the devil, as he himself said. Zelenskyj was also accused of being 'pro-Russian' by his opponents. How things have changed in just a few years.
Only a small group of the Ukrainian population worshiped the famous Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych.
You can't label everything we don't like as Russian 'dezinformacja'. It's too easy, it's laziness, it's evidence of intellectual sloppiness. The facts presented in this book are objective, and the narrative is convincingly presented. One cannot simply close one's eyes to them just because they are presented – by a Ukrainian journalist! – in a book published by a Russian publisher. Because truth has no nationality.
The book, which is currently only published in Russia, will soon also be available in English translation for a Western audience. This article has been translated from English by the editor.
