Sarcastic comment of the Kremlin’s speaker Dmitry Peskov came to mind on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ’It is better for the Ukrainians to set alarm-clocks for this time and see it for themselves’, he said on 16 February 2022, referring to the warnings of the CIA about an impending Russian attack on Ukraine.
The unprovoked Russian attack caused various types of shockwaves around the world: 10 million refugees fled Ukraine, posing huge challenges to many EU member states, the end of Russian gas deliveries jeopardized heating in European households, and the delaying of Ukrainian grain export led to a food crisis in the third world.
After one year of senseless bloodshed, questions asking whether there are any grounds for optimism are asked more frequently. I think it is worth asking the same question from three different points of view: Ukraine, Russia and the so-called West. Should any of them be optimistic about the future?
It is not easy to answer this question, especially if you rely on mass media reports and various contents on social media platforms. Both top officials in Kyiv and high-ranking officials in Moscow, apparently, trust in their good fortune, nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that all this is nothing else but war propaganda. ’Arms supplies to Ukraine do not prolong the war. On the contrary, they contribute to its early end’, said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the Munich Security Conference in February 2023. Although Western mainstream media often speak about accelerated arms transfers to Ukraine, they rarely show the reality directly from the war zones, from the battlefields. If you do not have relatives or friends in Ukraine, you may soon get lost in the news and statements.
Taking this special aspect into account, this time, I gathered the opinions of my friends and acquaintances from both Ukraine and Russia, and now I have the privilege to share with you the points of view these people now. I can assure you in advance that their views do not stand very far apart.
As a starting point, it is necessary to establish, that the war itself is unacceptable for all of them, and both my Ukrainian and Russian friends received a shock on 24 February 2022.
’Russia started the war to break the global security system’, such statements mean nothing for them. At the same time it turned out from my little survey that regardless of nationality, they are all very much worried about their countries and inconsolable about their relatives and friends who gave their life or were injured in this crazy war.
One more point should be noted, which is common in the positions: many of my friends believe that both sides of the war are likely to feel that the time has come for negotiations, but, due to different motives, both sides are not in a hurry to declare it.
My friends do not use expressions like ’an imminent need of a new security architecture’ or ’valid security guarantees’ — they consider them incomprehensible, but very popular phrases, which have become public talking points. Instead, they all say with one voice that they want to regain freedom for themselves and to restore the freedom of their country (both of Russia and Ukraine), but they are afraid that both states are captured by their leaders, guided by their own dreams. The last idea seems to be their most interesting observation what I wanted to share with you.
According to my friends, both Putin and Zelenskiy are chasing a dream, although these dreams are very different: while the aggressor is determined to capture new territories (by the Kremlin this is called ’liberation of ancient Russian lands’), President Zelenskiy can do nothing else but dream about EU and NATO membership, hoping that the Euro-Atlantic orientation will save his country not only from further aggression, but also from bankruptcy and chaos. Both presidents are wrong, since neither new territories nor new allies can bring happiness. People’s dreams have already been lost, for decades, maybe, for a lifetime, and, this, unfortunately, concerns entire generations, my friends concluded.
The phrase ’Vladimir Putin is a tsar with no empire’ has become popular in recent months. As for Zelenskiy, he is often called ’a comedian who turned into a hard-line leader’. Based on the events of the last year, I have the impression that these two leaders are absolutely irreconcilable with each other, and this incompatibility largely prevents any kind of talks between the two sides of the war.
’Ukraine is a nation defined by its dreams, and Europe is one these dreams’, stressed by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. An interesting statement, but it is good or bad? What is the meaning of this statement? Is it about postponing Ukraine’s accession to the EU? Or, perhaps, this is a signal suggesting that Brussels will anyway grant Ukraine full membership just in order to fulfill Kyiv’s dreams…? As for me, I am against such a ’charity’ on behalf of the EU, because without compliance with European standards, problems will accumulate in Ukraine, not only with regard to corruption, but also in the sphere of basic rights of national minorities, which may cause further tension.
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy believes victory is the only answer for everything, including each and every problem of Ukraine, and Putin is convinced that Russia must conquer Ukraine. Despite the intentions of some circles from all sides to sit down at the negotiating table, the positions of the two presidents are very far from each other.
Given that Putin’s views are so different from Zelenskiy’s logic, there is not too much hope that things will change for the better. It means there is very little chance for negotiations, not to mention peace, even if achieving peace would be in our collective interests.
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