J’accuse all of moscow/russia!

J’accuse all of moscow/russia!

In an interview with Time magazine on April 17, Yulia Navalna said Ukraine has been making a major mistake in calling the war in Ukraine russia’s war rather than putin’s war. She evidently wants to push every crime and misdemeanor away from mother russia and pin them exclusively on the current vozhd. It is also offensive to search for “good russians,” she said. The widow Navalna excused these good russians for not protesting the war in Ukraine because not everyone can be a hero. There is, after all, a draconic police regime in russia. So apparently clandestine good russians have decided to hide their heads in the sand as russia pursues its messianic bloody mission of killing Ukrainian men, women and children, and destroying every city and every building.

The widow Navalna – like all russian liberals or not – shouldn’t whitewash moscow’s well known 1,000 years of crimes & bloodshed in Ukraine. Moscow/russia spread death and destruction throughout Ukraine in an effort to annihilate men, women and children, erase their culture, and subjugate the country. Putin, Stalin & Ivan the terrible are all the same in their crimes; all muscovites & russians endorsed them. No one opposed their vozhd. Neither did the widow nor her dead husband. Denounce & renounce russia before you’ll be exonerated!

Should Ukrainians Lament Navalny?

Despite the White House’s half-baked idea of inviting Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska to attend President Biden’s State of the Union address and sit with America’s First Lady and Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia, his death in prison did raise the issue of the goals of russian liberals and Ukrainian sovereign existence and their possible intersections.

Fortunately, Mrs. Zelenska politely declined the invitation because the national mood in Ukraine would frown on the prospect of the wife of the wartime President of Ukraine being shown in the presence of a russian woman regardless of her and her supporters’ opposition to putin. Navalna herself also begged out at the last minute.

With the death of Navalny in a russian concentration camp there came the expected avalanche of questions from naive American men and women of letters in and out of officialdom about what do Ukrainians and other peoples living on russia’s border think about his demise?

Afterall, Navalny seemed to be one of the good guys because he opposed putin. Opposition to putin is OK, right? So, are Ukrainians upset or angered by Navalny’s death? Are they incensed at putin for killing another russian liberal, the potential savior of russia from putin’s evil reign? Will millions of disenfranchised russians turn their ire against putin and oust him from power? Opposition to putin is commendable but the issue for Ukrainians is far deeper than that.

Indeed, a few thousand attended his funeral but that paltry figure is barely enough to extinguish the flame at the in the center of the bronze five-pointed star near the Kremlin wall in the heart of Moscow, which has not stopped for 55 years. During the Revolution of Dignity it took some 2 million Ukrainians to descend on Kyiv to depose moscow’s gauleiter Viktor Yanukovych.

Russian’s pendular swings between supporting this or another dictator and not will not improve their fate anytime soon. But their problems with their national leadership are theirs, not anyone else’s.

After Navalny’s death, I asked by friend and colleague in Ukraine, Tanya Parkhomchuk, a correspondent for Youth of Ukraine, what do Ukrainians think about his death. She replied:

“We will not conceal that Ukraine has a deep resentment, even contempt for the opposition in moscow, because in 2014, when putin launched his war in Donbas and squeezed Crimea, they ignored the very fact of the danger of a war. They simply wanted to integrate themselves into the russian political system and start acting according to their plan.”

Some six years ago, during that year’s russian presidential elections, I made the following observation:

Ksenia Sobchak and Alexyi Navalny candidacies for president of russia are welcome. Actually, any challenger to putin is welcome. However, the key question remains: Will the winner of the russian president elections denounce the russian invasion of Ukraine and order the immediate withdrawal of the russian army and mercenaries from Ukraine? None of them did.

As William Wallace poignantly told the British in the movie Braveheart:

“Lower your flags, and march straight back to England, stopping at every home you pass by to beg forgiveness for a hundred years of theft, rape and murder. Do that and hour men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today…

“I’m not finished! Before we let you leave, your commandeer must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs and kiss his own arse.”

After that I will believe that russia, russians and its leaders and wannabe leaders are ready to join the global community of democratic countries.

Until then, Ukrainians do not owe russians any sympathy and support.