From revising textbooks to smearing bullets with lard: Ukrainian far-right hidden under the rug

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on February 24, the two sides have gone through many rounds of negotiations, but they have always struggled.

On February 28, the Russian-Ukrainian delegation launched the first round of negotiations in Belarus. Although Kyiv was besieged, the Ukrainian delegation remained firm and demanded the unconditional withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Crimea and Donbas regions. reach a consensus. Although the Russian representative said after the meeting that "it is a great progress for both sides to negotiate", it is an indisputable fact that the scene is so far away, and the game has returned to the front line of the battlefield.

On March 3, the second round of negotiations was still underway in Belarus. The two sides have reached an agreement on the establishment of a "humanitarian corridor" for a temporary ceasefire, but there has been no further progress. On March 5th, local time, the Ukrayinska Pravda reported a scandal of "execution of traitors". The party involved was one of the Ukrainian representatives who participated in the first round of negotiations on February 28th, Ukrainian banker Kireye. Denis Kireev, who was reportedly shot and killed by the Ukrainian State Security Service for collaborating with Russia; however, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate later stated that Kireev was actually an employee of the Intelligence Service and was killed for "special tasks". die. Such insistence has not played down external doubts, but has intensified the tension.

On March 7, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced a ceasefire in Kyiv and other cities, opening the "humanitarian corridor", and on the same day proposed four conditions for the ceasefire: Ukraine must demilitarize, recognize Crimea as belonging to Russia, and recognize Donetsk. Independence with Luhansk, amending the constitution to remove the text of joining NATO and renounce joining "any alliance". On the afternoon of the same day, Russia and Ukraine held the third round of negotiations in Belarus. As a result, there was still no significant progress except for the continuation of the "Humanitarian Corridor".

On March 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba held talks in Turkey, which were the highest-level negotiations after the war between Russia and Ukraine, and Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu was also present. (Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu), but the result remains stagnant, at least for publicly available information.

Looking back at the above setbacks, Russia and Ukraine have gone through three rounds of negotiations and one foreign minister's meeting, but it has always been difficult to achieve a significant breakthrough. The fourth round of negotiations started on March 14 has been delayed. The reason is that in addition to the fact that the pressure of the Russian military has not yet reached the critical point of the Kyiv authorities, and the US and Europe have been slow to respond to Russia's security demands, the anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine is also the key.

Why is the anti-Russian complex so hard to return?

At present, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in a double predicament: if the negotiation fails, the Ukrainian army can only continue to be worn out on the premise of no troops from NATO; if the conditions of the Russian side are accepted, the war should be extinguished, but the Zelensky regime It is bound to collapse, and he himself is more likely to be threatened with life and become the target of the extremist forces in Ukraine to vent their anger.

Looking back at the stacking of anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, it was not only catalyzed by the post-independence project of "national subject construction", but also closely related to political changes.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the pro-European political elites in Ukraine started to promote the revision of history textbooks. One was to transform the identity of the people, so that mass sentiments shifted from Moscow to Kyiv; The strategic choice to enter the European Union creates vote space. Prior to this, the official Ukrainian view of history had for many years cited the "brotherhood" of Russia and Ukraine, and called Russia the founder of Ukrainian modernization. However, under the construction of the new view of history, Ukrainian elites have passed the analysis of several historical links. The "New Interpretation" of , successfully turned "compatriotism" into "prolonged colonial suffering".

First of all, when it comes to the inheritance of the "Principality of Kievan Rus", Ukraine immediately revised its textbooks after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, emphasizing that it is the only "straight bloodline"; while dividing the long historical exchanges between Russia and Ukraine, there is also a new narrative boundary, that is, 1917 Before the October Revolution, Ukraine unfortunately became a "colony of the Russian Empire". From 1917 to 1921, it ushered in "revolutionary national liberation", and Ukraine was essentially established as a state. After 1921, it was "recolonized by the Soviet Union".

In addition, discourses such as the "Great Famine" in 1922 were also accompanied by pro-European and pro-Russian political wrestling, and they repeatedly changed their tunes. At the beginning of the founding of independence, this incident was marked as a mark of suffering in the "Soviet colony", and under the rise of pro-European elites, it gradually became "genocide"; in 2010, the pro-Russian President Viktor Viktor After Yanukovych came to power, the matter was recast as a "natural tragedy that cannot be avoided by human beings", but after the 2014 Crimea crisis, the "genocide" narrative prevailed again.

The above process shows that the historical writing promoted by pro-European elites tends to describe the modern history of Ukraine as a "history of Russia poisoned". A stranger, a colonizer who usurped the glory of Kyiv, Ukraine endured hundreds of years of oppression and, after countless sacrifices and revolutions, ushered in the ultimate liberation of the country. Therefore, the crimes of the ultra-right armed organization "Ukrainian Resistance Army" (UPA) can be erased, although it has led the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Poles; Then they turned to massacre the UPA to prevent the armed independence of Ukraine.”

However, such a large-scale identity transformation is tantamount to self-immolation for Ukraine, which urgently needs to balance the two sides of Europe and Russia. When public opinion gathered under the banner of "anti-Communist, anti-Soviet, and anti-Russian", it did provide public opinion support for the strategic turn of "Brexiting Russia and joining the European Union", but it also further restricted the political space for de-escalation towards Russia. The European elites competed with each other on the anti-Russian spectrum and went further and further, while the pro-Russian faction became more and more difficult.

In addition, in view of the identity division between Eastern and Western Ukraine, the above-mentioned revisions of history textbooks are only prevalent in the Ushi region, and have not been circulated throughout Ukraine. Therefore, when Ushi schoolchildren grieve at the humiliation and oppression of the "Soviet colony", the Udong School still remains. When teaching the narrative of the Soviet view of history, the textbooks used are more consistent with the Russian historiography. If things go on like this, the identity differences between East and West Ukraine have been expanding, and the contradictions between the two sides have skyrocketed. In particular, after Kyiv began to enforce the "de-Russification" policy in the east of Ukraine, the local people's strong rebound has laid a dangerous fuse for many future armed conflicts.

Deformed patriotism going to extremes

At the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the global Internet collectively expressed solidarity with Ukraine and condemned Russia, but a 35-second video on February 27 threw the simple and uniform moral direction into chaos. The video, posted by the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian National Guard (@ng_ukraine), shows Azov Battalion fighters smearing their bullets with lard, accompanied by an unabashed far-right statement: "National Guard The Azov battalion smeared lard on bullets against Kadyrov's orcs."

The "orcs" refer to the fighters sent to Ukraine by the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and the lard is meant to insult the Islamic faith in Chechnya. As soon as this article came out, it triggered a strong backlash in the Muslim world, and also caused many Western netizens to leave criticisms of "Nazism", "anti-humanity" and "insulting religious beliefs"; Laure Bonnel made a documentary "Donbass" in 2015, which recorded the brutal persecution of the Ukrainian people by the Ukrainian army and the far-right militia. It was originally "filtered" by the Western media under the tone of "unconforming propaganda". When the conflict came to the surface, the outside world noticed the thick stench of blood that Ukraine could no longer hide under the "Freedom Frontline" skin.

Looking at the rise of extremist forces such as the Azov camp, the political upheaval in 2014 is the key. The first is the "Plaza Revolution" instigated by the United States, which successfully forced Yanukovych into exile in Moscow, but also allowed anti-establishment blindness and extreme nationalism to prevail, becoming a kind of deformed political routine. However, according to Western media, Ukrainian street politics embodies the "true meaning of democracy"; in the eyes of many anti-Russian Ukrainian people, the "Square Revolution" is suspected of rampant violence and trampling on the rule of law, but it is the greatness of Ukraine's new generation and decadent authoritarianism. struggle; in the mouths of pro-European elites who want to expand their power, the "Square Revolution" has been elevated to the level of mythology, and it is the political boundary monument of Ukraine's "reconstruction". Populist resonance as cheap political consumer goods.

However, in 2014 there was also the Crimean crisis, with the armed independence of Udon. In the hearts of Ukrainian pro-Russian people, the historical context of "going to the Soviet Union and leaving Russia" has turned them into aliens. Political elites and intellectuals are overwhelmingly promoting "patriotic nationalism", and Ukrainian East has become a hunting trophy for extremist forces. The contradiction has been difficult to bridge. After armed independence, the hatred between the east and the west was superimposed and fermented along with bloody conflicts. Ukraine not only sang the national transformation brought about by the "Square Revolution", but also regarded the cruel reality of "national division" as a great shame. Russia's anger escorted the rise of extremist forces.

Take the Azov Battalion as an example. It was originally a "voluntary militia" active in Kharkiv, Mariupol and other places. After the Ukrainian conflict broke out in 2014, the Ukrainian government paid attention to its expansion. The Azov Battalion grew into a heavily armed National Guard and began to commit numerous crimes against humanity against the civilian population of Udon. And such a deformed Nazi-style patriotism, Ukrainian society is not ignorant, but because it is unable to change the reality of the division of the country, it turns to indulge the frequent violence of the extreme right forces to vent collective anger.

Over the years, from self-proclaimed liberal media writers, veterans involved in the Donbas conflict, mainstream journalists, to student groups, the selective neglect and even acquiescence of the Azov Battalion in Ukraine has never stopped, and it emerged after 2014. The name of the "Defenders of Mariupol" is a stamp of the era of populist surging.

Water can carry a boat or it can capsize. Zelensky’s negotiation predicament is the epitome of Ukraine’s 30-year struggle in modern times, from revising textbooks to the myth of the “Plaza Revolution”, from discriminating against Udong to cultivating the Azov camp, pro-European factions The political elite may have succeeded in shaping a generation of loyalty to Kyiv, but it has also thrown Ukraine off its original security balance. Now, with the flames of war in the past and populist noise in the back, the future of a generation has been ruthlessly ruined.

The original text was published on 2022/3/16 " Multidimensional News " (the editor mistyped the author's name during the manuscript, the author of this article is Qi Binhong)