A Russian antiwar view on things
I’ve been seeing a lot of people out there justifying or at least trying to explain Putin’s regime change war in Ukraine in terms of geopolitics and “national security.” One big popular argument I’m seeing is that America would never allow a hostile military alliance to extend to a neighboring country like Mexico, so for America to condemn what Putin is doing is hypocritical. There’s a lot of truth to these kinds of arguments, yet a lot of them are annoyingly America-centric and completely ignore Russian views on the conflict.
From a Russian anti-war perspective, this invasion looks very different. This invasion means the total meltdown of living standards, the weaponization and ascendency of the worst, most toxic nationalistic cultural and political currents, and the retrenching of a corrupt, centralized oligarchic state security apparatus. Now there is the very real possibility of a drawn-out conflict and an insurgency, which will lead to instability within Russia, result in a massive crackdown on dissent, and grind through more death and suffering in Ukraine.
And what do the Russians get form this? Other than a buffer region in the event of a possible but extremely unlikely NATO land invasion — an invasion that will almost certainly lead to a transatlantic war, which will draw in the U.S. and likely end in the nuclear annihilation of much of the planet? Other than this remote possibility? Russians don’t get much at all, other than all the shitty things I listed above.
Sure, America’s rabid foreign policy establishment is a big factor here. That goes without saying. But I don’t see a lot of people even considering this Russian view on the war. I guess because to even consider it, you’d actually have to be interested in Russian perspectives and be willing to reconsider positions that challenge your simplistic, America-centric views. Evgenia is angry these days about this sort of thing. As she says, “the self-proclaimed anti-imperialists in America are acting very disdainfully and very colonial themselves. They don’t actually want to regard the native Russian point of view at all. For journalists who supposedly sympathize with the plight of victimized people, they seem very short-sighted and tone death in regard to the Russian point of view.”
Big power politics do explain things and help shed light on how we got to where we are, but they don’t explain everything, nor justify it. And, my opinion, from the Russian point of view, these big forces are a poor justification for this war. The invasion of Ukraine isn’t some sort of victory for the mythical forces arraigned against American imperialism, it’s a travesty for the Russian people.
If America did something similar — like invade Mexico — and the same jingoistic, militaristic dynamic had taken over America’s domestic politics, a majority would be for it — but there’d be quite a few people on the other side, too. They’d rightly be mocking the notion that “we need this war to protect American national security,” because to them this “national security” represents the worst, most rotten element in American oligarchic society. And they’d be right.
—Yasha Levine
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