"Putin is not all Russia": Russians are trying to arouse Western pity and avoid responsibility for the war with Ukraine

Yuri Maznychenko 29 March 2022

A few days ago the morning began not with coffee, but with media reports about the death of the odious Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The best reaction from those found on the Internet was the unnamed meme, "Did Zhirinovsky become a good Russian too?" Although the joy of many was premature, on the 34th day of the war, all Ukrainians defending their lands from a Russian full-scale military invasion know that a good Russian is a dead Russian.

Russia has finally begun to realize that the special operation announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 to "denazify" and "demilitarize" Ukraine is different from what used to happen in Abkhazia, Transnistria and Chechnya. A bunch of "Nazis" and "terrorists" suddenly managed to repulse a 200,000-strong Russian army that never achieved any military objective. And so they went into "cowardly" war mode, launching chaotic missiles and airstrikes against those who would not fight back - the civilian population in the cities and villages, creating a humanitarian disaster for thousands of civilians.

"They're all Nazis there," Olga Skabeyeva, one of the mouthpieces of Russian propaganda, said on Russian television about the course of the war. Hiding the total support of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by the Ukrainian people, who took up weapons and, from the first days of the war, resorted to mass volunteer activities to support the country's defence capabilities had become unbearable.

After all, Russia expected to spend no more than a week on the entire operation with the encirclement of Kyiv, the declaration of an ultimatum to the current Ukrainian authorities, and the complete capture of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, including Mariupol, which is a strategically important steel centre and seaport.

"Peace-loving" Russia is used to fighting and sweetening all the social and economic hardships of Putin's political regime with military successes. And not to answer inconvenient questions from journalists and ordinary citizens, who are just as concerned about poverty in the Russian provinces as they are about militaristic successes in the international arena.

Except that during the 22 years of the dictator's rule in Russia, the number of people with critical thinking, capable of questioning the decisions of the authorities, has been drastically reduced. Many people whose questions have remained unanswered over all these years have emigrated, while most people are simply more comfortable not asking them. "Let the political elites live their lives, so to speak, and we will live ours, without crossing them" - they prefer to think.

But now Russians can no longer afford to bury their heads in the sand. It is not about the missing Russian soldiers, whose corpses the Russian army was never able to carry away from the battlefields. It is about the new present for the Russians, who are fighting real battles for sugar, sunflower oil and hygiene products, which are in short supply in the stores. It's about the inconvenience for Russian schoolchildren, who can no longer pay for their lunches in cafes with cards. It's about Russian students being expelled from foreign universities, and concerts by Russian musicians being cancelled all over the world.

The same Russian girl who two weeks ago appeared on Channel One News in Russia with a poster "No to War" and was hailed as almost a saint in the abode of evil, is already telling European journalists that Russia should not suffer for the actions of its president. Maria Ovsyannikova, who worked for ten years as an editor at Channel One that spread propaganda to the Russian masses, began calling on the West to treat the ordinary and innocent Russians humanely.

Unwashed Russia cannot be surprised by food shortages and the need to survive, but the current world economic sanctions have already hit that layer of Russians who are used to distracting themselves from politics, living in comfort and allowing themselves French foie gras, Italian cheese and Spanish red dry wine.

The "progressive" Russians are trying to arouse Western pity and soften the world's sharply negative attitude toward all Russian things. They try to concentrate all hatred on Putin, who started the war with Ukraine, and avoid responsibility for the consequences of this military invasion. In all likelihood, anyone with a Russian passport now calling for peace and humanity was silent during Russia's expansionary operations in recent decades.

"We want to go to Canada due to difficulties in our country," - Russians write in special Facebook communities after learning from people who previously emigrated from the former Soviet Union about the specifics of moving to North America. The reason for the move arouses the indignation of the Ukrainian diaspora. It turns out that it is easier to flee to another country and start a new life there than to establish order in your democratic state on paper and bear responsibility for the actions of the elected authorities. No truly democratic country needs such "citizens" who will not stand up for human rights and freedoms but will flee from a sinking ship like rats at the first problems.

Having been kicked in the teeth by the Ukrainian resistance forces and having finally failed in its original plan to occupy Ukraine and set a pro-Russian leadership in it, Russia began spreading fakes about the brutal behaviour of the Ukrainian army toward prisoners of war. The aggressor's cynicism knows no bounds, given that Russia conceals the real figures of its soldiers' losses in this war. There are already more than 17 thousand of them, and the main losses the occupants suffer are due to wounded soldiers who are simply left to fend for themselves.

In an undeclared war, the wounded Russian soldiers automatically become dead weight for the army of the aggressor, who in advance have prepared bundles of funeral certificates for the relatives of the dead. This once again shows that it is not Russia to point out the inhumanity of the Ukrainian defenders to the prisoners, given how indifferent Putin is to the human lives of his people. Moreover, the Armed Forces of Ukraine strictly observe the norms of international humanitarian law and treats prisoners following the Geneva Convention, because Ukraine has been collecting evidence about the regular commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the aggressors throughout the time of Russia's military aggression.

Whenever this war ends, Russophobia in the years to come will be the adequate response of the civilized world to any excuse for the Russians' disinterest in politics. It was the state of Russia and the authorities elected by the Russian people who went to war in Ukraine, not Putin who decided something himself, and the rest of them now have to put up with life under Western sanctions and without world famous brands.

While Russians are losing their jobs and access to the benefits of civilization and hope that the West will change its anger for mercy, Ukrainians are losing their homes and lives. Millions of Ukrainians are displaced, and Russian military aggression has taken from people everything they have invested their health and money in over many years of life. But Russia's main crime, for which absolutely all Russians must answer, is the murder of thousands of peaceful Ukrainians.

Not only Putin will be held responsible for what has been done. But also those who dropped bombs on peaceful Ukrainian cities, shot civilians, kidnapped people, raped women, and killed children. And necessarily the population of the country that supported their government's decision or simply kept silent, making these crimes against the Ukrainian people possible.