The main theses of the Russian side in the war are as follows: 1) NATO wanted to expand at the expense of Ukraine and install nuclear weapons in that country, 2) Ukraine does not exist at all, it is a state created by Lenin, 3) Ukrainians killed Russians in Donbas and Luhansk for 8 years. In the first case, the intention (real or imagined) is compared to the action. Let’s compare. We handed over most of Artsakh because the “former regime” WANTED to hand it over. Checking for unfulfilled intentions is not an easy task.
The second thesis takes us to the fluid realm of “historical justice.” Such judgments, especially of parts of disintegrated empires, become an argument in politics only when they are “fixed” by military force. But this thesis unequivocally hits the target in the “internal market” of Russia, where the majority of the population is imperialist. This majority does not perceive Ukraine as a separate state with its own borders and interests. For them, it is a part of Russia that, by some historical coincidence, has been temporarily out of their control.
The most dangerous is the last argument, because it turns out that people were killed in Donbas and Luhansk (there have been clashes and casualties since 2014), and now they, the Russian army, are taking revenge. First of all, this army has now gone much further than the republics called DNR and LNR and has killed (and lost) incomparably more people, has done much more destruction than it has in the past 8 years. Second, the formula “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” is simply meaningless in the 21st century.
What did the Americans achieve by taking revenge for “9/11” in Afghanistan (of course, the two cases are not comparable, I am talking only about the barbaric principle). The United States was plunged into a senseless war with no tangible results. Even if Russia achieves all its goals in Ukraine, it is still on the opposite side for decades, perhaps for centuries, a sense of revenge. It is the tragic staging of the fairy tale “A Drop of Honey.”
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Violence always has an “excuse.” Including towards a neighbor or domestic violence. “For eight years my nerves have been eating away at me, my patience has run out, I had no choice but to do so.” Have you encountered such excuses?
Aram Abrahamyan
