Yuri SHCHERBAK: A BLOODY YEAR OF THE NEW ERA ...

A BLOODY YEAR OF THE NEW ERA

... It is no coincidence that russian propagandists and members of the State Duma are raging, calling for a megaton nuclear bomb to be dropped on Rzeszów in order to stop the supply of weapons and ammunition through Poland to Ukraine.

Media anchor Akopov is going to "solve" the "Polish problem": "The trouble with Poles," he advises, "is that they want to take someone else's place in the eyes of Germans, the place of Russia(!). Although in fact Poland is the former Ukraine (!), and Ukraine is the future Poland."

"Poles' claims to European leadership are ridiculous: since the time of Charlemagne (9th century AD), Europe is a German home(!)... They (Poles. - Yu.Sh.) should be subordinate to real Western Europe. At the next turn of German-Russian relations”, russist Akopov predicts, “Poland will simply be relegated to a dark corner of history."

 ...Over this bloody year, we have gone from the restrained and cautious reaction of some of our allies in the first days of the war when they expected the defeat of Ukraine, to the creation of the Ramstein coalition of 50 countries, a powerful force based on which the international security system will be built in the future.

We have gone from the counterproductive pre-war Ukrainian-Polish disputes over the past and attempts of provocateurs on both sides to undermine our cooperation to the incredible and historically unprecedented explosion of solidarity of Poles with millions of Ukrainians affected by the war, to the unprecedented military and political combat alliance of the two countries, an alliance that has a fundamental geostrategic future.

1. At 6 a.m. on February 24, 2022, I was awakened by a phone call in my Kyiv apartment. I heard the voice of my daughter Bohdana who – or so it seemed to me at the time - uttered terrible words matter-of-factly:

- Dad, the war has started. Russia has attacked us. Kyiv and other cities have been bombed. We hear explosions.

Shamefully, I have overslept the beginning of the war, although I knew it would be inevitable. The day before, I spoke about it during the nightly broadcast on a popular TV channel. I sat motionless, trying to wake up and comprehend the entire terrible abyss of this event, because in the depths of my soul I hoped that there would be no war, as putin would not dare.

My dream continued, only now it was a vision that was drastic in its reality from which I just could not wake up. I wanted to hide, to interrupt its merciless course, to return to yesterday's peaceful reality... The dreaming of my mind gave birth to a monster of reality that instantly changed Ukraine and the world, myself, my relatives and friends, casting the shadow of imminent violent death on millions of my compatriots most of whom have not yet understood what had happened.

In the morning, people hugged their warm, sleepy children, still alive, still smiling. They did not realize that this was their last quiet night in their apartments, houses, and hostels. A night with unbroken windows and intact glassware, without the wailing of air-raid sirens, with water and electricity, with cozy cots and toys not yet scattered on the streets.

The last night without ruins, burnt cars, damaged shopping centers and fresh graves in yards and playgrounds.

I sat silently on the bed, and the young black-haired Mary and the little Divine Child named Jesus were looking at me from the picture. There was a deadly sadness in her eyes, as if she knew what lay ahead for her Son and my people.

2. On the third day after the Russian invasion was launched on Ukraine, the Moscow "RIA Novosti" news agency published an article prepared in advance in the event of victory by its leading columnist (anchor, in US terms) Pyotr Akopov under the solemn title "Russian Offensive and Coming of the New World."

The article proclaimed that "russia's military operation has opened a NEW ERA... russia is restoring its unity; the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, has been overcome. Ukraine, as anti-Russia, will no longer exist (!), russia is restoring its historical entirety, gathering the russian world, the russian people together. Now there is no problem of a divided people - Ukraine HAS RETURNED to russia (!)... Did Paris and Berlin seriously believe that moscow would give up Kyiv? In the fact that russians will be an eternally divided nation?", the author asked.

There was more: "The construction of a new world order is accelerating. Russia has not just challenged the West: it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally gone" (!).

This false, pompous and triumphal declaration was prepared  in case of russia’s victory in the blitzkrieg, for the solemn parade of Russian troops on Khreshchatyk Street, for the mass shootings of Ukrainian "nationalists", for the majestic prayer of the russian orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra with the participation of putin and patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev), with lackey kisses of the russian dictator’s slippers by Ukrainian traitors.

It did not go as planned by the Kremlin dreamers, however.

 3. The only thing the author of the boastful "RIA Novosti" article was not mistaken about is that Russia's aggression opened a "new era”.

The world that existed until February 24, 2022 had been the world of established rules, peaceful, comfortable life, the world of political compromises and diplomatic ceremonies - the so-called Yalta-Potsdam-Helsinki world order. It has disappeared forever, remained in the past, burned down like a hangar in Hostomel in which the destroyed An-225 Mriya lies, the only super-heavy aircraft on the planet.

On February 24, 2022, the old, pre-war time stopped, although the hands of the clock continued to move by inertia.

There came a collapse of the usual, seemingly comfortable and safe life. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the death of hundreds of thousands of people, the ruins of a flourishing country and the demographic catastrophe of the European people mark the beginning of a new era in human history.

Russia has put ruthless violence and destruction of peoples and states back on the agenda of history, disguised by completely falsified arguments and guided by the logic of the 16th and 17th centuries, by the paranoid ideological schemes of dictator putin who is but a pathetic imitator of Hitler and Stalin, but no less dangerous because he possesses nuclear weapons.

Because of russia, the 21st century has shown its predatory fangs, once again reminded humanity that the devil of hatred and murder, which was hiding away for a while, has not died; it is alive again, threatening humanity with extinction.

An orchestra of crazy Moscow fanatics, playing on ballistic and cruise missiles and multiple launch rocket systems, performs an overture to the nuclear Third World War.

It is no longer the music of Richard Wagner that inspired Hitler, but shouts of the drunken mercenaries of the russian private military company “Wagner” who are ready to attack not only Ukraine. They want to rob and rape the whole of Europe, the entire world.

A new cancerous tumor has appeared on the planet spreading its metastases to different countries - from Hungary to Brazil, from Iran to Indonesia.

4. The year of the russian-Ukrainian war has brought huge global changes in which the features of a new era can be traced - still unknown, incomprehensible, but fundamentally different from the previous one. What happened to the world after the First World War is happening before our eyes: a global geopolitical catastrophe, a change in technologies, attitudes, customs, and weapons systems. Brilliant Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset described what happened to the world in the 20th century as the "Revolt of the Masses", i.e., the invasion of uneducated human masses into politics, social life, science and culture.

Who is going to describe the rift of the 21st century when hordes of russian rabble, madmen, zombies programmed by propaganda are trying to impose the mentality of life-guardsmen on humanity, inflict the consciousness of the Black Hundred, KGB agents and Gestapo officers? When, discarding the hard-earned experience of the rules of international life, the difficult compromises achieved after the end of the Cold War, the Kremlin russists want to impose their mafia model of the world structure, the "new order" on the democratic world with blood and fire?

Russia, which produces only 1.5 per cent of the world's GDP, with 30 per cent of its population living below the poverty line, is a technologically backward, culturally degrading country only able to trade its natural wealth, a country from where young talented and creative people flee, is trying to dictate its claims to world domination, to impose delusions of the "Russian world", xenophobia and obscurantist Orthodoxy.

Will the world accept this challenge of darkness?!

 5. The bloody year of the russian-Ukrainian war has brought incredible changes that we could not even imagine on February 24, 2022. From the despair, panic and chaos of the first days of the war, from betrayals and the loss of a number of territories we have moved to unprecedented resilience and tenacity of the defenders of Ukraine, to the victorious counterattacks, to the faith in the final victory over the mad enemy. A huge battle is taking place on the lands of Ukraine the intensity of which is reminiscent of the Second World War.

As of today, 326,000 Russian invaders are fighting in Ukraine littering our fields with their corpses. According to "The New York Times" (February 3, 2023), russia's losses in Ukraine during the 11 months of the war amount to about 200,000 killed and wounded, which is eight times higher than the US casualties during the 20-year war in Afghanistan. As of January 13, 2023, according to the Ukrainian command, 114,000 russian soldiers had been killed, 3,098 tanks, 6,167 armored combat vehicles, 2,086 artillery systems, 286 airplanes, and 276 helicopters had been destroyed.

Let me remind you that the number of tanks in active service in Poland is 863; France, 406; Spain, 327; Germany, 266, and Great Britain, 227 units, i.e. a total of 2089! ("Global Firepower", 03/23/2022).

And a war of such a scale is going on in the center of Europe!

We have moved from supposed victorious russian marches and shouts about the liquidation of Ukraine, its people and state to moscow's moaning about “war with the entire NATO”, with countries that produce 50 per cent of the world GDP and have a significant advantage in armaments.

From the restrained and cautious reaction of some of our allies in the first days of the war when they expected the defeat of Ukraine, to the creation of the Ramstein coalition of 50 countries - a powerful force on the basis of which the international security system will be built in the future.

From the counterproductive pre-war Ukrainian-Polish disputes over the past and attempts of provocateurs on both sides to undermine our cooperation to the incredible, historically unprecedented explosion of solidarity of Poles with millions of Ukrainians affected by the war, to the unprecedented military-and-political alliance of the two countries, an alliance that has a fundamental geostrategic future.

It is no coincidence that Russian propagandists and members of the State Duma are raging and calling for a megaton nuclear bomb to be dropped on the Polish city of Rzeszów to stop the supply of weapons and ammunition through Poland to Ukraine.

Anchor Akopov whom I quoted before is also going to "solve" the "Polish problem": "The trouble with the Poles," he advises, "is that they want to take someone else's place in the eyes of the Germans, the place of Russia(!). Although in fact Poland is the former Ukraine (!), and Ukraine is the future Poland."

"Poles' claims to European leadership are ridiculous: since the time of Charlemagne (9th century AD), Europe is a German home(!)... They (Poles. - Yu.Sh.) should be subordinate to real Western Europe. At the next turn of German-russian relations”, russist Akopov predicts, “Poland will simply be relegated to a dark corner of history."

Such a fate Moscow tries to determine for our countries, not realizing that their own fate is similar to a Chinese reconnaissance balloon shot down by US fighter jets over the ocean.

Finally, the path of irreversible changes ran from the naive pre-war belief of many Ukrainians in good-neighborly, if not "fraternal", relations with the Russians to severe hatred, a curse to the fifth generation for the atrocities and crimes committed, for the ruined Ukrainian lives, destroyed families and homes. Hence, we see the massive transition of people to speaking the Ukrainian language, the destruction of monuments to Pushkin and other russian public figures, a wave of hatred for everything of Russian origin, even for so called "good" russians.

Over one year of the war, the universal Law of Change has worked to its fullest: the war has become unmanageable, it has become global. Russia, Belarus, Middle Eastern Iran and Far Eastern North Korea are involved in direct conflict with Ukraine.

About 150 countries of the world are involved in indirect confrontation: military-and-technological, informational, economic, energy. The loss of global GDP for 2022 is estimated at around 7 per cent, price increases and inflation will affect every country on all continents.

As a result of the war, the pace of globalization has slowed down sharply, the usual economic and transportation ties have been broken, with russia actually having disappeared from the world business map, becoming a black hole in the global economy falling into the abyss of autarky and isolationism, while its Fuhrer putin, speaking in Stalingrad, continues to threaten the world with nuclear weapons.

6. I personally have also changed during this year. I have grown older, lost a few more friends, understood a lot, realized many things, maybe even wised up a little, got one step closer to Eternity, to meeting my parents, brother, son, wife, and those who had determined the spiritual guidelines of my life.

But during this bloody year I have made some new friends - Ukrainian and Polish, felt their support, found the strength to write several texts exposing russism-putinism and dirty slavish russia as the eternal enemy of Ukraine. The pen is my only weapon in my personal war against Putin, and I will fight this battle until my last breath.

I do not know how the new age will look like that will necessarily emerge after this war:

- Will this century be the time of nuclear annihilation of humanity initiated by putin?... or

- Will a wonderful new future world we dreamt of come, a world of the new architecture of global security built on rational compromises, a world of decent politicians and honest information?...

I don't believe in idyll. But why not dream of a bright future in the dark times of war?

What I do firmly believe is that Ukraine's victory, which I have no doubts about, should be complete and such that it would force the russian beast to crawl into its den for a long time and forget about wars and aggressions.

I am 88 years old, and I may not live to see this new era. But I do want to live to see our victory.

I want to return to Kyiv and see Virgin Mary with her Son Jesus in my favorite painting - how She smiles, thinking about His Resurrection, about spring and the revival of Ukraine.

Yuri Shcherbak, writer and diplomat, Chairman of the Board, Council of the Independent Media Forum