Survival wars are not won with white gloves

This is not just a war for Donbas, for Crimea, for control of the Black Sea. This is a war of destruction.

And when you talk about human rights, about some European norms of coexistence of cultures and peoples, you don't know what's going on.

Moreover, you open your mouth to be spoken by Russia. Through your mouth, Russians tell you that you cannot touch the great 'Russian culture' because it is barbaric. That we cannot discriminate on the basis of nationality and language. That we cannot do this because we are not like them!

And at a time when high-ranking Ukrainian intellectuals in white coats are defending their Russified identity, the Russians are simply destroying everything that even remotely resembles Ukrainian. They imprison people for reading Ukrainian books and for commenting in support of Ukraine, and write denunciations against a little girl who came to school wearing a yellow skirt and a blue blouse.

“And at a time when high-ranking Ukrainian intellectuals in white coats are defending their Russified identity, the Russians are simply destroying everything that even remotely resembles Ukrainian. They imprison people for reading Ukrainian books and for commenting in support of Ukraine, and write denunciations against a little girl who came to school wearing a yellow skirt and a blue blouse.”

And when you tell them that your passport says you are Kirill with two 'l', try to register in Russia as Daryna or Mykola. At best, they'll tell you not to show off and to sign up with the normal name Daria, at worst, they'll hand you over to the FSB and you'll go to jail. In other words, they don't have this problem at all, because everything Ukrainian is completely banned.

As tempting as it may be, wars of survival are not won with white gloves. If we think about what to tolerate and what not to tolerate while they are totally destroying everything Ukrainian, we are doomed. Our grandchildren, raised on Russian YouTubers, will sign another Pereyaslav Rada, and all those who have already fallen and who will fall will have fallen in vain.

So, no matter how much you want to put on the white coat of a humanitarian, no matter how much pressure your own identity puts on you, think. This is not how wars of destruction are won.

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About the author: Serhii Marchenko, labor market expert, blogger.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.