When did the war begin?

Tomorrow was the war.

For some, from the morning of February 24. For others, a few weeks or months before, when trained people already understood everything and sometimes went "into the fields" to do the work... sometimes on their own initiative, not by order and plan.

For others, the war began with the first "little green men" without insignia in Crimea. Putin's medal for participation in the invasion is dated February 20, 2014.

In the center of Kyiv, the war began when signs with Russian cities were painted on Hrushevskoho Street in the Berkut camp, when IFVs, Trade Unions, Mariinka the Heavenly Hundred, and snipers were burning…

“In the center of Kyiv, the war began when signs with Russian cities were painted on Hrushevskoho Street in the Berkut camp, when IFVs and Trade Unions Building were ablaze, first protesters were killed in Mariinskyi Park, then the Heavenly Hundred, and snipers…”

Before that, there was a war too – we were losing it quietly, in the office, on a piece of paper, on the laws Moscow needed, on a contract for the sold-out property of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

No, we sometimes tried to resist, but this 'sometimes' was not enough.

Our war was reflected at the TV center in Vilnius, repeatedly in Georgia, in Ichkeria…

The society broken by the Soviet occupation could not understand that the war was there. Most people did not think that Russian 'fiction' about the war with Ukraine was not fiction at all, it was an announcement. We didn't think that 'old songs about the main thing', the dominance of Soviet nostalgia, was already a war, only we were being killed through our eyes and ears.

“The society broken by the Soviet occupation could not understand that the war was there. Most people did not think that Russian 'fiction' about the war with Ukraine was not fiction at all, it was an announcement. We didn't think that 'old songs about the main thing', the dominance of Soviet nostalgia, was already a war, only we were being killed through our eyes and ears.”

The war was quiet, sometimes cunning, sometimes defiant in its straightforwardness. Perhaps the downing of the TU-154 over the sea, which was blamed on Ukraine, the tripwires that were used to trap Kuchma, was already a war. The surrender of entire sectors of the economy, the systematic resettlement of the population needed by the Kremlin in our Crimea, the discrediting of the Crimean Tatars and their return (who remembers?) – that was already war.

Tabachnyk was already the war. Russian agents in senior positions in the Ministry of Defense and the Security Service of Ukraine were already the war. The decomposition of the judiciary, business, bureaucracy, and politics through Russian money was also the war.

We did not notice, but we were already being fought against. And there was nothing innovative about these invisible battles: “It is not necessary to destroy the enemy, it is enough to deprive him of the determination to fight” (Sun Tzu). It's been written down for a long time.

The murders of Stus and Ivasiuk, the incitement of Ukrainian-speaking elites to be informers, concentration camps for the most stubborn ones, and Russification – that was war.

The Second Liberation War, the hunt for Ukrainian leaders in exile, the use of Ukrainians as cannon fodder in World War II – that was war.

The First Liberation War was the same war.

Konotop, Baturyn, the seduction and bribery of Ukrainian elites, Sahaidachnyi near Moscow, Ostrogski near Orsha – this is the current war, only a little earlier.

“We did not notice, but we were already being fought against. And there was nothing innovative about these invisible battles: "It is not necessary to destroy the enemy, it is enough to deprive him of the determination to fight" (Sun Tzu). It's been written down for a long time.”

At school, we wondered how there could be a 100-year war between Britain and France. But we didn't realize that with breaks, pauses, offensives, retreats, victories, losses, triumphs, and disasters, Ukrainians have been fighting the threat from the east for centuries.

Perhaps this war has been going on for 854 years, since Andrey Bogolyubsky (Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal) attacked Kyiv in 1169.

Perhaps the first Russian-Ukrainian war was then? And since then we have not returned from the war?

We managed to forget that we were at war every time we had a chance to catch our breath. We did not connect the war of battles and the war of meanings-ideas-letters-papers. But everything was going full circle – missed or lost 'quiet' battles for heads made 'hot' wars for territory and existence inevitable. As a rule.

Tomorrow was the war. But was it the last one?

Source

About the author. Vitalii Haidukevych, journalist.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.