Buch lesen: «Ukraine vs. Darkness»
ibidem-Press, Stuttgart
“If you really want to make sense of what is happening in Ukraine today, and how Europe views what is going on in Ukraine, read this book.”
Ivan Krastev, author of "Democracy Disrupted" and "After Europe"
“A government insider’s gripping and incisive look at Ukraine and its war with Russia. Essential for anyone who wants to understand this poorly known country, whose fate is pivotal for the future of Europe and the global balance of power.”
Peter Pomerantsev, author of "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible" and "This Is Not Propaganda"
“From one of Ukraine’s leading diplomats, these unvarnished “undiplomatic thoughts” are deeply personal reflections on a country on the front lines of liberal democracy’s civilizational battle against kleptocratic authoritarianism. Scherba expertly deconstructs myths about Ukraine, as well as Russian motives in his country, eloquently voicing its people’s aspirations to determine their own future by escaping the Kremlin’s shadow and becoming a full-fledged European country.”
Gregory Feifer, author of "Russians" and "The Great Gamble"
“Ambassador Olexander Scherba’s book is an excellent and instructive example of how patriotism can draw upon the foundations of Christian humanism while avoiding the trap of nationalism.”
Anton Shekhovtsov, author of "Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir"
“In his book, Olexander Scherba avoids the usual stereotypes of a diplomat as a frozen bureaucrat and of a post-Soviet Ukrainian having difficulty speaking to the world. He himself is proof of Ukraine’s fight against darkness.”
Myroslav Marynovych, vice-rector of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv
Contents
Foreword
Zitat
“We Will Never Be Slaves!”
The Three Goodbyes
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Reconfiguring Europe’s Mental Map
Euromaidan. Flashback
Pandora’s Box of Evils
Crimea, Donbas and the USSR 2.0
Ukraine-Russia. What Went Wrong
From Dusk Till Dawn
Going Against the Flow
Battle for Europe. Battle for the Soul
Why Nationalism Can’t Be the Idea of a European Ukraine
Ukraine, the Church and the Post-Truth World
The Strasbourg Betrayal
Surkov and Emptiness
Notes on the Margin of (Yet Another) Apocalypse
What Will Bring Peace to Ukraine’s Soul?
Epilogue
Foreword
by Adrian Karatnycky
Ambassador Olexander Scherba’s book of essays is an important means by which to understand the nature of Ukraine’s struggle for sovereignty. It is a window into Russian hybrid war. And it is a thoughtful look at Ukraine’s frequently arcane and always complex politics, in which the Russian factor and Russian fifth columns loom large.
From his vantage point of diplomatic service in Vienna, as well as his past service in Bonn, Berlin and Washington, Scherba is a sophisticated and congenial guide to Ukraine and its crucial place in the complex geopolitics of East Central Europe. In a fair-minded and illuminating fashion, he discusses the phenomena of civil society, of religion, of nationalism, and of reform in his own country. He takes on major issues and challenges in international affairs, including Russian imperialism, hybrid war, and the future of Europe.
He is equally an intelligent guide to broader geo-political trends in a number of countries that like Ukraine are on the frontlines of the struggle between democracy and tyranny, between light and darkness.
Scherba has blazed an impressive trail of excellence as a diplomat in Austria, a country with a noble diplomatic tradition, one that includes the towering figures, such as Prince Klemens von Metternich. As a former imperial center, Austria is a crucible for important thinking about complex geopolitics. During his years of service in Vienna, Ambassador Scherba has shown in his commentaries that he can play in this intellectual Premier League.
They are the byproduct of the writer’s diplomatic mission in Austria, which has been by an active public presence in the Austrian media, from television to the country’s top news periodicals and intellectual journals. He also has been at the center, as well of energetic efforts to promote modern Ukraine’s cinema, theatre and music, thus reminding Austrians of the European nature of Ukraine’s cultural and intellectual life.
Many of these essays are also part of Ambassador Scherba’s effort to borrow from his diplomatic encounter with Central Europe to also speak directly to the Ukrainian people and its elite.
Taken together, this collection of essays demonstrates in intelligent and engaging fashion how central is the fate of Ukraine to the future of Europe, and indeed to the identity of Europe as a community of democratic values.
In reading these lively texts, readers hear the voice of a spirited defender of the liberal values that are now present both within significant portions of the Ukrainian population and within much of its post-Communist elite.
This volume and the high quality of thinking are a tribute to Ambassador Scherba’s talents as a writer and thinker. But the volume is also a product of the unique, indeed, remarkable institution: Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1991, when Ukraine won its independence, many of the new state’s structures emerged damaged and deformed—including the judicial, police, administrative, media and cultural sectors.
Not so, with the Foreign Ministry, which in large measure had to be created ex nihilo. As such it needed to quickly populate itself not only with cynical Soviet-era diplomats, but with a new generation of foreign policy experts. This generation of new hires, to which Ambassador Scherba belongs, were unencumbered by the ossified traditions and lies of the Soviet era. As a result, the Foreign Ministry quickly developed an internal culture of expertise, excellence, and patriotism, which has sustained it despite the ebbs and flows of Ukraine’s post-Soviet political scene.
Like many of his counterparts, Ambassador Scherba benefited from coming to his political adulthood in an independent, nascent Ukrainian democracy—full of promise and challenges. Like many of his counterparts, he also had the advantage of the impressive and rigorous training offered diplomats at the Kyiv’s Shevchenko State University Institute of International Relations.
Read these essays and you will understand why Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has been one of the main pillars of the country’s independence. Read these essays and you will also be convinced that Ukraine belongs in the European family of nations. Read these essays and you will understand that the Ukrainian state is filled with able, intellectual, insightful, and cultured officials who have emerged in the decades since the USSR’s collapse. And read these essays to shine a light on where there has been the darkness of ignorance and disinformation.
ADRIAN KARATNYCKY, the author of several books and editor of numerous collected volumes on the Soviet and post-Soviet space, is the Former President of the U.S.-based, international democracy advocacy organization Freedom House. He is the Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the U.S., where he is co-director and founder of its Ukraine in Europe program.
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! …”.
Revelations 15:3
“We Will Never Be Slaves!”
Let me introduce myself. I’m a 50-year-old Ukrainian diplomat currently completing my tenure as a Ukrainian ambassador in Austria. My first name—Olexander (Alexander)—is the most popular in the post-Soviet space. My last name—Scherba—has to do with the Orthodox Serbs who fled the Ottoman Empire and found their new home in Ukraine, which was back then a part of “Southern Russia” and “Eastern Poland”. My parents were the first ones in the family to finish university. Other than that, my heritage is Ukrainian peasants—for as far back as the eye can see. Maybe that’s why I always keep forgetting to water my plants.
Ukraine is the historical crossroads of Europe’s East. You’ll find all kinds of villages in Ukrainian countryside: Russian, Crimean Tatar, Swedish, Bulgarian, Albanian, Turkish. All mixed together, knit in one big patchwork called Ukraine. It’s a country where at every step, you meet people either bilingual (Ukrainian/Russian) or even trilingual (Ukrainian/Russian + a language of a neighboring country, be it Poland, Hungary, or Bulgaria). Ukraine also used to have a large Jewish community, which, unfortunately, grew considerably smaller after the fall of the Soviet Union. What you saw in “Fiddler on the Roof” was Ukraine, not Russia.
Having the world’s most fertile land, historically Ukraine had a reputation as Europe’s breadbasket. Under the Soviet Union, it was also the Soviet Empire’s industrial core and factory floor.
I spent my childhood being a proud Soviet kid, rooting for the cause of freedom in the most distant corners of the world—like socialist Cuba and Vietnam—and feeling sincerely sorry for all the working people around the globe oppressed by the United States. When thinking back, I remember two moments that shaped my perception of the West as a child.
First, at the age of about 7, I saw a documentary on the possible consequences of the nuclear Holocaust American militarists were about to unleash on the world. Burnt bodies, destroyed homes, nuclear winter. After this I was so traumatized, I couldn’t eat for a couple of days.
Second, at about 8, I once missed my bedtime and accidentally caught some scenes from a Soviet propaganda film on TV about the rotting, greedy, amoral West. It was filled with random pictures from horror films and wild night clubs, played back to the tune of ABBA’s “Money, money”. For many years afterward, I started feeling nauseous whenever I heard that song.
Of course, the realization that the American nuclear bomb could hit any minute and destroy our lives was terrifying. Though it never materialized in reality, a radioactive mushroom cloud hung over our heads in children’s imaginations. Later on, after the Soviet Union’s death, I spent hours talking to my American and European friends, discovering how similar we felt in those years on the different sides of the Berlin Wall.
I am Ukrainian, my country is Ukraine—but at first, I grew up in a reality where it didn’t play any significant role. Ukraine was just a “Soviet Socialist Republic”, one of many, many ingredients in the big red bowl of borscht called the USSR. We were told, our big Soviet bowl tasted the best in the world. At some point in time, we realized it was a slight overstatement.
The “point in time” was Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. It was one of the high points of my youth—discovering freedom. What an exquisite pleasure it was—spending months and even years absorbing all the books, films, music that were prohibited for generations and then poured into our Soviet world like a stream of fresh air. There were weeks during my student youth when I barely slept—watching Andrey Tarkovskiy and Alan Parker films during the day and listening to the Beatles and Bob Marley albums on the radio at night. This intoxicating experience accompanied me my whole life: meeting freedom, tasting it, inhaling it—and never letting go of it.
For those less familiar with Ukraine, here are some more basic facts about her. It’s the largest country situated wholly in Europe, with a population of around 43 million people. Ukraine’s capital is Kyiv (three million of the population). We dislike the Russian-originated spelling “Kiev”—as it reminds us of our colonial past under the Russian empire. If you reject colonialism—you use the Ukrainian spelling: “Kyiv”, “Odesa”, “Lviv” …
Ukraine’s early history dates back to the “Kyivan Rus” (or just “Rus”), a large ancient Slavic state that dominated Eastern Europe a century later after the empire of Charlemagne dominated Europe’s central and western part. The Kyivan Rus peaked under the great king Yaroslav the Wise (978–1054)—a time when Kyiv was among the most prominent and largest cities in Europe.
Yet relatively soon afterward the usual thing happened: the powerful Slavic state got split by Yaroslav’s feuding successors. Historians disagree about what happened in the following centuries, but by all accounts, we didn’t have much luck. The common denominator seems to be this. First, the state got plundered, destroyed and burnt to the ground by the Tatar-Mongol “Golden Horde”. Second, it got rolled over and divided by the European empires. Third, a big part of today’s Ukraine got enslaved for centuries by the Russian tsars.
As to the brutal first half of the 20th century—professor Timothy Snyder dubbed this part of Europe “Bloodlands.”1 Nowhere else on the continent was the death toll as high as here. The two world wars, the Holocaust, the Stalin terror, the 1932–33 artificial hunger (Holodomor) left their bloody footprint in Ukraine, like nowhere else. More Ukrainians died fighting Hitler than Americans, French, and British combined. Including my two great-uncles.
In 1991, with Ukraine’s active help, the Soviet Union fell apart. History gave us Ukrainians another chance at statehood.
Today, Ukraine is, first and foremost, a product of her complicated, bloody history. We feel like a part of Europe, but may look like a part of Russia. With our thoughts, we are in the West. With our sins, we are in the East. Most people heading to Ukraine for the first time come back positively impressed, though. Kyiv is a modern European metropole with plenty to see and enjoy. A rich historical heritage, creative restaurants, hip night clubs, but, most importantly, the scent of freedom in the air make Kyiv “the new Berlin”. At least we Ukrainians like this Kyiv/Berlin comparison very much indeed.
I’ll never forget a scene I witnessed during the European football championship in Ukraine in 2012, when Kyiv crawled with fans from all over Europe. Kyiv’s main square—the famous Maidan. Ukrainian street musicians playing Pink Floyd’s “We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control”. And the whole crowd—Ukrainians, Swedes, English—singing along. Peaceful, full of anticipation, and a bit drunk. For me, this was the moment of truth, with Europe and Ukraine on the same page. I wished it had lasted longer. At some point, it will.
Ukraine has her problems, no question about that. As a nation that for centuries had no state, we have an elite that has no strong sense of state and is occasionally incapable of fulfilling its duties; primarily—the duty to lead. That’s one of the reasons we have a reputation of being a “corrupt country”—a reputation that I would not completely agree with, considering that during Ukraine’s two revolutions within one decade (2004 and 2014), not a single store was looted or robbed out. That’s not exactly what you expect from a “corrupt people”. Has anyone heard of such revolutions before?
This shows Ukraine’s fundamental paradox and contradiction: we are a country of decent, hard-working people who haven’t produced the right elite yet. The elite that we have right now is often clueless and indeed corrupt. A part of it infects Ukraine with its own sins, confuses her and robs her of hope, drags the nation down, instead of leading her forward. This contradiction is among a number of reasons why Ukraine hasn’t been able to make a decisive step towards the future so far, i.e., towards United Europe. Not yet.
I wrote some of the chapters of this book while watching the impeachment saga unfolding in the US. A saga that was insulting, to say the least, to most Ukrainians. If someone were playing a drinking game during the hearings and having a vodka shot every time the words “Ukraine” and “corruption” were used in the same sentence, this “someone” would be dead on the first day.
While watching, I had to think about the Netflix film “Winter on fire”—the documentary about the Euromaidan’s last days (February 2014)—when around a hundred Ukrainians died under sniper fire at Kyiv’s central square. On the 79th minute of the film, there is footage of a protester standing under the bullets and shouting into the camera: “We are not afraid to die for freedom! Freedom is for us, freedom is ours. We will win, and Ukraine will be part of Europe. Ukraine will be part of the free world! We will never be slaves! We will be free people!”
I don’t know whether this man survived the Euromaidan or not, but what he said was actually a kind of a pledge of allegiance to the free world, the most natural and sincere I’ve ever heard. I wish all the people badmouthing “the corrupt Ukrainians” could listen to this man. He is the real Ukraine, the nation that didn’t imitate or copy freedom, but re-invented it on her own—in front of the whole world while holding her ground under the bullets.
Our big neighbor to the North does all in his power to make sure things don’t change for the better for Ukraine. His big desire is for us to head back under Russia’s shadow. Since 2014, Russia has had a considerable chunk of our territory—Crimea and Donbas—occupied. It wields exclusive control over 409 km of Ukraine’s border. It conducts a proxy war in Ukraine’s East and invests billions in a propaganda war.
Over 14,000 people have died in Donbas and Crimea (no, Crimea annexation wasn’t a “bloodless takeover”). Around 1.5 million people have lost their homes. Whenever we had a chance at peace, we saw how little interest Russia had in complying. Later, I’ll try to explain how it all started and what it means in the global context.
Ukraine is one of the world’s most unknown and, dare I say, undervalued countries—even though there is barely another nation in the world whose change of direction would be so decisive for the global balance of powers. This book is my humble attempt to fill this void.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodlands
The Three Goodbyes
As a diplomat, I had the privilege to be with my country at every step of her newest history. I saw my nation grow up—and grew older with her. I chose my line of work in the mid-1990s, rather accidentally. Yet very soon I fell in love with it. “Nothing but children at this ministry”, grumbled the first Foreign Minister I worked for—Hennadiy Udovenko. At 24, I was one of the young men and women who entered the diplomatic service when it was evolving from a quasi-independent Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the so-called “Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic” into a diplomatic service of a newly independent, free, democratic country. It was like a jump into cold water. From the get-go, we had to meet our more experienced foreign colleagues, prepare talking points, write speeches, and had many other responsibilities usually entrusted to senior diplomats. Yet, as they say, young age is a temporary flaw. We learned on the job, we got more experienced, we shaped and co-created Ukraine’s new diplomacy. In many ways, we are Ukraine’s diplomacy now.
Whether I chose the job, or the job chose me—I never regretted it for a second. Diplomacy is not only an honorable and noble trade, but also a way to see the world and to meet amazing, remarkable people. On top of that, it just so happened that in the course of my career I was lucky enough to enjoy more freedom than is usually granted to a public servant. I lived my freedom to the fullest and pushed the envelope to the farthest as a columnist for Dzerkalo Tyzhnya (DT), Ukraine’s central weekly newspaper. Yes, in Ukraine it is possible to be a “crossbreed”: a diplomat and a journalist at the same time. Not very often, but it happens. Some of the chapters in this book are based on my DT articles from 2015 to 2020.
As a diplomat, you get to live many lives. Being posted to a new country, diving into it, getting to know it, and—very often—falling in love with it, is like getting born into a new reality. However, leaving it is a bit like dying. If you are good at this job, you leave a part of your heart in every country where you serve. It’s not always easy. Every transition (and the job is full of them) is tough both on you and your family—yet doubly so if you are Ukrainian. Being a Ukrainian diplomat in the last three decades has meant doing a job of constant change amid a time of constant change. They say living in a time of change is a curse. Well, it surely wasn’t a picnic, but in the end, it was a privilege, a chance to make a difference with your life.
In 2021, Ukraine celebrates her 30th birthday. The “children” who entered the diplomatic service in the mid-1990s are in their late 40s or early 50s now, myself included. Ukrainian diplomacy (along with the military forces and intelligence service) has grown into one of the key institutions that cement the country’s independence. If professor Timothy Snyder is right in stressing the importance of state institutions in defending freedom (and I think he is!), Ukraine’s diplomacy has also been instrumental in upholding Ukraine’s freedom. At least, it chose freedom and democracy over unfreedom and autocracy every time it had to choose.
In this job, you learn to say goodbye—to countries, friends, habits. However, sometimes, at least for a short time, you have to say goodbye to the job itself. I did it three times. For the first time, very swiftly and dramatically—when I and three colleagues of mine at Ukraine’s embassy in Washington, D.C. made a statement of protest and offered our resignation on November 22nd, 2004, the day after the rigged presidential election. Luckily, our resignations turned out not to be necessary. The next day, the Ukrainian nation surprised the world (and itself) by standing up for freedom. The following weeks went into history as “the first Maidan”, “the Orange revolution”.
My second goodbye was the leave of absence from the ministry in 2009–2010 when I worked as an adviser to then-presidential candidate Arseniy Yatseniuk. As a diplomat, you get a good look at politics from outside. During the 2010 presidential campaign in Ukraine, I got a good look from within. I am grateful to Arseniy Yatseniuk for this chance. It was both educational and sobering. Diplomacy and politics are joined at the hip, and yet their relationship can be strained and filled with pitfalls. Maybe, someday I’ll write about it in more detail.
The third goodbye was in February 2014. The Euromaidan was over. Kyiv’s streets were awash with blood. Yanukovych and his team—Including the first Vice Prime Minister Sergiy Arbuzov, whose foreign policy adviser I was at that time—fled the country. At the Cabinet of ministers, I did what I was hired to do: promoting the Association Agreement, conducting the dialogue with international financial organizations, and trying to help foreign investors, many of whom were treated extremely poorly by the Yanukovych government. I tried to do my best to serve my country in that position, but at the end of the day I had to face the reality: I was a part of a government that had turned criminal and failed the nation in a truly spectacular way. So, in late February 2014, I was about to leave the public service for good.
My resignation letter was ready when my mobile phone rang and the acting Foreign minister Andrii Deshchytsia offered me my old job back: as ambassador-at-large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in charge of public communications. Once again, the roller coaster of Ukraine’s history (and of my career) made an eye-popping curve. I spent the year 2014 communicating with CNN, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and other media outlets, writing articles, information bulletins, and speeches (including president Petro Poroshenko’s speech before the United States Congress). And, surprising as it was, by the end of the year I was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria.
The time I spent in Vienna gave me a better understanding both of the West, and my own country—as I could see Ukraine against the backdrop and in the context of European political events (and there were plenty of those in 2015–2020!). The desire to bring Ukraine into this context was my inspiration when writing this book. Partly it is addressed to Ukraine, and partly to the outside world (primarily the EU and the United States). When I write “we”, I mostly mean Ukraine. When I write “you”, I mostly mean the West. Honest disclaimer: both parts are equally undiplomatic. By “undiplomatic” I mean honest and occasionally unpleasant—to “us” and to “you”. Well, I spoke my heart. I tried to explain Ukraine to the West and vice versa—and it only makes sense if you call things by their name. Don’t hold it against me, if I paint the future too darkly—we Ukrainians tend to do that sometimes. But also consider what a dark time we live in.
For a whole number of reasons (both personal, and objective), my return to diplomacy during wartime was my moment of truth, my ultimate chance to prove I was worth my salt both as a diplomat and as Ukrainian. Which I honestly, with all my heart, tried to do. It was also, in a way, my chance for a small experiment: to build the embassy as a “miniature Ukraine”, a tiny part of my country where the decisions were mostly up to me and where I could therefore make sure that the last word belonged not to personal egos and bureaucracy, but fairness and, most importantly, common sense.
Most decisions that I made as ambassador were based on my conscience and reason, not on the bureaucratic survival instinct. In my official capacity, in all my conversations and interactions, including numerous op-eds, interviews, and activities on social media—I was, in the first place a free man representing a free nation. I know some people found it suspicious, and even unprofessional. Maybe there’s some truth in what these people say, although it can’t be purely coincidence that most of them are also big friends of Russia. As to me personally—I found it exhilarating to be a diplomat who speaks the truth.
My understanding of the diplomatic profession was shaped by Sir Harold Nicolson’s 1939 book “Diplomacy.”1 In particular, it stuck with me that, contrary to the wide-spread misconception, Nicolson put truthfulness and free-thinking among the most important diplomatic virtues. When writing this book, I was trying to be both: free and truthful. You can see it as my personal attempt to reconcile the usual constraints of the diplomatic service (secrecy, discreetness) with a desire and maybe even the duty to say what needs to be said at this decisive time—to my country and my country’s partners.
Becoming an ambassador is a dream come true for any diplomat. Yet, it just so happened that the highest point of my life came at the hardest time for my country. Ukraine was bleeding. It still is. And because we live in a time of a weak collective West, in many cases, Ukraine has been carrying this immense burden alone, courageously looking in the face of an enemy that instills the rest of the world with fear. Courage is a rare commodity these days, but not in Ukraine.
Very often when Europe and the world were undergoing a major change in the last three decades, Ukraine had a key role to play. It was the Ukrainian Independence referendum of December 1st, 1991, that put an end to the Soviet Union. It was the Orange revolution of 2004 that showed the European idea as a transformational factor sprouted in the post-Soviet space—and stayed there for good. It was the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity that didn’t let freedom die in this part of the world.
On the other hand, it was the failure of the Orange revolution in Ukraine that sped up Russia’s descent into authoritarianism. It was the failure of Ukrainian reforms that robbed not only Ukraine but almost the entire region of a positive perspective. It was the decisions of Viktor Yanukovych in 2013–2014 that triggered an escalation in the region. Ukraine is the cornerstone. We just don’t know exactly of what yet. She sees herself as Europe’s eastern flank. On the other hand, Putin & Co. see her as the core of the coming USSR 2.0. On my part, I can’t imagine any kind of Ukraine’s return under Russia’s shadow. Not anymore.
Despite all the democratic strides of the last decades, today is a bad time for mankind. Stephen Hawking, the brilliant mind of our time, before passing away in 2018, pegged our era as the most dangerous period in modern history—due to mankind’s divide into a relatively tiny cast of “successful” and an overwhelming majority of the “forgotten.”2 Germany’s former foreign minister Joschka Fischer predicted the end of the transatlantic West and even the demise of United Europe.3 The president of the US Council on Foreign Relations Richard N. Haas titled his column “Liberal world order, RIP!”4 Too pessimistic? Is it just about “liberal world order” or about “la liberté” as such, the concept of freedom as an inalienable right that has been so fundamental for the West, especially in the second half of the 20th century? It certainly sounds to me as if the worst-case scenario is to be taken seriously now. And many answers about Europe’s future depend on what happens to Ukraine.
The collective West of today and especially of tomorrow will be choosing between a reality based on truth—and the intellectual and spiritual blur of the post-truth world, where (to borrow Peter Pomerantsev’s fitting description of the world that Vladimir Putin has created in Russia and is trying to sell to the West) “nothing is true and everything is possible.”5 In other words, it will be a choice between a West of values and a West that is valueless. It’s still unclear who and what will prevail in the end. But I’m convinced: if it wasn’t for the bravery of the ordinary Ukrainians standing up for freedom, if it wasn’t for Ukraine’s readiness to fight back, the “post-truth” world, the world with zero distinction between good and evil, would have been celebrating a victory a long time ago.
