Russophobia in Ukraine Like Islamophobia in Israel – the Result of Being Attacked, Vyacheslav Likhachev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 23 – “Of course, there is Russophobia” in Ukraine, Vyacheslav Likhachev says. “What do you expect?” For nine years, Russia has been engaged in a war of aggression against that country. In that sense, it is like Islamophobia in Israel, a response to attacks rather than some innate feature as some in Moscow suggest.

            The head of the Ukrainian National Minority Rights Monitoring Group and an advisor to Kyiv’s Center for Civil Liberties who has been studying right-wing groups and ideas in Ukraine for decades points out that “nobody likes aggressors” but that the kind of Russophobia which exists in Ukraine is “weird” (zona.media/article/2022/03/23/likhachev).

            “The Russian language is either well-represented or quite dominant in certain regions, including the capital, in everyday life and speech. Russophobia in its more dignified form strives for a limited political change and perhaps one involving civilizational or cultural orientation rather than being directed against ethnicity or language,” Likhachev says.

            But above all, he continues, such attitudes are a response to the Russian invasion. Indeed, “it would be strange if there was no such reaction. In Israel, there is anti-Arab sentiment or Islamophobia despite the fact that 20 percent of its population are Arabs and another 20 percent are Jews who came originally from the Arab world.”

            “Of course, these sentiments are present. How could they not be after a hundred years of struggle for the country’s independence and existence?” For the same reasons, there is Russophobia in Ukraine. If Russians would prefer that it not exist, well then they “shouldn’t have attacked us.”