Putin’s Expanded Invasion of Ukraine has Destroyed Concept of Fraternal Peoples on Which Russia had Relied, Martynov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 30 – Of all the collateral damage Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine has inflicted, perhaps the most consequential is its destruction of the concept of fraternal peoples working together on which Russia had traditionally relied, according to Kirill Martynov, editor of Novaya Gazeta Evropa.

            “By attacking Ukraine, the Russian Federation broke a taboo on which the identity of the country and culture was based,” he argues; and the result has been “a breakdown of society” and the opening of the way “for the public suicide of the political project we considered our homeland” (t.me/parrhesiapop/259 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/rossiya-na-puti-k-samorazrusheniyu).

            Even before Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Martynov says, “Russia conducted various wars, but not one of these in modern times has been so destruction of the country as has been the shameful Ukrainian war” because it destroyed the idea of fraternal peoples first and foremost of the Russians and Ukrainians but more broadly too.

            Indeed, he continues, this war has become “a Biblical act of betrayal” and that in turn means that “the Russian Federation is not the heir of ‘a big common country’ but a vengeful bloody tyranny that exists solely to preserve the personal power of the tyrant and his retinue,” something that ever more people can see and a drawing the necessary conclusions from.

            Consequently, Martynov suggests, instead of creating the conditions for the expansion or at least maintenance of the Russian empire, Putin has set in train events that could lead to a nuclear Armageddon but will at least result in the final demise of the Russian state at least as it has been understood and has understood itself.