Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 5 – It should come as no surprise given Moscow’s long tradition of playing the ethnic card to advance Kremlin interests, but some may not have noticed how many Russians with Ukrainian roots and names are now being deployed by the Putin regime to denigrate the land of their ancestors.
On the one hand, of course, this provides support for Putin’s claim that Russians and Ukrainians aren’t two nations but one; but on the other and likely more important, it suggests that some that many Ukrainians are already in Putin’s corner and that even more will be if he occupies Ukraine.
Perhaps the most prominent of these Ukrainian Russians is Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations who on occasion has suggested that he is “more Ukrainian” than his Ukrainian counterpart at the UN or even Kyiv’s deputy foreign minister, journalist Aleksey Blokhin says (pointmedia.io/story/69a94626e657f59b666dced4).
But he is far from the only Ukrainian Russian Moscow uses to advance its positions. Flamboyant Moscow commentator Vladimir Soloyev routinely hosts self-identified Ukrainians on his television program to show that “one need not sacrifice Ukraine’s language or attachment to its culture to become part of the Russian political mainstream.”
Pro-Moscow Ukrainians who have fled to Russia since 2022 form a major part of the radical nationalist Z segment of the Telegram channel world and also work as part of a network of internet sites that disseminate Moscow’s messages and seek thereby to legitimate them in Ukraine and more broadly, Blokhin says.
Moscow uses Ukrainian Russians as “peace” negotiators with Kyiv to promote Kremlin notions that Ukrainians are divided and that many support Putin’s war aims. No one should fall for this tactic but rather understand that those engaged in this process aren’t reflecting the views of Ukrainians but of Russians in the Kremlin.
No comments:
Post a Comment