I’ve been getting a little bored with the coverage of what is perceived to be a conflict between Ukraine and Russia. By all means, Russia’s current regime and individuals at power will have to answer for the damage to the relationship between Russians and Ukrainians. It was unthinkable that this relationship would escalate to open hostilities and be defined by information warfare.

One of the points of view often voiced by my Russian friends centres about the Western influence, interference by the US and the threat of Ukraine’s joining NATO. Whatever this influence or interference may have been, I believe that there is one important question that has to be at least asked and that for whatever reason has never been raised: where is the Russian influence – in Ukraine or in any other countries of interest, for that matter?

The Russian official view appears to be that Ukraine must remain forever attached to Russia for vague reasons of historical past or economic ties that have grown increasingly remote or the cultural proximity, which has been questioned on both sides. But if I were Ukrainian, would any of that give me a reason to want to be united with Russia in any kind of spiritual unity over the possibility to become a member of the European Union or NATO?

Where is the Russian influence or interference in Ukraine? What political parties or politicians does Russia support? To what extent does Russia promote cultural, religious and historical connections with Ukraine? Perhaps, this extent is best described as “none at all”.

It is little wonder, too, since “none at all” probably best describes political ideas in the current Russian society, if you discard, as you should, communists. The one and only priority that is shared by most parties allowed to operate in the political space is to keep the status quo. Those at power must remain at power and those feeding off on the crumbs that fall of the table where powers that be preside are happy with what they can feed off on. All recent attempts to invent a national idea have not been too successful, save for the invention of awkward Russian words, such as “skrepa” or equally awkward borrowings from English, such as “challenges” and “roadmap”. The Holy Victory Against Nazi Germany that was selected as the nucleus of everything Russia stands for has two prominent flaws: one, it is becoming too distant in time for the younger generations to care about and two, USSR happened to be an ally to Nazi Germany at the start of World War II, unlike France or Great Britain, and Red Army attacked Poland from the east two weeks after Germans did.

This situation is all the more disappointing once you consider the fat years that Russia enjoyed between 2000 and 2014. At the time it had the resources to invest in building pro-Russian movements and parties in any country of interest. This would have been more appropriate than paying TV hosts lamenting diminishing prospects of getting school education in Russian in Ukraine or elsewhere. Frankly, why it mattered I could never understand. My wild guess that the prospect of getting school education in Ukrainian in Russia is about zero so why would it be different in Ukraine?

Building a programme around shared cultural, historical and religious values would have been a noble enterprise but it does require an effort to build it. In any case, there is more substance to build it on than the Western suitors can ever scrape together. A recent article in “Financial Times” as of January 15, 2022 by a former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs named Daniel Fried shows both lack of good arguments for US-Ukrainian union and intellectual shallowness of this former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs named Daniel Fried. It reminded me of the scene from “In Bruges” where the American dwarf (or was he a midget?) begs to not take his being American against him. “Just don’t say anything crass or loud” is the advice and the former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs named Daniel Fried could have used this advice to his benefit except he did not.

In his view, “Vladimir Putin initiated this crisis out of nothing…”, he believes, which view beggars belief. Vladimir Putin is in desperate need of as many external enemies as he can get because that is the one condition for him and his clique to hold on to power. Much as Russians may hate their rulers, they would always fight against anyone from the outside who can be perceived as a threat. NATO expansion, at the expense of the organisation’s own principles to not admit new members who have territorial disputes with other countries, is a great example of a very acceptable and welcome threat.

Daniel Fried then defines the core meaning of NATO and EU enlargement as “the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, and in their place a united Europe, with 100m Europeans between Germany and Russia free to join their Western European brethren”. Dopey as this statement can be, it is toppled by the one that follows: “Ukrainians saw the advances in liberty and prosperity to their west and, understandably, want some of that for themselves”.

Being honest may be a characteristic that does not help a former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs named Daniel Fried be professionally successful and being mediocre at best to offer dumb reasonings to promote doubtful political agendas could be a prerequisite to any official job nowadays. Yet, advances in liberty and prosperity to the Ukrainian west aplenty, Western European brethren had not expressed the desire to join their Ukrainian brethren until Russia started showing signs of recently gained muscle. To add to that, liberty is an increasingly rare phenomenon everywhere and the deficit of liberty is best seen in the west since the restriction of liberty, such as freedom of expression and thought, has been increasing rapidly.

In the same issue of “Financial Times” Michael Hann quoted from Revolution in the Head by Ian McDonald “…free world’s coming generation rejected established wisdom, knowledge, ethics and behaviour for a drug-inspired relativism, which has since undermined the intellectual foundations of western culture”. One can make cosmetic changes to make the quote apply to the post-Soviet reality: post-Soviet generation rejected established wisdom, knowledge, ethics and behaviour for immediate and often criminal enrichment, which has since undermined the foundations of all former Soviet Union nations, with possible few exceptions.

And herein lies, I am afraid, the current Russian Trouble.