A War of Independence. Historical Context. The European Choice
You might know me by my technical blogs, but this content is not going to be technical. I am creating a series dedicated to my personal memories of events that are related to Russo-Ukrainian War, its new and active phase that started 24.02.2022.
Prologue
In October 2021, during my visit to Solarisbank, me and my fellow engineer from Ukraine had an argument with our manager about Ukrainian politics. We had our fair share of facts, but he just seemed to know it all better. It was obvious that an enlightened EU citizen would understand Ukrainian political situation more clearly than some barbaric non-EU engineers. Because, as you know, it is important to consider multiple points of view, not just the memories and tales of eyewitnesses and western media, but also the Russian side of the narrative, told by perfectly balanced and independent media like RT Deutsch and Sputnik News. It’s easier to see the big picture from afar. Well, at least that’s how I imagine his thought process, being so condescending and paternalistic during the argument that he was.
Part 0. Historical Context. The European Choice
Euromaidan and Revolution of Dignity
See, in my memories, in Ukraine during 2013–2014 I have witnessed a nation-wide movement of common people: students, middle-class workers, villagers, professors, CEOs and unemployed people from all over the country. It started when our former president, Victor Yanukovich promised us a dream of joining wealthy and liberal European Union and then took that dream away as a step in a political extortion game on a country level. And after seeing the protests he responded with excessive brutality, dispatching a team of special police force against people peacefully sleeping in their tents. Ukrainians would not let that happen.
It all ended with Mr. Yanukovich fleeing the country and over 100 civilian casualties in a series of events known as revolution of dignity. Most of my friends, students and Kyiv residents took part in those events. Some were patrolling around despite the fear of special police retaliation, some were guarding the hospitals from police forces sent to arrest the wounded, some were standing in a shieldwall, side-by-side with like-minded people, yesterdays strangers turning to brothers, clashing against a shieldwall of special police. Many of those people were ready to risk their lives in the name of freedom and many of them suffered.
My university (NTUU “KPI”) professor who taught us probability theory and random processes along with his son the picture above. They wore some old clothes here as they knew what could potentially happen. Mykola Kuznetsov got his head split and most likely had concussion, but refused to apply for medical aid due to fear of subsequent imprisonment.
I still remember taking notes on my friends’ story of the shieldwall clash. It still have the shivers when I recall his story on running away from the special police once they were surrounded, with the police chasing and beating them, shooting the ones that they could not outrun, causing people to crush each other as they ran to shelter beyond the barricades. I remember patrolling around a church hospital at night with my friend, waiting for the police to come for wounded protesters, waiting to defend them with nothing but a long stick.
The revolution was very personal and very real for me. As a person who was educated in Kent College and in University of Warwick, Europe was a place that I wanted my country to look like. It was lawful, orderly, clean, with many excellent working public services and impressive education system. Ordinary people were not starving or working to survive, they were able to enjoy their lives. It was a no-brainer for me that Ukraine should try to become a member of the European Union to shake off old Soviet legacy of misery, totalitarianism and oppression.
Anti-Terrorist Operation, a.k.a Russo — Ukrainian War Part 1
Right after Mr. Yanukovich fled our country to Russia, it attacked us. Heavily armed Russian special forces entered Crimean peninsula, took hold of military bases and government facilities and forced people to vote for independence on one of the “referendums at a gunpoint”, with results not unlike ones seen in Russia. Shortly after the vote, Russia voted to annex Crimea.
Many terrorists and ex-FSB trained by Russian military instructors were sent to multiple cities to cause unrest. New maps of Ukraine appeared in multiple news sources, country being split in half coinciding with one of major gas pipelines from Russia to the EU. In Luhansk and Donetsk, rich industrial regional centers of Ukraine (the cities are also part of Donbas region), terrorists took hold of government facilities. After that many people were forced to flee the regions, like my mom’s best friend, who escaped from Donetsk to Warsaw with her husband. She was afraid for her life and claimed the terrorists were not local to Donetsk. Demoralized police was not putting much of a fight, with legal action against many of its members on the way. In absence of president, the government was slow to respond to Crimean annexation and was unable to provide any military resistance. The country was at a brink of collapse.
Soon after that, volunteers who were helping people in revolution of dignity started to mount armed resistance forces, which moved to the occupied Donbas. Ukrainian Armed Forces followed their footsteps. A so-called “Anti-Terrorist Operation”, ATO has begun.
Before we proceed further, we have to mention Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances granted to Ukraine in 1994 by Russia, US, Great Britain and several other countries. It was broken by Russia in 2014 but no security assistance was provided to Ukraine by any other members signing it. It seems that Russian Army is threatening to everyone to a point of abandoning principles of international law.
However, the world was forced to respond, when Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade shot down a civilian airplane MH-17 out of the sky. At least somebody noticed the war that was going on in Europe’s doorstep at that point. The West became concerned, took decision to impose economic sanctions.
On the front lines, terrorists were neutralized across the frontline and ATO was a success, so Russia had to intervene. After introducing multiple brigades of Russian Armed Forces to the battlefields, Ukrainian Army’s push was halted and later — reversed, which forced Minsk negotiations resulting in agreements. UN did not intervene or send any peacekeepers which reminds me of German Occupation of Czechoslovakia . Like Czechoslovakia according to Munich Agreement in 1938, Ukraine was forced to cede some territories, which were controlled by terrorists ever since. Extreme poverty flooded the region. If you want an analogy, it was times worse than the decline of Detroit.
Ukraine felt the loss of economic and industrial powerhouses in the east. It’s GDP in USD equivalent reduced by 50% over 2014–2015. It has lost coal necessary for electricity generation and was forced to buy it directly from terrorists, thus financing and perpetuating war. It was a dark time for Ukraine
Terrorists continued their attacks across the demilitarized zones since 2014, which resulted in multiple casualties amount Ukrainian servicemen. Army’s retaliation capabilities were severely restricted by president’s orders to honor the Minsk agreement, which demoralized the Armed Forces. Even fortified positions were vulnerable to attacks originating from the salvo fire systems
President Zelenskiy’s campaign was focused on corruption in Army sector. He blamed previously elected president, Mr. Poroshenko in lack of progress in peaceful negotiations, among other things. Volodymyr Zelenskiy claimed to “have seen peace” in Mr. Putin’s eyes and that it would be enough to “simply stop shooting” to achieve prolonged peace. He won the presidential race and did not make any progress in Russo-Ukrainian war up till February 2022.
Epilogue
“Putin is a pragmatic person, he would never attack Ukraine” — the Manager said. “It is the US that is causing trouble”.
Tired of phrases like that, my coworker from Ukraine said prophetic words that October day. “I will not argue with you, @manager. One day I will tell you “I told you so”, but it is going to be a very dark day for all of us”.
Fast forward to February 24th, 2022. A casual slack message appeared in slack channel early in the morning. It was my colleague from Kyiv:
“Hi, all 👋.
I would like to take a day off for some reason. I’ve left draft PRs and the only thing left to do is to update diagrams.
Слава Україні!
P.S.: Have a nice day!
P.P.S: @manager, I told you so 😉”
Rocket strikes happened across most Ukrainian cities and airports. Russian Army crossed the new border negotiated under Minsk agreements. The full-scale invasion has begun.
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Series:
Part 0. Historical Context. The European Choice
