A War of Independence. A Shadow of War
This is a second article in 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. Check below for the rest of the articles.
Part 1. A Shadow of War
Biden’s Game
As well as many Ukrainians who read the news, I knew about the Russian threat that existed. My friends were suffering anxiety and sleeplessness months before the invasion started. US government and president were disclosing information on location of Russian troops, their numbers, their ground vehicles, their helicopters, their airplanes and their plans.
US intelligence reported that a large-scale omnidirectional assault is going to happen in early February. I took a vacation for a week in February to visit ski resort in Western region of Ukraine, far from the Russian border. However, during the vacation new reports came in. An exact date appeared in the reports: Wednesday, the 16th of February. That would be 3 days after I return to Kyiv from a vacation. That did not look good.
Biden’s data was supported by Boris Johnson. It seemed like several intelligence agencies of advanced countries have arrived at a similar conclusion. What they might have hoped to achieve with release of classified intelligence data is to show the world what is about to happen to try and prevent it from happening. After all, if everyone knows the time and resources that are going to be used during the invasion, it would make the invasion less effective, would give defenders chance to prepare for it and would surely result in condemnation of invaders throughout the international community.
The results of such informational campaign were following. The civilized world started to become concerned about the situation on Ukrainian border. Several world leaders met Putin in person to try and convince him not to attack, to no avail. Ukrainian government, however, was adamant that the activity is not unlike one already seen in 2021. Volodymyr Zelenskyy even asked Mr. Biden not to use strong words like “imminent invasion” relative to the situation, because it would hurt Ukrainian economy. Our government was not taking the US seriously. And there was a political reason to it.
The thing is, during presidential election in 2019, Mr. Zelenskyy suggested on several accounts that to end the war, it would be sufficient to “just stop shooting”. He claimed that his political opponent and president at that time, Petro Poroshenko, was reluctant to end the war, as he along with his rich friends was making profit of it. Mr. Zelenskyy further promised to end the prolonged war in Donbas, as he was not interested in war. It was extremely difficult to counter the inertia of this consistent political position and change it to one that would recognize that the war continuation is entirely up to Putin, even in light of news provided by international intelligence agencies.
Despite Biden’s rhetoric many stood unconvinced. My manager at Solarisbank claimed it is the US that are provoking war, but did not believe that anything bad would actually happen. I, on the other hand trusted Mr. Biden’s intelligence entirely: he had no reason to lie in my opinion. And so I started panicking and assessed my options for evacuation from Kyiv.
Evacuation Plan
I can be described as a greedy person sometimes. I mean I like to acquire things and dislike to part with them. I mean how can I leave my comfortable home office, with a servo-power table with height adjustment? How can I leave my elliptical exercise machine (Orbitrek)? I need my VR set provided to me as a part of home office setup by Solarisbank to write code in VR. I need my monowheel to ride around town quickly instead of walking. I absolutely require my home PC for gaming, ETH mining and Neural Network training (as well as my mini PC for serving services, my router, my UPS, etc). I won’t even get started talking about my winter and summer looks. You get the picture.
There was no way that I was going to abandon all my stuff and leave with just a backpack or even a backpack and a suitcase, so I ruled out evacuating by airplane early on. After US and EU recalled its citizens from Ukraine and evacuated the embassies, 13.02.22 Solarisbank provided Ukrainian office contractors with a package for relocating, but we needed to relocate outside Ukraine to be eligible. So I started planning a car trip.
The plan was to pack rooftop cargo carrier on top of my car, to get most of our stuff inside the car, get my girlfriend and relocate. Sounds simple, but due to bureaucratic procedures associated with change of ownership of the vehicle and absolutely stupid administrative court decision that indebted the previous de jure owner of the vehicle (my Kyiv relative) the process was delayed.
Interlude
While the process of changing ownership dragged on I, being severely depressed, did almost no work. I was reading and watching analytics and news related to future Russian invasion, read Azimov’s “Foundation” series and when anxiety became intolerable I played Cities: Skylines which kept me focused on city building and related engineering questions (for instance — what is the realistic incline level that can be set for railway tracks?). I also remember a discussion with my girlfriend one weekend, when we had a car trip through Kyiv. I pointed out how disgusting the intersections were and how they were forced to be like that due to buildings surrounding road network. I noticed that it would take bombing Kyiv to raise it to the ground to rebuild those properly. Looking back now, I can’t recall why I considered that remark funny.
What do Russians Think?
Besides the above, I tried to understand what do Russians think about the situation. And not just the ones that were absolutely zombified by propaganda machine that would make Goebbels blush. I wanted opinions of progressive and liberal Russians. And I found several good ones. Or so I thought.
In a first video, Maxim Katz shares his view on recent Russian — Ukrainian history and recent events. I was honestly surprised that any Russian would actually be able to comprehend the events that happened between our countries and lean towards more or less objective view of it, avoiding pro-Putin propaganda completely. It made me hopeful, I started thinking that someday Russians and Ukrainians might be able to understand each other and find common ground.
Other video was Vladimir Pozner’s Yale speech on “how the US created Vladimir Putin”. I thought that it was clever and had some valid points right until I understood that it was the most subtle piece of pro-Putin propaganda I have ever seen. His main argument is that Putin’s foreign policy is a reactive policy to the US prejudice against Russia, that US-Russia relationships could have started from a clean slate after the fall of Soviet Union, but the US screwed up. But this premise is false.
This 1995 interview of Dzhokhar Dudayev (killed by Russian military not long after the interview), the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is quite prophetic. He talks about Russia regaining its imperial ambitions. Talks about confrontation with Ukraine and loss of Crimea. Talks about consolidation on Belarus and Russia to restore the former glory of the Soviets. That was before the alleged “window of opportunity” that existed in US-Russian relationships. There was no such window. Even before Putin became president he used wording like “wet them in toilet” related to Russian bombings of the Chechens. Russia decided at that point that it was ready to pay any price to keep its 193 ethnic groups as a monolithic empire and to not allow any more sovereign states to depart the former Soviet Union.
On Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty we can find some peculiar wording related to Dudayev’s death.
“Dudayev now passes into the status of a martyr for the Chechen nation. He was a superb military strategist, responsible for keeping at bay the largest army in Europe for 16 months. Politically, however, Dudayev’s legacy is mixed. His actions provoked Moscow to the point where it had no alternative but to invade. Over 40,000 civilians have died in the war and the country is devastated.”
This exact wording will be used by Putin as a justification for full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, over 25 years after Dudayev’s death.
P.S.: I am terrified that Yale still did not remove Mr. Pozner’s speech as a piece of Russian propaganda war. It makes Americans doubt their government motives and weakens the US from inside.
Putin’s Speech
And then I’ve heard about Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize LNR and DNR, the terrorist-controlled regions of Ukraine, as independent states. I knew that there must be a historic pre-war speech and we are on a road to hell now. I redoubled my efforts to resolve the ownership of vehicle problem, but not before watching the entire video.
The aim of the video is to provide some justification for the invasion of Ukraine and set up the false pretexts. He states that his demands that we, Ukrainians, should change our Constitution to abandon our NATO aspiration — were not heard. Putin points out that his demands that NATO countries provide guarantees that they will never accept Ukraine as a member of the alliance — were not addressed. President of Russia is disappointed that the democratic world rejects his demands and threatens us, Ukrainians with revenge.
I’d like to point out a couple of things. Putin broadcasts an imperialistic and chauvinistic view on the regional politics, considers independent countries as colonies of either the collective West or Russia. He treats the free people of Ukraine as puppets and accepts as a given that they cannot decide their geopolitical position for themselves, rather people can only be zombified by either Russian or Western propaganda. Mr. Putin shapes the facts in such a way that concepts like “free will”, “critical thinking” or “volunteering” are non-existent. And that is exactly why his “special operation” is failing. Because these concepts do exist and bloom in Ukraine, especially when it is under threat.
Hastened Preparations
After hearing that Putin sent Russian troops to DNR and LNR territory, Ukraine declared a state of emergency. At this point I took several drastic steps. After hearing another beautiful comment from my manager (“I heard that Putin announced withdrawal of troops from the border”), I took a day off and asked my relative to go to catchpoll to obtain IBAN credential for debt repayment and paid the debt from my own pocket.
I also searched for flights from Kyiv for a better half of the day in case I was unsuccessful with ownership change or in case the process would take too long. I was considering leaving my belongings behind at this point: the risk just grew too much.
I called my university friend and offered to immediately buy his car, which he planned to sell after his relocation to Germany. He was offered a job in a Berlin office of a large international company, so I reckoned he no longer needed it. He replied that he was not able to apply for work visa, as the German Embassy was evacuated from Kyiv and he might actually need that car to leave the country. I asked several other acquaintances for a used car, but the prices already skyrocketed and the thought of paying so much for such an old vehicle caused almost physical discomfort.
I warned my male friends that soon martial law might be declared, in which case they would not be able to leave the country. None of them acted upon the information, as nobody wanted to believe the worst. My girlfriend insisted that we stay in Kyiv till Sunday for her to be able to finish her planned consultations as a personal stylist. I was considering moving out earlier if possible. Tired of stress I eventually passed out.
Next morning my university friend called early in the morning. Sleepy and confused, I took the call to find out that the war has broke out and martial law was declared.
If you feel like supporting Ukrainians in some real, concrete way, please visit:
Series:
Part 0. Historical Context. The European Choice
Part 1. A Shadow of War
