{"id":1265063,"date":"2025-07-19T11:36:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T08:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/metamorphoses-of-a-long-war-or-how-not-to-become-little-russia\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T11:36:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T08:36:03","slug":"metamorphoses-of-a-long-war-or-how-not-to-become-little-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/metamorphoses-of-a-long-war-or-how-not-to-become-little-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Metamorphoses of a long war, or how not to become \u201clittle Russia\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: Author’s Facebook<\/a> page<\/em><\/p>\n

In 3.5 years, the Russian-Ukrainian war has transformed from a war for freedom, democracy, and human dignity into a war for an identity separate from Russia. All that unites those who fight against the Russian invasion at the front or help those who fight in the rear is the unwillingness to dissolve in the “Russian sea.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because unlike the Soviets, who proclaimed Ukraine “Soviet in content, national in form” (which created the prerequisites for the transformation of the Ukrainian SSR into an independent Ukraine), the Putin regime denies us the most fundamental right – to be different from Russians, that is, to be ourselves.<\/p>\n

However, within the framework of such a Ukrainian identity as “un-Russianness”, which often turns into anti-Russianness, over the 3.5 years of the war there has been a significant drift from liberal values of freedom, rule of law and dignity to right-wing values of gangliness and authoritarianism. Ironically, in a deadly duel with Russia, we are moving away from it on a symbolic level (zealously erasing the historical memory of our common past and denying our own responsibility for the crimes of this past, which Ukrainians committed no less zealously than Russians), but we are increasingly reflecting the fundamental properties of Putin’s Russia.<\/p>\n

That is why the war of democracy and autocracy, inclusivity and exclusivity, civilization and barbarism is increasingly turning into a war of two factions, two electoral monarchies. Which, however, does not in any way deny the extremely important fact that one electoral monarchy is the aggressor, and the other is the victim of its unprovoked and illegal attack.<\/p>\n\t\t