Ukraine Gives World a Chance. Part 4

This is the fourth part of my review, “Ukraine Gives World a Chance.” In the third part, we took a look into which type of war Russia started against Ukraine. In this part, we will discuss what is at stake for Ukraine, Russia, and the world in the 2022 Russian war against Ukraine.

How Ukraine is Different from Russia

Tatar-Mongol’s invasion in 1237 – 1240 AD initiated the birth of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus as independent entities. Since then, from time-to-time Russia conquered Ukraine, but then Ukraine managed to get out of Russia’s control. It does not make sense to list here all that chronology. It is enough to say that there were several generations-long periods when Ukraine was a part of the Russian empire and was subjected to the massive influence of the “imperial slave and master” mentality. In addition to that, there were periods when, for whatever reasons, there was a significant migration of people with already established “imperial slave and master” mentality from other regions of Russia inside the borders of Ukraine.

Fortunately, there were also prolonged periods when Ukraine was outside the Russian World and actively interacted with the free world. Also, not all parts of Ukraine became parts of Russia during periods of Ukraine’s inclusion into Russia. The influx of people from those parts, relatively speaking, West Ukraine, helped keep Ukrainian people from being totally immersed into the “imperial slave and master” mentality.

Differences in mindsets

With such a history, on the surface, the behavior of Ukrainian people after 1991, when Russia recognized Ukrainian independence, was similar to Russian people with all that corruption, etc., with one important exception. Ukrainian people did not strive for an expansion of their own country. That was an indicator that, deep inside, the Ukrainian people could break with the “imperial slave and master” mentality and become a united and independent nation. Russian people and Putin, with them, did not notice that and some other differences. People with an “imperial slave and master” mentality believe that it is easy to return to the Russian World some other nation if people there have the same “imperial slave and master” mentality.

The whole world is watching the rebirth of the Ukrainian nation right now.

The West’s relationship with Ukraine

The West did not understand Russia and Ukraine and their history. Moreover, the weak link in West analytics’ works is the lack of knowledge and the importance of people’s mentality.

Such ignorance was widespread on all levels of the decision-making hierarchy. For example, “Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq” [8]. Even if this information is inaccurate, it is symptomatic that such statements were published.

The West did not foresee the role of mentality in possible Ukrainian people’s resistance to Russian aggression. The West also did not understand the difference between the overall state of the psyche in Ukraine and Russia. As a result, all West analysis of possible outcomes of upcoming Russian aggression against Ukraine was wrong.

West’s thoughtlessness

The West forecast was that Russia would conquer Ukraine in 2 – 4 days. As a result, the West decided that any urgent help to Ukraine was useless.

“Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk said that that day Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, among others, contacted German finance minister Christian Lindner. This is the head of the German Finance Ministry who said that Ukraine “has only a few hours left,” Melnyk said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Melnyk said Lindner sat in front of him with “such a polite smile” and spoke as if Ukraine’s defeat was a foregone conclusion already. The German finance minister then told the Ukrainian ambassador that it was pointless to allegedly provide weapons or disconnect the Russian Federation from SWIFT.” [9]

Some observers say it was a betrayal of Ukraine. I do not think so. It could be classified as a betrayal if, at that time, the West understood what was going on. The West didn’t. It was business as usual for the West. Modern counties do not bother if some war happens on the periphery of their interests. One well-known example is that the USA became engaged in the Second World War only on December 7, 1941, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The behavior of West countries concerning Ukraine before the first day of Russian aggression against Ukraine resulted from the West’s thoughtlessness and inability to use hundreds of years of history in their analysis.

What is at Stake for the World?

It is evident that for Ukraine, at stake is its existence and independence as a nation and a state. For Russia, at stake is a part of its people’s “imperial slave and master” mentality. A whole “imperial slave and master” mentality is not at stake yet. The reason is that, at the moment, we do not know if the West learned its lessons.

For almost seven centuries, since 1327 AD, the West did not understand the essence of the Russian empire. There are a considerable number of examples of such West countries’ behavior. For example, it is well known that the USA was a significant force that enabled the industrialization of the USSR before WWII. [10]

Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression woke up the West, and it started to help Ukraine. The West implemented a lot of very effective sanctions against Russia.

However, we still see the rhetoric, saying that only Putin is responsible for that aggression. If the current goal for the West is just the removal of Putin from his office, then the West did not learn enough lessons.

What is the sacral essence of the Russian World? For the population of Russia, a transformed Tatar-Mongol khanate, it is a desire to turn the whole world into Russian World, to make all people subject to the “imperial slave and master” mentality. Every person in a free world could imagine by himself of what it could mean for him, his kids, and generations to come. Ask yourself, should the West fight against such a future?

The long-term goal should be to eliminate the “imperial slave and master” mentality of tens or hundreds of millions of people inside the former USSR and among those who emigrated from the former USSR.

It’s a Herculean task. Is it even possible? How to approach it? What are options, timetables, risks, needed tools, reserves, etc.? How long could it take? How do the coordination of the efforts? Those and many other questions should be analyzed and answered. I’m sure that it is possible to do, at least in most parts. Will we witness the first step, the understanding by the West that the “imperial slave and master” mentality is at the core of Russia?

Right now, is when the West could understand what was going on during the last centuries and could continue going on without the West’s actions. Stakes for humankind are very high.

— Go to “Ukraine Gives World a Chance. Part 3” —

— Go to “Ukraine Birth of a Nation” —

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References

8. Katharine Zaleski, Bush Didn’t Know There Were Sunni and Shiite Muslims Two Months Before Invading Iraq…, May 25, 2011, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bush-didnt-know-there-wer_n_26528

9. Russian Federation attacks Ukraine – Melnik says which of the German ministers gave Ukraine some time, March 29, 2022, https://newsfounded.com/ukraineeng/russian-federation-attacks-ukraine-melnik-says-which-of-the-german-ministers-gave-ukraine-some-time/

10. Sonia Melnikova-Raich, The Soviet Problem with Two “Unknowns”: How an American Architect and a Soviet Negotiator Jump-Started the Industrialization of Russia, Part I: Albert Kahn, IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology Vol. 36, No. 2 (2010), pp. 57-80 (24 pages), Society for Industrial Archeology, January 2010, DOI: 10.2307/41933723

For my book “Subsurface History of Humanity: Direction of History” – go to amazon marketplaces (paperback, Kindle book, and audiobook), and for the audiobook – go to Audible or iTunes. The audiobook comes with a supplemental digital booklet.