When I hear Americans talk about the conflict in Ukraine, I hear three assumptions: there is no reason for this war, Russians are brainwashed, and Russians want this war to happen. All three of these assumptions are false and biased.
I do not support the militarization of the Russian army. However, I can see why President Vladimir Putin decided to finally push into Donetsk and Luhansk.
First of all, Ukraine was a part of the former Soviet Union. Although most of Ukraine is ethnically Ukrainian, the Western-most side of the country is composed of ethnic Russians. This presents a complicated situation to outsiders: Where do these people belong? Russia decided to use military force to answer this question, first to annex Crimea and now presumably to annex Donetsk and Luhansk.
My mother is from Donetsk. She was born and raised there, and she is ethnically Russian. She considers herself Russian or Soviet just as much if not more than being Ukrainian, and she even supports Putin. The politics of these Russian Ukrainians is obviously not as simple as Americans might think it would be.
Secondly, I want to emphasize that Russia is an Eastern country, rejected from the West for centuries. We have seen the same story with Japan, a country that wanted to Westernize in the mid 20th century but could not due to racial and cultural differences. Russia tried to participate in Western culture for centuries until the Soviet Union, and now, with so many cultural differences, the option of Westernizing is almost impossible. However, Ukraine has mostly Westernized and might even join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
This indicates to Russia that one of its satellite states from the Soviet Union gets first dibs on the benefits of the Western world.
You can imagine, after trying to get along with the U.S. and the West for so long — getting rejected during the Cold war and all — having a former part of you succeed in assimilation, as well as getting military aid, is quite frustrating.
Russia has been asserting its rule over Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the acceptance of Ukraine into NATO could mean the same for other former Soviet republics. Russia would be surrounded by the West, culturally and militarily. It’s not an excuse to invade Ukraine, but it’s an attempt at understanding such a seemingly idiotic mission.
Finally, I am extremely frustrated at Americans for assuming that Russians just blindly accept propaganda and support the war. Russia produces state-sponsored media that resembles Fox News, so Russians are really only brainwashed as much as millions of Americans are. Despite the lack of reliable news in Russia, a lot of Russians actually greatly oppose war in Ukraine. On the Instagram account @dumagovru, Russians are commenting saying that they don’t want war, and they’d rather have Putin focus on the economic recession and other domestic issues. Thousand of comments say, “#нетвойне,” which translates to “no war.”
Americans are so quick to blame the people of a country for the actions of their government. Anti-Russia sentiment has thrived in this country for over a century, which continues to alienate the Russian people and force them into retaliation. Russia is wrong for doing this, but when you put a strongman country in the defensive position, there will be bloodshed.
