The factors that led Ukraine to defeat and occupation 100 years ago, with the active assistance of the enemy, are beginning to manifest themselves again today.
Ukraine’s history has mostly been marked by foreign enslavement. Ukraine under the rule of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and other empires, Ukrainian lands under the rule of Romania or Czechoslovakia – these are the main chapters of our history. And even a person who is far from knowing history will not be mistaken if he or she says that Ukrainians have mostly been under someone else’s rule.
During the national liberation struggle of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, we lacked good allies and then national unity, which led to the Ruins and the split of the Hetmanate into the Left Bank and the Right Bank.
During the National Liberation Movement in 1917-1921, we lacked much more. In addition to good allies and national unity, we also lacked the national consciousness and patriotism of a large part of Ukrainians. The Makhnovists, Hryhorievites, Tarashchans, and others fought on the side of the Bolsheviks or for themselves, not supporting the UPR. The Bolsheviks promised more, promoted the distribution of land to peasants, shouted “factories to the workers!”, and established much stricter discipline in their army than the Ukrainians. When the Russian army invaded the Left Bank, many Ukrainians did not consider it a great disaster, but only a change of government, which even promised more than the Directory.
Many people were already tired of the war: the First World War had lasted for four years, and then another three years of struggle for statehood with elements of civil war. Many thought that it would be better if a certain “stability” had already come, “everything would be over,” and “at least some kind of government would be established.” The Bolshevik dictatorship was established, with famines, terror, and Stalinist repression.
In 2022, it seemed that we did not have the same catastrophic circumstances that caused us to lose our state in 1921. We have Western allies, some international assistance and support, a functioning vertical of legitimate power, and national cohesion. Thank God, we have all this now.
However, Russia and our mistakes are slowly eroding each of these pillars of our sovereignty and defense. Through information and sabotage operations, mobilization is disrupted, confidence in Ukrainian statehood in general is undermined, the desire for national victory is leveled, and the nation’s survival instinct is dulled. Through anonymous telegram channels and latently pro-Russian YouTube bloggers, Ukrainians are being infused with betrayal and capitulation, distorted by fake conspiracy theories and even resorted to charlatan prophecies.
There are more and more people who openly wish that “all this is over somehow,” that mobilization stops, that a compromise is reached with the enemy, and that the territories are left, not even objecting to surrender. For such people, if the last point is realized, it will be possible to go abroad, because martial law is canceled after the surrender. And they do not care what happens to this land and country. Some are not shy and are not afraid to say this out loud and in public. Many people around them remain silent after hearing this.
At such moments, it becomes gradually clear why Bohdan Khmelnytsky did not have enough human resources to finish off the enemy and gain independence, why Doroshenko did not have enough Cossacks, and why Petliura failed to gather sufficient forces to repel the occupiers.
Recently, Maksym Tkachenko, a member of the Servant of the People party, said that about 150,000 internally displaced persons had returned to the territories temporarily occupied by the enemy. In particular, about a third of the residents who left Mariupol during the full-scale war have returned. The key reasons for this step were that they “did not receive proper assistance from the state – no housing, no social support, no compensation, no work” on the territory controlled by Ukraine. Many IDPs “could not find a job because of the skeptical attitude of employers, and all those offers that are provided to the displaced are actually very low-paid.” And the point is not even that the MP later retracted his words and called them “private opinion,” but that there are many people who have returned to the occupied territories.
The failed policy of officials in this matter cannot be tolerated and must be brought to justice, but we should also pay attention to the identity of those who have returned. Yes, many of them have apartments there, but they did not stay in Europe but chose to live under the Russian dictatorship, where the FSB, Chechens, or some drunken Buryats can come to their door at any moment. After all, Russian intelligence services may be wondering what the new Russian subjects were doing in Ukraine and Europe. They chose this fate, but Ukraine has lost hundreds of thousands of workers, taxpayers, mothers, soldiers, etc.
Our national policy is marked by a failure, if such things are happening. Just like in 1919, some Ukrainian citizens easily change Ukraine for Russia. Back then, this led to fatal consequences. Today, it is not too late to correct the mistakes that have not reached national catastrophic proportions.
Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk
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