On the pedestrian road, within the middle of Ivano-Frankivsk, greater than 600 km from kyiv, Russian is spoken. Hundreds of Ukrainians – 13,000 are registered with the municipality – have discovered refuge on this metropolis in western Ukraine, not removed from the Carpathians. Earlier than the struggle, this metropolis of 250,000 inhabitants, within the midst of an actual property growth, was already attracting residents from different areas of the nation, seduced by the standard of life and the roles obtainable in IT, meals and expertise. info.
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The entrance is way away, however three weeks of struggle have reworked each day life, punctuated by air alerts, checkpoints and the mobilization of conscripts. The locality buried, Tuesday March 15, certainly one of its personal, the soldier Dmitry Bobkov. Three missile strikes just about destroyed the airport’s infrastructure. It is time for patriotic songs, together with in public areas, the place the municipal chamber choir frequently performs the Ukrainian anthem.
“Proud Sergeant of the Soviet Military”
The previous capital of the short-lived Republic of the Peoples of Western Ukraine, proclaimed in 1919, the cradle of Ukrainian tradition and language, earlier than the leaden screed imposed by Stalin, goals to be in unison with the nation in arms. “This struggle reinforces the affirmation of a civic Ukrainian identification that transcends ethnicity and language,” underlines the author Taras Prokhasko, sitting in a pub, a number of meters from the regional philharmonic, reworked into the headquarters of the territorial protection forces.
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“The method has been underway for a number of many years, he continues. It was solid in collective motion: the Maidan revolution in 2014 and, at present, the straightforward reality of serving to one another and having a standard trigger within the protection of the nation. The Ukrainian troopers who’re on this struggle converse Russian. The inhabitants can query and protest in opposition to the invader in their very own language. »
Within the 1990s, 53-year-old Taras Prokhasko was a part of the “Stanislav phenomenon” (town’s former identify), a bunch of intellectuals and artists claiming Western postmodernism, after the collapse of the ‘Soviet Union. In 1988, three years earlier than Ukraine’s independence, he did his army service. “If I have been Russian, I’d say that I’m a proud sergeant of the Soviet military”, quips the novelist, awarded by the BBC in 2013.
“Don’t turn out to be a satellite tv for pc of Moscow once more”
In a column printed in early March on the journal’s web site Zbruc, underneath the title “Nothing has modified”, Taras Prokhasko returned to his expertise of a 12 months and a half on this incompetent and merciless construction. Troopers handed over to the arbitrariness of their leaders, radio communication down, blind advance within the forest, with an inadequate inventory of ammunition, little gas, and dry rations. “The Soviet military, perceived on the skin as a army risk to the entire world, was above all, as we joked on the time, a hazard to itself. We knew that the allowable lack of personnel throughout army workouts was three p.c”remembers the author.
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Thirty-four years later, he castigates the Russian imperial DNA which claims to lecture the Ukrainians, these “Little Russians”, condemned to play the auxiliaries of the empire. “We’re a part of this central Europe whose future has all the time been determined by extra highly effective neighbours, to the West or to the East, he stated. We don’t need to turn out to be a satellite tv for pc of Moscow once more, underneath the pretext of re-establishing a buffer zone, to guard Russia from Western affect. »
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A fellow traveler within the 1990s, additionally a local of Ivano-Frankivsk, Iouri Androukhovych, 62, all the time thought that Ukraine ought to tie itself to Europe, the one method, based on him, to get out of “the grey zone of post-Soviet despair”. “The query is what worth we must pay for this European alternative”, he stated, referring to the lack of Ukrainian lives and the destruction wrought by “Russian Struggle Criminals”.
“Europe has opened as much as refugees, he provides, however as quickly as Putin raises the nuclear risk, she will get scared. Going through him, it is senseless, as a result of he is not going to cease on the borders of Ukraine. There isn’t any alternative however threat and braveness. »
“Army help is the perfect peace plan”
For this Ukrainian novelist and essayist, Western elites are mistaken in believing that democracy all the time finally ends up successful in opposition to authoritarianism, with out desirous to admit the existence of various values behind Vladimir Putin’s motivations. Merely providing him a negotiated method out would solely postpone the issue.
“Army help for Ukraine is the perfect peace plan, he insists. By making Vladimir Putin pay an ever-increasing worth for his invasion, the USA and its allies will enhance the possibilities of a peace deal that isn’t a give up to Russia’s blatant aggression. »
→ REPORTAGE. Between blockade and warning sirens, Odessa settles in the war
In the meantime, the writer of Moscoviada (Éd. Noir sur Blanc, 2007, 176 p., €19.25), a sarcastic image of the excesses of the Soviet multinational empire, received a Kalashnikov and joined a neighborhood vigilante group. “The final time I used a submachine gun was in 1983 throughout my army service within the Pink Military. I do not know what’s left of it however I believe it is going to come again quickly. Within the Soviet armed forces, the perfect troopers have been Ukrainians. »
