A Russian bomb hits Kyiv

Oaklandsocialist talked with Eugene in Kyiv. He talked about the situation there and the mood in general. A lot refers back to what actually happened in the Maidan revolt of 2014, which Eugene also discussed. In that connection, he also discussed the role of the far right and perspectives for it. Here is a transcript of that discussion. Some of the wording has been slightly changed for clarity.

John Reimann
We’re talking with Eugene, who I had stayed with when I was in Lviv. Eugene, you’re now in Kyiv our things there in Kyiv.

Eugene
Kyiv looks more military than Lviv – like some kind of fortress. A lot of armed people. And I think we can see here how our army has prepared to battle for Kyiv. Lviv looks more civilian, because Russian army was not so close toLviv, but was really close to Kyiv. Maybe, you know, Bucha is part of Kyiv region. So, in fact, it’s like a part of Kyiv.

We can also see that local army prepared well, for defending Kyiv

John Reimann
In what way has it prepared?

Eugene
There are a lot of posts, you know, military posts. Also a lot of sand bags. We call it a block post. You know, this stuff against tanks? I don’t remember the word.

And much more [anti-tank blocks] than in Lviv, where we only see them at government buildings. But here, it’s everywhere.

John Reimann
I’ve been reading that there’s been a few new missile attacks from Russia.

Eugene
Yeah, a few days ago. Maybe on the previous weekend. We heard really loud explosions here in in our neighborhood, not not far away from us, but not directly in our neighborhood. Of course, It’s left riverside, [left bank of river]. We’re living on the left. And what we heard here was really, really loud. That’s unusual, because mostly Russian army attacks right sides, [right bank], but not left. And it was it was unexpected for me.

John Reimann
What is the mood like there in Kyiv and in general?

Eugene
Not sure that I can describe it in few words because for me you know, it’s like short months of war. And people just [became] used to live in such [a] situation and you can rarely hear small talk about the war. People mostly talk about their lives, their education, their relationships, and so on. For example, a few days ago I was in a coffee [shop]. And there were a lot of people maybe even more than last summer and I heard that people just do not discuss war they [were] talking about anything else. But in general, I guess that of course it’s not so terrific as in first days. But we still can see how people react on it

John Reimann
When you say is not so terrific, you mean not so intense?

Eugene
Yeah, because in first days, it was a panic. Personally, me, the first days. I was not able to think about anything else except war. And maybe first months was panic filled. I don’t know panic. Panic.Yeah. But now it’s not so.

John Reimann
So it’s just like people kind of accept it as a fact of life. Is that the situation?

Eugene
Yeah, you know, you can remember when Coronavirus came you can remember first days here it’s not maybe so much panic. But I’ve seen some videos from USA and I’ve seen that people just fighting in the mall for toilet paper. But few months later and almost every everyone forgot about Coronavirus. The same situation with war first few days few weeks months it was really panic. But not now. We are just used to live [it] here. We are just used to hear explosions once a week. We are just used to alerts and so on.

John Reimann
Right. I think that Putin is hoping to kind of wear people down in a way.

Eugene
What do you mean?

John Reimann
Just that people will get tired and be willing to settle for anything?

Eugene
It’s hard to say. I can say only that now the most hot spot in Ukraine is eastern part. Donbass, for example. Maybe you know, there are two cities. Lisichansk and Severodonetsk. Yes. And now it’s the main battle point for Russian army and for Ukrainian too.

John Reimann
Do you think people would accept it if there were a long term truce, in which the Russians continued to occupy the regions that they’re occupying now?

Eugene
Do you mean, if Russian army will try to occupy another regions?

John Reimann
No, no, if they just stay where they are, and Putin said, “Okay, let’s stop the war, we’ll stay where we are now, in these parts of Donbass and down the coast, up until Crimea.”

Eugene
I don’t know how people will react to it. We can compare it with you know, there was like… some people say that the war that appeared in 2014. And this one is the same war, but some people say is it’s still another war, but that doesn’t matter. We can compare this situation with situation that appeared in 2014. And at the end of that previous situation there were just rare artillery strikes. But people, I can’t say that people started to react to it in another way. I think that most people of Ukraine reacted in the 2014 as aggressively as now and I think that for example, in 2021, they still were aggressive. Only one thing that in few years later, after 2014, discussions appeared about it, I mean, that in few years after 2014, we started sometimes to hear about some initiatives that were trying to discuss [different points of view]. In 2022, there was no discussion, there was the only one opinion: “Russia is the aggressor, we should fight them back, we should take our territories back.” And that’s all and no one says anything [different] And I think that the situation may be similar, if this war will continue, for example, one year, two years. Some people will start to discuss, start to how to say one minute start to offer some seminars or ways [other than the] military way. But in general, I mean, I think that people’s opinion will not change significantly.

John Reimann
When I was there, and we were talking, you were concerned about the growth of very strong anti Russian sentiment. Maybe I was mistaken, but the way I understood that was in connection with the growth of the far right, including fascism, because of the invasion. And I would think that if Putin succeeds, that would happen even more. What do you think of that?

Eugene
Yeah, I am sure that anti Russian and also I guess, anti left forces will increase their power.

Not [just] here but around the world, a lot of resentment from far right. For example, we can see it in U.S., for example with Trump. We can see the same situation in Europe with, for example, [the German] AfD, and is this far far, far right forces around the world popular as never [before]. And here in Ukraine, maybe we were one of the first countries that appeared in this situation. I mean, after Maidan there was a huge far right influence. But after a few years the situation became much better. For example, LGBTQ forces started their activity. Of course, they were often attacked by far right. But there was a liberalization of culture. Police start to react more adequately. They started to arrest the far right, they started to protect the left side or liberals. And their this liberalization in small steps. But it was step by step. Rising of popularity of left side of liberals and so on, and far right just lost their influence that [it had] in 2014, for example, and they think that this war will kick us back to this [previous] situation, when it’s impossible to make a gay pride march for example, or First of May [May Day], and I’m afraid of it, and I can only blame Putin for it.

John Reimann
When you say after, after Maidan the far right, made some big advances was that because of the what was in effect the invasion into like in Donetsk and Luhansk. And, you know, Russia just kind of taking over those two regions.

Eugene
It’s complex, because Maidan almost from the first was supported mostly by far right, and for example, this slogan [“Glory to Ukraine”?] – this slogan came to us from Ukrainian nationalists during World War Two. And this slogan became popular in Maidan but occupation of Crimea and in Donbas appeared after Maidan. So I can say that we we can count Maidan as a right revolution. And you know, here in Europe, we have a huge culture of football teams supporters, and most of them, especially most of them in Ukraine are far right. And they like military style military culture. And there was a lot of like a camps or some training [centers?]. And we can say that they prepared for something like Maidan. And when Maidan appeared, it was just a convenient situation, because they waited for something like that. And because they were prepared, it was possible for them to occupy this movement. But after war started and after Crimea occupation, they just increased. But we can’t say that they appeared only because of it.

John Reimann
Some of the stuff that I’ve read about Maidan, including from Yulia Yurchenko, seems to say something different about Maidan. That the far right got big support after the police attacked and people were looking for somebody to do street fighting. So and that was my impression also, but you’re saying that that’s not true. And that it is true that it was mainly like a far right movement?

Eugene
No, I can’t say that. It’s not true. I mean, Maidan, definitely started as a civilian, hugely democratic, demonstration. But the far right came to Maidan, almost from the first and almost from the first day became most influential political power, because a lot of Maidan slogans was right right wing. Of course, there was a lot of just democratic, anti [poverty], anti rich slogans. [but] no one called themselves left.Well, maybe, okay, not completely true. Some called themselves left wing, but they was not a unit of Maidan. There was like a single people, single persons. And few times, maybe one or two times, left site activists tried to came to Maidan, but at least in one case, they were beaten up and kicked out from Maidan. So Maidan is not just the far right. Maybe it’s mostly just democratic, liberal democratic. But if we say about direct political influence, we can say that the far right, was much more influential on Maidan then all other political ideologies.

John Reimann
Would you say that that’s because they were more organized, and also more physically aggressive?

Eugene
I think that at first, yes, because it was organized, you know, they were like Lenin’s units. You know, he said, that you don’t need a lot of people you need a few people that are organized well, and they were organized well, because they used to be organized during their football games, because they always fight they always are organized together and go to another city or come to a local stadium [for] that. And and yes, they wwere maybe a little bit more aggressive then other people at Maidan and maybe they were like… let’s just say a paramilitary block of Maidan. But once again, it was not just the right right movement and their influence became much more lower in the few years after Maidan.

John Reimann
All right, because here, a lot of the left [in the West] just say, “well, Maidan was a right wing coup.”

Eugene
They are partly right, but only partly. Because yeah, of course, we can’t reject the fact that Maidan was a lot of far right persons, but we can’t say that it was just far right. Because if it was just far right, the logic is that far right will get power in the next election. But in the next election, it was Poroshenko. And we can’t call Poroshenko far right. He’s just like center right. Or democratic right, or liberal right, or something like that. So yeah, I think that those people who say that, you can answer that “of course, there was right forces, but it was much more than just right.”

[Regarding Zelensky and whether he’s just a “puppet” of Biden]

It’s true, but it’s manipulation. Because you talking about not the most significant point. We can say is that Zelensky is bought West. Maybe we can say, Western backed. But it’s not the point. He’s much more neoliberal than simply a Western agent. And he’s much more [came into power through] Ukrainian politics then Western backed politics.

John Reimann
You know, in the great Haitian Revolution the Haitian slaves toverthrew slavery and imperialism. At one point, they received arms from the British, who were fighting against the French. At another point, they received arms from the French, to fight against the British. So that sort of thing happens quite frequently in revolutions.

Eugene
Maybe Biden, for example, thinks that the Zelensky is his puppet. But Zelensky understands that he is not.

John Reimann
Right. Well, he would like to make Zelensky into his puppet…. Do you have any further comments, any thoughts on how the war is going? Or what you expect in the immediate future?

Eugene
For me, it’s much more unclear than it was in the first months. In the first two months I only thought about this war. But now I’m a bit frustrated. I’m tired, you know. Maybe a lot of people do not understand how much war [is] inconvenient for people in general, those who are not involved in battles. Because here in Kyiv, I’ve worked till midnight, and I used to go to coffee shop, for example, or to the shop after midnight, but I can’t visit a shop at that time because there is a red alert. And a lot of such small stuff. And I can say that, personally, me I’m really tired of it. It’s horrible, inconvenient. Of course, it’s not the first [of] my thoughts about the war, because there is a lot of much more terrible, terrible situations. For example, as I say, in Donbass. And we were laughing [at] people who said, “I hope this war will end shortly.” And we were laughing like, “I’d say one minute, but really it’s so trivial to say that.” But now, I’m saying to myself the same. I say, “Oh, I hope this war ends shortly because every day you hear about maybe not your friends but about people who died every day. Every day you hear alerts every day. You can’t go to the streets. After midnight, every day, you hear explosions or almost stuff every day.”

It’s a big psychological pressure. And that’s what I want to say. Because now all the people of Ukraine feel this pressure. A lot of people of Ukraine feel unsafe because they are unsafe. And I definitely don’t have any guesses about next steps of this war.

John Reimann
Okay. Thanks very much for your time Eugene and we’ll definitely stay in touch.

Eugene
Yeah, if you will have some additional questions you can feel free to ask me.

A Russian bomb hits Kyiv