Victory has many fathers, defeat is always an orphan. But who will be to blame for the failure? Ukraine itself, of course. Thus, the condition for the West to start negotiations with Russia will be a reformatting of Ukraine’s image and a radical change of attitude towards it.
Every time Western public opinion changes “on cue,” we are surprised, although there has been nothing surprising about it for a long time. It does happen on command, and what is striking here is how a society of formal democracy and declared freedoms has managed to build such a well-functioning machine for conducting meanings. The West commands meanings like Leo Tolstoy’s generals: die erste Kolonne marschiert, die zweite Kolonne marschiert. The arguments of non-Western world players, be it Russia or the Arab countries, are irrelevant to this machine; positions change not because of the cogency of other people’s arguments, but according to the dynamics of their own interests.
Today, with the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the escalation of the Middle East conflict, we see the columns of meaning on the topic of Ukraine unfolding. One no longer hears the cheerful speeches that “Russia must be defeated on the battlefield.” Neither Josep Borrell speaks of this, nor Ursula von der Leyen, nor Jens Stoltenberg. But every day some NATO minister, some retired general, or some Ukrainian figure from Arestovich to Zaluzhny hint that things have not gone as planned, and something must be done, some plan B or C must be put into effect.
And at the same time, Simon Shuster’s not very flattering article about Zelensky, originally published in the American magazine Time, is being reprinted by the British newspaper The Times, as if it were an editorial from Pravda newspaper of the collective farms and five-year period. In which direction are the meanings marching today?
There is the most important imperative: the West must emerge from the Ukrainian conflict undefeated. It is unthinkable to admit defeat; voters who have been watching billions of dollars and euros being sent into a bottomless pit for the sake of goals that no one can explain to them clearly will not understand this. And it would accelerate the redistribution of power and influence in the world; we remember how the “Vietnam syndrome” led to the Americans losing Iran, which has now become the main antagonist for the US in the Middle East.
Avoiding official defeat for the West will help the idea that NATO is not at war. Yes, it supplies weapons, transfers intelligence, sends mercenaries, and generally feeds Ukraine, which would have gone bankrupt long ago without Western aid. But it is not at war. This straw was laid in advance – and now it should come in handy.
It is a well-known fact – victory has many fathers, defeat is always an orphan. But who is to blame for the failure? Ukraine itself, of course. Thus, the condition for the West to start negotiations with Russia will be a reformatting of Ukraine’s image and a radical change of attitude towards it.
Until recently, the West supported, or at least did not refute, the mythology that has developed in Kiev: Ukraine is a bastion of Western civilisation in the way of the Eastern hordes, and Zelensky is the chosen one on whom history itself has entrusted a great mission. It seems that it is time to correct this version.
Let us recall the Protestant values that formed the basis of modern capitalism. The doctrine of Calvinism tells us that earthly success is the criterion of God’s election. If you are successful – it means God loves you. If you are a failure, then God has turned away from you. And there is nothing to be done about it, for that is the predestination. This is the spirit in which Ukraine will be rethought.
This whole story will probably be codenamed “Thank you for trying”. That is, we treat you well, we did what we could, but you did not stand the test. We were wrong about you. We thought Ukraine was a big deal, but it’s… well, it’s not.
What did you want? Somebody’s got to take responsibility for all this. What, the NATO generals sitting in the AFU headquarters are gonna be responsible for the failure of operations they invented? What, captains of the NATO defence industry will be responsible for miracle weapons that turned out not to be miracle weapons at all? Ukrainians, who could not properly implement these plans and use these weapons, will be responsible. This is a reputation, this is big money, which is translated into big politics.
The Ukrainians in the new Western scenario will play the role of losers, not sufferers. And if so, it means that it is time to shine the spotlight on the facts that were previously ignored. It is necessary to explain why Ukraine was not up to the historical mission entrusted to it. This will include Zelensky’s absurdity as the country’s leader, Ukrainian corruption in general, and the segment of it that leads to the appearance of NATO weapons in the Middle East. Suddenly, criminality among Ukrainian refugees will be discovered, and there will be talk of organ trafficking. The main thing is to give orders to the senses to march in this direction.
Perhaps the most important thing for us in this ideological restructuring is this. If the West did not lose and Ukraine lost, it means that Ukraine is not part of the West, and all efforts to make Ukrainians look European, unlike Russians, were in vain. Take a close look at the Ukrainians: they are not real Europeans. Maybe they are not even much different from Russians.
It would be funny if in the end the Western propaganda machine proclaimed what they have always known in Russia and are trying to forget in Ukraine: Russians and Ukrainians are one people. And we believe that a significant part of Ukrainians will remember this and begin to build a future together with us. It is only a pity that this realisation will cost hundreds of thousands of human lives.
Igor Karaulov, VZGLYAD