Voice of Ukraine

From Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (337th day of ruzzian invasion): Some time ago, I read Oksana Zabuzhko’s book “The Longest Journey.” The book was written since the war started and published in Kharkiv while the city was under constant artillery fire. The book explains the current war with ruzzia in two dimensions – one is 30 years and another 300 years. The war didn’t start 337 days ago and not even 9 years ago. These are just stages of a much longer war.

I cried through the first 30 pages of the book where the author was describing how she learned about ruzzian invasion on Feb 24th and the first hours and days after that when she had to listen to European pessimists who didn’t believe Ukraine had a chance to stand against “Goliath.” Every Ukrainian who lives through this war will remember those first moments of realization that a big invasion has started, everyone remembers exactly where she/he was, what thoughts were coming through the mind, what emotions washed over the heart and what decisions were made that moment and the following days. Feb 24th divided our lives into “before the war” and “during the war”. Hopefully, we will soon start an “after the war” part of life.

And we are not likely to forget how annoyed we were to read all through March how western experts were praising Ukrainian courage and giving us just a few more days to complete defeat. Looking back at those scary and uncertain times, I am almost surprised that despite everything that was going on – non-stop air raids, many miles of ruzzian tanks on approach to Kyiv, ruzzian troops occupying suburbs of Kyiv and trying to put Kyiv under siege, with all that darkness surrounding and closing on us, we had no doubt that Ukraine will not be defeated. We were actually hoping that we would have Victory before Briana’s birthday!

In Oksana Zabuzhko’s book, she is describing ruzzian KGB doctrine of “ideological sabotage” that outlines 4 stages of conquering another country without a full-fledge war:

1) “Demoralization” – takes 15-20 years and focuses on corrupting society influencers in education, media, church, etc. to make sure at least one generation is raised that will not see ruzzia as a threat.
2) “Destabilization” – 3-5 years – with the help of infiltrated agents destabilization of economy, finances, defense, law-enforcement, etc)
3) “Crisis” 2-6 months – armed conflict with the purpose of creating chaos, taking over power and establishing a marionette government.
4) “Normalization” – gradual long-term reformation of all spheres of life under the control of the Kremlin and benefiting ruzzia to the point of the country losing its independence.

KGB guy who outlined this process Bezmenov defected to West in 1970.

Putin has been working on this strategy in Ukraine ever since he came to power in ruzzia. The “crisis” stage was in 2014 during the Revolution of Dignity, but Ukrainians didn’t behave as expected, frustrating putin’s plans time after time. Zabuzhko gives a lot of examples of that. One example, after president Yanukovich fled from Ukraine to ruzzia for 2 weeks there was no law enforcement, police just disappeared from the streets. Ruzzian propaganda media was “reporting” mass looting in Ukrainian cities; they expected Ukrainians to behave in the way ruzzians would. They “reported” the same when blackouts became a routine part of our lives. But there was no looting at all. Instead, Ukrainian society came out of “crisis” stage better and stronger, which pushed putin into military options of continuing to try to take over Ukraine.

We will keep frustrating putin’s expectations, plans and dreams all the way to Ukraine’s complete Victory!

33 days left till spring…