MARDAN: This war completely cancels out 1991! // Was Russia not ready? | Munich Conference
BelTA News Agency
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbpIhjHHE6Y
Full Translation:
So, here’s what’s interesting: the “divorce” of the Euro-Atlantic alliance, that’s interesting. Zelenskyy, on the other hand, is nothing more than an extra, a bit player. He’s like, figuratively speaking, those pretty girls who walk the halls of an exhibition. You might ask them something, but that’s about it.
Today, we have a war that’s being fought to the bitter end, as they say. It might not even be five years before they start building another gas pipeline, and talks begin again about building a “Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”
Again, one doesn’t need to be a poet of this future war, nor be afraid of it. Figuratively speaking, you just need to remain a reasonable, responsible person who treats himself, his family, his loved ones, and his country with reason and responsibility.
Interviewer:
Sergei, glad to see you.
Sergei:
Glad to be invited, hello.
Interviewer:
Always happy to have you. The first topic I’d like to start our conversation with, especially since you’ve already reacted to this event, and not just you, is the Munich Conference and what happened there.
And, probably, the scandal caused by Zelenskyy’s statement that Russians should… well, it sounded quite rude in English, we won’t translate it here, but basically, he used foul language to say they should all get out and go home – all of them, including those who are suffering, those who own property, and so on and so forth.
You’ve already called this, and I’m quoting you, a “broad, brown brushstroke” [a clear reference to Nazism/fascism, implying the statement was broadly and crudely fascist] with which Zelenskyy concluded his speech at this Munich Conference.
What was that, in your opinion? Was it panic? Or, again, speculating on Comrade Zelenskyy’s independence, was he expressing his own opinion in this case?
Sergei:
Well, I’ll put it this way, purely emotionally, as an observer, not even as a journalist or someone interested in politics, it seemed to me that Zelenskyy has been in a state of confusion for the last few weeks.
You can’t see it… let’s say, what I don’t feel is that he fully understands his place within the processes currently underway.
And, actually, that’s the main reason he’s nervous.
Those interviews he gave, that statement he made – it’s all a pretty simple PR stunt.
Let’s, how to put it, crank up the rhetoric to the skies, attract attention to ourselves, and maybe that will help for a moment.
Well, it probably solves some internal management issues, the consolidation of his core audience, his supporters inside Ukraine, and so on.
But it does absolutely nothing to solve the key task.
If we talk about the Munich Conference in general, it’s objectively an event below his level. And, frankly, no one invited him there as a key speaker.
Yes, he was invited, he came, but in the agenda that was actually discussed by both American and European media, Zelenskyy wasn’t even mentioned.
Everyone was discussing Rubio, everyone was discussing Rubio’s demarche when he started meeting with European leaders and then left to meet with Orban.
So, that’s what’s interesting: the “divorce” of the Euro-Atlantic alliance, that’s interesting. Zelenskyy? He’s nothing more than an extra, a bit player.
He’s like, figuratively speaking, those pretty girls who walk the halls of an exhibition. You might ask them something, but that’s about it.
And, by and large, that statement he made, despite the somewhat, to my taste, hypertrophied reaction from Russian Foreign Ministry representatives and official…
Why? It’s emotionally understandable, why not?
Actually, it’s emotionally inexplicable.
There’s no need to add excessive agency to someone who has a problem with agency in the first place.
When I read that statement, I wanted to just brush it off with an ironic post,
in the sense that Zelenskyy remembered how, in his childhood and youth, he was told many times, “Hey, you with that face, get lost to your Israel.”
I mean, it’s such a classic paraphrase from Soviet times.
He reproduced it, driven by his, obviously, severe trauma, just swapping the addressee.
Anyone with a Soviet background, especially someone who knows what Soviet Ukraine was like, picks up on that instantly.
I did, automatically. I didn’t need an explanation.
And in general, regarding everything happening, I talk about this from time to time on air and in private conversations.
I am absolutely convinced that Zelenskyy has a very deep, personal trauma. He hates khokhols [a derogatory term for Ukrainians].
Specifically khokhols, not Ukrainians, but khokhols as a certain phenomenon.
And there’s a lot to it. Eastern Ukraine is a peculiar place.
You see, when people talk about Soviet anti-Semitism, they get a bit confused. In central Russia, for instance, there were practically no Jews, no one ever saw them. They were exotic.
People there wouldn’t even understand what you were talking about.
But in Ukraine, yes, it was a significant ethnic factor.
So, if anywhere there was that brutal, everyday, hypertrophied form of anti-Semitism, it was there, including in Kryvyi Rih.
And, considering certain cultural narratives that someone with a basic historical education might not know… How do you explain to an ordinary secular Russian or Belarusian, Soviet or post-Soviet person, what the Khmelnychchyna was?
Well, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, the liberator of Ukraine and all that. No, you don’t understand.
For the Jewish people, Bogdan Khmelnytsky is Hitler.
That’s the problem. At the level of national myth, that figure is equivalent to Hitler.
So, I look at all this, at this whole bloody circus with horses [a Russian idiom meaning an absurd, chaotic, and brutal situation], that’s happening.
And it’s not that I’m not interested in how it ends, but that would be a morbid, cannibalistic interest.
I am practically convinced that at some point it will end in a completely monstrous, terrible catastrophe that absolutely everyone will have to pay for.
Well, the residents of Ukraine are already paying for it, obviously.
I use that term [“residents of Ukraine”] because we shouldn’t confuse things. There are ethnic Ukrainians, there are Russified Russians who also vote for Zelenskyy, fight in the SS [a hyperbolic slur, likening Ukrainian forces to Nazis], and curse the moskali [derogatory for Russians].
And for this, Zelenskyy’s remaining tribesmen, those who weren’t smart enough to leave, will also pay.
So, this personal feeling I have of this impending, terrible catastrophe sometimes genuinely frightens me internally.
When many people immersed in Ukrainian history make this reference, this allusion, like remembering “The Ruin” [a period of chaos in 17th-century Ukraine]… again, in Russian history, as we studied it in school, we know nothing about “The Ruin.” Some kind of interregnum, something happened.
To understand that, you need to read a certain amount, ideally, of Ukrainian sources, what Ukrainian authors themselves wrote. Just to realize, again, that national trauma and the concentration of that darkness that existed on that land for almost a hundred years.
In Russia, for example, nothing like that ever happened. At least at the level of historical memory, we don’t remember it, we don’t know it.
But there, it’s alive. And that inner horror and memory, it seems to me, is preserved.
And perhaps this explains, you know, that flickering subconscious idea, even, the thesis about “we’re doomed anyway.”
Sorry for the long answer, but I’m saying, all these meaningless statements sometimes lead me to such completely apocalyptic reflections, because we’re discussing this in a, let’s say, political science context, but it’s actually about a gigantic catastrophe, a national catastrophe, that the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian ethnos, has once again in its history voluntarily, with a running start, just run headfirst into a concrete wall.
What compelled them? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Interviewer:
Well, you know, actually, one of our recent guests on our program suggested an idea, which might confirm your words, about why the idea of needing foreign troops on Ukrainian territory arises so often and persistently. Not because the bourgeois are coming to carve up Ukraine, no, but because the conflicts within Ukrainian society itself are so serious that if you imagine that top layer of control is gone, there would just be a massacre amongst themselves. And to possibly prevent that, the emergence of field commanders, on ethnic grounds, or whatever else – we know how various Ukrainian oligarchs armed their military formations, and they still do, so why not? So, it’s a kind of insurance, but it’s a theory.
Sergei:
Yes, that exists. No, I think that’s a perfectly workable scenario. I think at some point – and I don’t know when it might happen, maybe in six months, maybe in five years, it doesn’t matter – this degradation of the Ukrainian state-political project will naturally reach a certain point where key institutions collapse. And indeed, a huge territory plunges into chaos. Civil war… we have experience with that. For those too lazy to read, just flipping through the novel Doctor Zhivago gives you that feeling of the horror of civil war, where an ordinary private person feels safe nowhere, never, in no way, and is unable to influence any of it.
No interveners can physically influence that, because there won’t be any interveners. Or rather, there will be, exactly like in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the “Ruin” in Little Russia was stopped by Russian troops, that’s all. The same Haidamaka [18th-century Cossack uprising known for its brutality] was bloodily suppressed by Russian imperial troops, who essentially shot those brutalized Cossacks to stop the massacre in the Jewish towns.
How will it be? This historical scenario, by historical standards, was relatively recent, and I personally have no alternative scenario for how it could be.
No way.
Troops are brought in by those who have a significant interest. And who has an interest? Russia, by and large, doesn’t really have one, actually.
So that’s why it all ends at the level of talks, like that.
Interviewer:
If they wanted to, they would have sent them in, right? No one would have asked anyone anything.
Sergei:
Yes, yes, I’d agree with that.
Interviewer:
Well, about the results of the conference itself. If it hadn’t been for this escapade by Zelenskyy, they probably wouldn’t have talked about the Ukrainian question at all, in principle. He just grabbed attention with such sharp statements. Overall, they promised him the usual support. But those statements are made year after year, it’s already the fifth year, by the way. And of course, things are getting done. And probably, such a confrontation wouldn’t exist without the crazy support with weapons, technology, data, including satellites, and so on, and financial support from the West. And they confirmed once again that they will continue to do so, but with a lot of caveats. The Germans are already starting to say it’s not so simple, and they need to preserve their own stuff. In general, everything that happened there… Did you see any signs of, say, an emerging atomization, a disintegration, or something like that?
Sergei:
Yes, of course. Rubio’s speech was quite epochal. Actually, that’s the only thing that seriously makes sense to study and discuss in the context of this conference. By and large, nothing fundamentally new was said. A year ago, J.D. Vance said the same thing, just in a different style, more sharply, more insultingly. Rubio is a different person, he chooses different words, but essentially said the exact same thing.
That is, the divergence – not a divorce, there never was a marriage – the divergence, the split in the Euro-Atlantic alliance, is happening. The difference is that Rubio hinted, made it clear, gave hope that this divorce would be peaceful, that it wouldn’t be done abruptly. They won’t just pack up and leave tomorrow and say, “Deal with it yourselves.” That won’t happen.
But as for everything else, that, by historical standards, not very long period of the existence of a “united West” is over. The Americans essentially picked up Europe after the giant world war (split into two parts, WWI and WWII). In essence, a long world war, Europe was completely drained of blood, lost all its potential and dominance, and the US picked it up.
Ideologically, they have very little in common. American national mythology is built on completely contrasting itself with the European continent, European monarchies, and so on.
It was just a confluence of circumstances. There were many reasons and factors that determined it, of course.
But now those factors have exhausted themselves, so the Americans are saying, “Guys, that’s it, this history is over. We won’t abandon you, too much has been invested, and interests still exist in some key areas. And the Americans understand that divorcing Europe means transitioning relations into a format of competition and rivalry at a certain stage.” That’s also completely obvious. So it will happen more or less carefully. The sides will at least try to avoid conflict situations where they can be avoided. I don’t know if that’s possible, though.
That, essentially, is what the Munich Conference was mainly about and why it’s genuinely interesting.
Everything else, Europe in this context, is a purely intra-European story, and within the European elites in a broad sense, there is a very different attitude towards this conflict and its prospects, and accordingly, where the interest lies and how the strategic landscape might change further.
I am absolutely convinced that there is no such notorious, centuries-old Russophobia that the European elite supposedly lives by. They don’t give a damn about any Russophobia. Ideology is an invention of the 20th century. Before the 20th century, no ideology existed. So why deceive ourselves? As a famous British politician said, Britain has no permanent allies, only permanent interests. But that applies to any large sovereign country. Today it’s one way, tomorrow another.
The same applies, possibly, to the relations of a “Greater Europe” with Russia. Yes, today we have a war to the bitter end, as they say. It might not even be five years before they start building another gas pipeline, and talks begin again about building a “Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” This is entirely possible, including in the context of the ongoing divorce between Old Europe and the United States.
(Subtitles by DimaTorzok)
Interviewer:
February. Four years since it started [the war]. People say different things. Some say four years have passed, some say the fifth year is starting. Whichever you prefer. For yourself, what is the main result of these four years? I understand it’s a very broad topic. But just for yourself, as a political scientist, a journalist, and as a person, what have you taken away from it?
Sergei:
The main result of the war, actually, is very simple. This war completely cancels 1991. That’s what it’s about. If you like, you can view it as a war for independence. Although, in our TV, it’s common… I’ve conducted experiments on this repeatedly. People react very painfully to the thesis that the USSR lost the Cold War. They say, “No, it wasn’t a defeat…” and then the wordplay begins.
Of course it was a defeat. A country collapses, it’s a defeat. Historical Russia… though we can’t even say “historical Russia” in that sense. The USSR was an imperial-type state in its political structure. And the empire collapsed, losing a huge share of its population, enormous resources, its entire geostrategic and geopolitical transit system was broken, its economy was destroyed. The collapse meant the loss of most of its economic potential, built over decades within that large country.
So it was a catastrophe, as Putin once called it, without going into details. But it was a national catastrophe.
After that, for several decades, Russia possessed sovereignty only very conditionally. We can debate whether that’s true or not – “but we had nuclear bombs!” – but nobody cared about those nuclear bombs. Anyone my age can perfectly recall how life was structured, who sat in the Kremlin and in all the union republics, how policy and economic ties were actually built. By and large, you couldn’t speak of any sovereignty.
The Russian, or rather former Soviet, army barely managed to win the Second Chechen War, with an incredible strain of all forces, even though it was an army operation.
Then we went through a long path – I won’t retell it, this isn’t a lecture on the history of the Pechenegs and Cumans [a Russian phrase meaning “ancient, irrelevant history”]. We can mark a few key points: Putin’s 2007 Munich speech, the operation in Georgia – the first attempt to assert itself as a country capable of projecting political will and force, even though it’s embarrassing to say, “we defeated Georgia.” Then 2014, but that was also very specific. On one hand, a brilliant operation to annex Crimea. But then, Russian tanks stopped 20 kilometers from Mariupol. Again, it doesn’t matter now whether Russia was ready then to go all the way against the West or not; the point is, it happened as it happened. In my opinion, Russia internally was not ready for it. The Russian elite wasn’t ready.
And 2022, yes, that’s an absolutely watershed event. Here, we can’t just talk about how the war went, how its character changed, what happened inside Russia. That’s all secondary, as it seems to me.
The main thing is the assertion of absolute sovereignty. Right? Let’s see, nothing is over yet. Whether it works out or not remains to be seen.
But the declaration that we, for the right to decide our own fate and defend our interests, are ready to go to absolutely any lengths – that is the declaration of a sovereign party.
These are the results of the war.
And this, in fact, explains the incredible ferocity of the so-called “united West.” They perceive this as an existential challenge. It doesn’t threaten their existence, so “existential conflict” is the wrong term. But it cancels them as victors.
Imagine how we react when someone says, “Hey guys, what ’45 are you talking about? Who did you even defeat?” We defeated Hitler, excuse me, that’s who we defeated. For them, it’s about the same. They won, and now they’re being told, “No. It’s all over. The victory is cancelled.”
But for us, it’s a matter of to be or not to be. Again, “to be” will happen regardless, obviously. But to be as a non-sovereign and dependent state, or to be somehow.
That’s about it, probably.
Interviewer:
Well, you know, again, if we dig a little into history, including Russian history, we have this mindset where we need everything to be fast. We still talk with such embarrassment and trepidation, “Oh my god, the war has been going on for 4 years!” Seriously? The last Russo-Polish war, as a result of which Kyiv was bought for some tens of thousands of silver ducats, lasted 12 years, mind you. And that was just one of the Russo-Polish wars. I could go on looking at wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, how long they lasted.
I’m saying this because history doesn’t end tomorrow. There’s no need to imbue any crisis or any war with some kind of sacred meaning, as if it’s the last war ever. It’s clear we all have the Great Patriotic War [WWII] hardwired in our brains, and the comparisons. As historians say, WWII was more of an exception to the rule. There were no wars like that. It was devoid of any sense or logic. And imagining it could repeat under current conditions is pretty difficult. The age of ideologies, the 20th century, is over. There is no ideology today. We’ve returned more to the 18th century, to pragmatism. Digital feudalism, if you will. It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point now.
I am very calm about, say, online hysterics like, “Oh my god, we absolutely must reach Lviv right now, or we’ve lost! Otherwise, Ukraine will recover, etc.” Usually, this is written by people who have no intention of walking to Lviv themselves, or sending their children there. That’s an axiom, actually.
But again, that’s not the point. The point is, it’s pretty foolish to fantasize. For example, the Russo-Japanese War ended in 1945. Actually, yes, in 1905 the Empire signed the Treaty of Portsmouth. And then Stalin said, “Now the Russo-Japanese War has ended the way it should have ended.” That’s it.
So, is a peace now possible that is essentially a truce? Absolutely possible. Will it last long? I think not very long. Will a new war start after that? I am practically 100% convinced of it.
There’s no doubt that Russia’s geopolitical goal, again, following the past 35 years, is the complete deconstruction of the Ukrainian state-political project. There should be no Ukrainian state in that place. Not pro-Russian, not anti-Russian, none at all. The very idea, the essence of this project, as it was initially formed – and it began forming not in ’91, but much, much earlier – in its DNA, has no alternative scenarios. And if it has no alternative scenarios, then this chimera must be destroyed.
Well, okay, not now, and it’s not at all necessary to achieve this exclusively by military means. It would be preferable not to achieve it by military means. It would be preferable if that same “Ruin” happened there without our participation. I, at least, would prefer that Russian people not die in this war.
That’s the whole logic. This is a process. And 4 years, 5 years, 3 years – it’s not measured like that.
Interviewer:
No, you know, as they say… there’s a rather naive approach to human history. “Human history is the history of wars.” But that’s not entirely true. It’s just that to resolve certain insoluble political or even ideological conflicts, humans have no other tool but to start shooting their opponent. Whether anyone likes it or not? What does “not like it” mean? I could, of course, fall back on the unprovable concept of progress, that progress exists, that we are becoming different, we are becoming better. I, for example, proceed from the fact that people don’t change at all. Human nature is unchanged. Man, as he was 2000 years ago, has remained exactly the same. Absolutely exactly the same.
Therefore, certain conflicts and crises arise that cannot be resolved otherwise than by figuring out who’s the alpha, who will dominate. Some conflicts in human history have very often ended in genocide, or in great migrations, the displacement of entire ethnic groups from their so-called native lands. This happened, and if you look at Eurasia, it’s happening now. You’d have to be blind or a liar to deny that fact. It’s happening right now.
Again, one doesn’t need to be a poet of this future war, nor be afraid of it. You just need to remain a reasonable, responsible person who treats himself, his family, his loved ones, and his country – let’s say, the place where he lives – with reason and responsibility. That’s it.
And that, it seems to me, is more than enough to somehow moderate the chaos that exists around us.
Interviewer:
Well, it will moderate over time, of course. But, as I often repeat, the main thing is… to live to see it.
Sergei:
To live, to live, to live to see it moderate. Yes. And most importantly, to have it happen in our lifetime.
Interviewer:
And most importantly, probably, it turns out that this moderation of chaos happens, forgive me, at the expense of Slavic blood, which is now being shed on both sides. That’s it. If it weren’t for this fact, maybe we would look at it all more calmly from somewhere else. But it’s all happening with us, and these are our relatives, our friends, all together.
Sergei:
We lost the war, so we are paying for it. If we’re going to talk about who is responsible for what, what historical responsibility, a certain historical predetermination exists, it seems to me, to a certain extent.
What makes you think – I’m not addressing you personally – that what happened a generation ago doesn’t have its price, which will have to be paid, including by us and our descendants? What makes you think that?
That ’91, how we… For the first 10 years, I often said, “Thank God, how did we get so lucky that it all happened peacefully, and not like in Yugoslavia, where the slaughter started immediately?” I was wrong. It was just a delayed slaughter. Just delayed.
But we are, in the end, all living in the same 1991, which caught up with us in 2022. How else can you look at it? Again, nothing is eternal under the moon, and this too, probably.
Interviewer:
Well, I’d like to see how it ends, of course. And often, when you reflect, you think, “Will we live to see it?” And the second point, of course, is that we really wouldn’t want to pass these problems on to our children, and so on. Which is also a possibility, something we’d really rather not have. But otherwise, well, yes, history develops, whether we want it to or not. That’s just how it is today.
Sergei:
That’s just how it is today.
Interviewer:
Thank you very much, Sergei, for your opinion, for this conversation.
Sergei:
Yes, thank you. All the best, good luck.
Interviewer:
All the best, goodbye.
(Subtitles adjusted by “Simon!”)
Synopsis
In this interview on Belarusian state TV, political analyst Sergei discusses the recent Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s behavior, and the broader implications of the war.
Key points:
- Zelenskyy’s Irrelevance and Trauma: The analyst dismisses Zelenskyy as a marginal figure (“an extra,” “a pretty girl at an exhibition”) at the conference, where the real story was the growing split between the US and Europe. He attributes Zelenskyy’s aggressive rhetoric to panic and confusion, but more deeply to a personal psychological trauma from growing up as a Jew in Soviet Ukraine, allegedly leading to a hatred of “khokhols” (a derogatory term for Ukrainians). He interprets Zelenskyy’s “go home” comment as a twisted echo of Soviet-era anti-Semitic slurs he himself might have heard.
- Inevitable Catastrophe for Ukraine: Sergei predicts a horrific future for Ukraine, envisioning a complete collapse into internal chaos and civil war (“The Ruin”) once the current political structures fail. He argues that deep historical traumas and internal hatreds within Ukraine will lead to a massacre, which he believes would ultimately have to be stopped by Russian forces, as in the 18th century.
- US-Europe “Divorce”: He views the Munich conference as marking the definitive end of the post-WWII “united West.” The US is signaling a pragmatic divorce from Europe, moving towards a relationship of competition. While this will be managed carefully, it signifies a major geopolitical shift.
- War’s Core Meaning: Cancelling 1991: The central thesis is that the current war is fundamentally about overturning the results of 1991 – the collapse of the USSR, which he frames as a defeat and a national catastrophe for Russia. He argues that Russia lacked true sovereignty in the post-Soviet era, and the 2022 invasion is a declaration of absolute sovereignty, a bid to reclaim its status as an independent power capable of defending its interests at any cost. For the West, this nullifies their victory in the Cold War.
- Long Historical Perspective: He cautions against expecting a quick end, noting that historical conflicts (like the Russo-Polish wars) lasted for decades. A truce is possible, but another war is almost certain, as Russia’s goal is the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state project. He advises a calm, responsible, and family-focused approach to weathering the ongoing historical chaos, viewing the current bloodshed as the delayed price of the 1991 collapse.