“Every day checking on the news with dread in case things are even worse... Feel so helpless.”  MT

It is tempting to end the blog at this point, with these simple messages and images.  But the issues relating to Ukraine and Russia are complex (what an understatement) and deserve at least a modicum of discussion.

Terroir has no specialist knowledge on the geography, history or politics of Ukraine.  We have not even been there, although we have visited Bulgaria, Romania and, briefly, Russia (just Moscow and St Petersburg).  So nothing qualifies us to talk with any sort of first-hand experience.  A review of even the briefest histories of Ukraine and Russia has left us overwhelmed and confused.  So what to do?

We decided to approach friends and family via email or WhatsApp.  We asked if the recipient had been to Ukraine and what they felt we should do about current situation, either individually or as a nation.  By this means we contacted well over 70 people.   Thank you to everyone we pestered and a special thank you to those who responded in time to influence the content of this blog. 

Other suggestions, in order of popularity, were:

More sanctions: there were many references to gas and oil but some went further - “By this [sanctions] I mean severing aLL trade with Russia (and not just the bits that suit us) … . Of course this would raise prices and probably shortages here but that's a price worth paying I think” TT. “My biggest worry is that the issue will fade into the background not to mention the people who will not make a sacrifice of their own to help the people of Ukraine (Higher prices for food, fuel, etc).” MK

NATO: don’t get NATO involved; get NATO  involved in humanitarian work

No fly zone: impose and enforce.

Communication: strengthen diplomatic links; communicate with Russia via channels the people would trust.  Works both ways though: “[Russian friend produced an article by] a famous journalist [John Pilger] which basically said everything that was happening could be laid at the feet of the West.  I’m sure there is some truth in what he says but whatever the evils and decadence and weakness and mistakes of the West, there is surely only one person responsible for what is happening and that is Putin.” SC

Prayer: keep Ukraine in our thoughts/prayers

Safe Corridors: “probably wishful thinking, but create or improve safe corridors which lead to the places where Ukrainians wish to go” HN

British Government: all comments critical and mostly unprintable

Putin: again, largely unprintable but – “Putin is a man obsessed surrounded by brutal people who are keeping him there in their own self interest.” PM; “abolish toxic masculinity” RW.

There are other views though: “I cannot help but feel sorry for the people of Russia whose country will carry the guilt for Putin’s actions.” DG.  “The Russians we know in the UK are as shocked as we are.” LD

Talking to others with a knowledge of Russian history, Terroir has begun to realise that the world cannot afford to ignore Russia’s feelings of insecurity, an emotion which often underpins antisocial actions.  Terroir put this to a friend who has visited both Ukraine and Russia on numerous occasions, and we are deeply indebted to his response, excerpts of which we reproduce below: 

“I'm trying to keep in touch with my Russian friends - those I have heard of I am sure are horrified about what is going on, although they are expressing it somewhat obliquely - partly I suspect  because it’s very dangerous to say outright that the war is wrong, and partly because that's what Russians do anyway! But my friends are intellectuals and western looking, mostly in St Petersburg, the " window on the west", [and] have visited US, UK and other European countries - if they were English they would read the Guardian.  Much harder to tell what the poorly educated Russian in the heartland thinks, who only get their information from Russia's answer to the Daily Mail and Fox News.

I think the importance of Russian insecurity, even paranoia, is not understood or discussed enough in the West.  Anyone over 40 who grew up in Russia, grew up being told that the West were nasty imperialists out to do down the USSR. This was the world Putin was brought up in - he was in the KGB … .  Russia went from being the top dog in an empire covering a third of the world to a single country with a collapsed economy. I remember when in the 1990's we were celebrating Russian Independence Day my friend Yuri, then in his 60's said ‘Independent from whom?’, even though he had been a dissident because of his interest in psychoanalysis and as he put it to me once " had been treated as a non-person"

 In the 1990's and 2000's The West reached out to the Baltic states and Eastern European countries, but much less so to Russia - why did we not invite them to join NATO in 1995?  Someone said that Russia now must feel as people in the UK would have felt in the late 20th century if Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands had all joined the Warsaw pact.

Going further back Russia has nearly always been governed by autocrats who combined incompetence with malevolence - Putin is in the tradition of most of the 19th and early 20th century Tsars, Lenin and  Stalin.

Although most of the Ukrainians I met were proudly Ukrainian … the way the Government has flipped between Russia leaning and West leaning in the last 30 years suggests that there are probably divisions within the population - and we know there are many in Crimea and the East who want to be Russian.

None of this excuses Putin but it might help to understand what is going on.”  https://sites.google.com/site/peterdtoon/

© Y Fontanel