Volodymyr Yermolenko on Twitter / X
“Let's make some clarifications. A thread
- Russians want (always wanted) to ban Ukrainians from using their language in Ukraine. Ukrainians do NOT want to ban Russians from using Russian language in Russia
- Moreover: Ukrainians are ok with Russians speaking Russian in their daily life in Ukraine and even with Ukrainians speaking Russian in their daily life. What they want is to help Ukrainian language and culture rise from centuries of oppression
- Russians claim they are a minority in Ukraine which should be protected. In fact, after centuries of imperial domination Russian politics/language/culture has become a majority in Ukraine and suppressed local culture. Defining themselves as minority is an imperial hypocrisy
So Russians have been a majority defining themselves as minority, and colonizers defining themselves as colonized. This is a hypocricy of the Russian imperialism. But this has been changing, and Russians have been gradually losing their positions in Ukraine in the past decades.
- Russians want to annihilate Ukraine as a nation. Ukrainians want to annihilate Russia as an empire. Ukrainians have no wish to annihilate Russia as a nation. Nations can live side by side; empires want to erase other nations. Ukrainians want to destroy the RU imperial drive
- This is not a war in which Russians and Ukrainians are killing each other. This is a war in which Russia invaded Ukraine and holds the war on its territory. This is a war in which Russia kills both Ukrainians and Russians on the Ukrainian territory
- Russian politics & culture are obsessed with the idea of greatness. This greatness is associated with violence. That one is great who can be cruel. Greatness is an ideology of small people who can only accept their own existence if they are part of something "great"
- Transforming Russia is only possible as a result of Russian military defeat. Only defeat will pomote an idea that cruel and violent politics is making Russia less "great", not more "great". And that there should be a different idea of "greatness"
- To overcome the toxic idea of greatness Russians will one day need to reformulate their toxic correlation "great state - small people" into "small state - great people". For that, Russia will need to become small.
Period”
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Volodymyr Yermolenko on Twitter / X
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