Colta.ru has published a really good interview with Vasily Budik, a Ukrainian negotiator. I liked it so much that I decided to translate a passage:
“Why didn’t I become Bezler’s assistant? For a simple reason: I don’t support his views. He sees some big Russian world, a “sister country” led by the “Big Brother”. If I wanted to live in Russia, I would be living in Russia, not in Ukraine. I don’t support the Russian state. I don’t like Putin, and I don’t like that the centre of Russia is living well but the rest is total drunkenness. I’ve traveled a lot in Ukraine and I seldom see abandoned villages, but in Russia I saw them all the time. Just a step away from Moscow is the far side of the Moon.”
This actually corresponds to what I know about Ukraine. It is very much part of Europe in that particular sense – Ukrainians love their land and cherish it. Ukraine is a warm living space. Russia, on the contrary, is a vast frozen land where Arctic winds howl and where masses of people have never known (or cared for) comfort. In some metaphysical sense the war in Donbass is a struggle between comfort and chaos.
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