Four years ago, my wife and I joined a gathering in front of the Russian embassy in Vilnius to protest the war Moscow started in Ukraine. It was a bitter cold night but there was enough heat rising up from the many people to keep us warm as speakers and performers spoke out against the war loud enough for Russian officials to hear. In the years since the street to the embassy has been renamed Ukrainian Heroes Street, much to the chagrin of embassy officials. I'm surprised we still have official contact with Russia as the Kremlin has labeled Lithuania and Poland as their greatest enemies. They seem to still regard Ukraine as a wayward brother they can bring back into the fold.
It's a long history that dates back to the 1795 partitions when Russia under Catherine the Not-So-Great divided Poland and claimed Lithuania as their own. Poland and Lithuania had formed a joint kingdom in the 16th century that had survived for many years despite Russia ceaselessly pecking away at its borders. The Kremlin had already claimed much of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania that at one time included Ruthenia or Old Rus, which is today Belarus and Ukraine, appropriating its language and culture, and moving the Metropolis of Kiev to the Patriarchate of Moscow in 1685. It was only a matter of time before they would make an even bigger land grab that included all the Slavic nations.
Lithuania and the other Baltic States, Estonia and Latvia, were never Slavic states but it didn't matter. Peter wanted control of the Baltic Sea and eventually his granddaughter-in-law was able to get it. She inherited the throne through Peter's "idiot" grandson. No one quite knows the circumstances but Peter III was forced to abdicate the throne shortly after he became Tsar and was subsequently killed. Catherine ruthlessly assumed the role of Empress, although her iron reign has been greatly romanticized in the years hence. There's no love for Catherine in Eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, we had to live with Russian occupation for over a century, 1795-1918. I say "we" because I have been living in Lithuania for nearly 30 years and call it my home. There were a few uprisings along the way. The most famous of which was the student uprising in 1863-64, known as the January Uprising. Vilnius University, which dated back to the 16th century, was permanently closed. While stabilizing the Gediminas castle hill in 2019, bodies were discovered that forensically matched the student leaders who were executed. For decades, Russian authorities claimed they had simply disappeared. This past month, Ukrainian Pres. Zelenskyy joined Lithuanian and Polish Presidents Nauseda and Nawrocki in Vilnius to commemorate that event. Speeches attested to what each of these countries have endured under the shadow of Russia.
It's a never-ending battle largely because Russia has never once admitted, let alone apologized for the heinous acts of aggression and war it has committed against its neighboring countries. For decades it tried to claim Lithuania never existed other than as a figment of imagination, much like Russia now tries to claim that Ukraine has no national claims. The Kremlin has gone out of its way to demean Poland and our neighbors to north, Latvia and Estonia. The Duma even tried to deny that Lithuania's secession from the Soviet Union was valid in 2022, introducing a bill that would have revoked recognition of the country's independence.
This brings up an interesting question. Why does Russia identify itself with the Soviet Union, especially after it dissolved its union with the USSR in 1991? The short answer is that they are one in the same imperial power. As Catherine was successfully able to do in 1795, the Soviet Union was more or less able to create a pan-Slavic Republic between 1918-1945. Stalin modeled himself after the Tsars, as Putin does today. It was never about creating a "socialist state." It was about imperial power. By claiming the Baltic countries, the Soviet Union could literally stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean and thereby increase its global reach. The Soviet Union represented the modern version of the Russian Empire, one Russians could more easily identify with.
There was a hope back in the 1990s that Russians would move away from this imperialist mindset but sadly that didn't happen. Even the more liberal minds among them still saw Ukraine as their own. They never could fully accept its independence. Russians felt they shared the same cultural identity but as it turned out Ukrainians didn't feel the same way. They desperately wanted their independence, first in 1991, then again in 2004-2005, and once again in 2014. Each time, Russia tried to deny them that right, interfering in their elections and finally seizing Crimea outright in 2014 after the enormous protest in Euromaidan square. We could brothers, sisters or whatever you want us to be but on equal terms. Putin like the Russian Tsars and Soviet Premiers before him has never been able to accept that. For him, these countries are subordinate to Russia.
Ukraine could have been in the EU long before now but the Orange Revolution was crushed in 2010 and any hopes of joining the EU put on hold indefinitely. Ukraine has always been part of Europe and readily identifies with Europe. Russia has vacillated back and forth over the centuries. The Russia we know today was born out of Mongol blood that eventually mixed itself with European blood to become this hybrid nation. As such it is torn between the two continents. Yet, we continue to treat Russia as an extension of ourselves when in reality Russia has always hated us.
One can understand that hate to some degree given Napoleon's march across Russia in the early 19th century and Hitler's ill-fated invasion in 1941. Petersburg was the first to fall in both cases but the foreign armies hadn't taken into account the vast distance between Petersburg and Moscow and found themselves trapped in an unforgiving Russian winter that saw both armies forced to retreat. But those aren't the values Europe holds today and yet Russia still thinks in archaic terms, nursing these wounds, and forever seeing Europe as an enemy, at least in political terms.
The Russian oligarchs loved Europe as they were able to live large for so many years until Putin did the unthinkable by invading Ukraine. These oligarchs saw their assets quickly frozen, their yachts seized, and some of them even indicted for money-laundering schemes. So now they hate Europe too, having moved to more friendly Arab states.
It didn't matter that the EU and the United States did everything to bring Russia into their fold after the collapse of the Soviet Union, extending billions of dollars for redevelopment, granting Russia G7 status and even working to upgrade its military by sharing new technology and conducting joint NATO exercises. We were all waiting for a kinder, gentler Russia to emerge from the economic chaos of the 90s but instead we got Putin.
You could see from the start this wasn't going to go well. Rather than accept help from a nearby Norwegian and British navy ships, he allowed the Kursk nuclear submarine to sink, killing all those onboard. When terrorists overtook a theater in Moscow, Putin used an unspecified nerve gas to quickly subdue the terrorists so that his troops could storm the auditorium. Over 100 persons died from the nerve gas as the Kremlin refused to divulge the type of gas used so that doctors were powerless to save these persons. The worst incident of all was the Beslan school siege in 2004. Here again, Putin refused to negotiate and as a result more than 300 persons were killed when troops stormed the school. 186 school children died.
Yet, the West continued to treat Putin as if he was a sane, rational man. All the while he was adapting his army to the rapidly changing technologies and plotting his long-term ambition to reclaim the full extents of the Soviet if not the Russian empire. We all knew this in Eastern Europe, as we had lived through it, but the West somehow couldn't bring itself to believe Putin had such territorial ambitions.
We got the first taste in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia, effectively bringing the "Rose Revolution" to a close and giving the northern territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia protectorate status. Once again, the West shrugged. Obama tried to "reset" ties with Russia in 2009. More deceit and lies for the next four years but the US made a game effort to bring Russia to the table, largely to help in its ongoing war in Afghanistan. In 2020, it was discovered that Russia was putting bounties on American soldiers' heads in Afghanistan, effectively aiding the Taliban. While those reports were never proved conclusive, Russia was the first country to recognize the Taliban government.
Again nothing new, Putin had installed a ruthless dictatorship in Chechnya after finally defeating its insurrection in 2000. That Mongol blood rising to the surface.
Yet, European leaders continued to give Putin the benefit of the doubt right up to February 15, 2022. They didn't believe he would go through with his invasion of Ukraine despite amassing more than 200,000 troops on the border. French President Macron and German Chancellor Scholz both faced the ignominy at sitting at the end of a comically long table pleading with Putin to withdraw his forces long after Biden had given up any hope of Putin pulling back.
For years, the West had been fed this notion that Putin was a pragmatist. He understood the extent of his power and wouldn't engage beyond the regional conflicts he had orchestrated. Yet, Putin had been gaming the West for decades, much to the chagrin of Eastern European leaders who had called him out on his many lies. In the United States, his "traditional values" message resonated with religious conservatives, while pitching an environmental message to the left. Leonardo DiCaprio traveled to St. Petersburg to visit Putin in 2010 to discuss the fate of the Siberian tiger. Leo found Vlad to be a "very, very, very interesting man."
What was interesting was how easily the West fell for Putin's "charm offensive." He didn't even have to use sultry secret agents like Maria Butina, who wormed her way into the hearts of American gun owners. He just put on a carefully cultivated facade of feigned interest in their causes and guys like Leo bought it hook, line and sinker. The biggest dupe was Oliver Stone, who devoted a four-part interview to Putin for Showtime in 2017. Even after Russia invaded Ukraine, which Stone said Putin would never do, Ollie went to the Victory Day parade in Moscow last year.
Putin has charmed so many American and European celebrities and officials that I long ago lost count. Some have admitted their shame but others continue to cling to him including the rapidly deteriorating Donald Trump, who personally invited Putin to be on his Board of Peace and continues to insist he will broker a deal in Ukraine that will win him and Vlad a Nobel Peace Prize. He's given Zelenskyy until June to acquiesce to his demands.
The cynicism is incredible especially when Putin's right-hand man, Sergei Lavrov bemoans the inhumane blockade the United States is imposing on Cuba. Meanwhile, Russia sends up to 500 drones and missiles Ukraine's way every night, destroying its utilities infrastructure and forcing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to sit through brutally freezing weather. Yea, Sergei, it is fucking appalling!
This is why so many Eastern Europeans hate Russians now. Before they blamed the evil government in Moscow but after four years you start to wonder how Russians tolerate this. The protests that were heard at the beginning of the war are over. Dissidents have left the country because it was either that or be sent to prison. It was recently discovered that one of Putin's most outspoken critics, Alexei Navalny, was killed with dart frog poison while serving a long sentence in Siberia. This after being previously poisoned and medevacked to Germany where he recovered only to return and challenge Putin's authority once again.
I suppose Alexei was trying to inspire Russians to speak out against Putin, but sadly fear has silenced them. You have to think at some point Russians will come to terms with the inordinate number of men being wounded and killed in Ukraine for their president's "military action." Putin still refuses to call it a war despite over 1.3 million casualties with at least 300,000 deaths. Russians are being killed at a clip of 3:1 to their Ukrainian counterparts. Until Russians take to the streets, Putin will continue his slavish war because that is literally the only thing he knows how to do.
He has failed Russia in every regard. He hasn't brought peace or prosperity. He has made Russia the pariah of the world community. Russians can't even compete in international sports events under their flag other than the Paralympics, which has led to a massive walkout from the opening ceremonies in Milan. Russia even had to resurrect its own songfest after being banned from Eurovision. You would think Russians would feel immense shame, yet hardly a peep from anyone except those who have fled the country.
Fortunately, the attention has turned back to Ukraine. It looked like the war was being forgotten with all the other atrocities being committed around the world, namely in Gaza where Israel and the United States have the audacity to claim they are rebuilding the former Palestinian territory. There's no way to sweep Ukraine under the rug, as much as Donald Trump would like to. The best thing would be for the United States to quit attempting to broker a deal as they have utterly failed the process, clearly showing favoritism toward Russia. This peace deal has to be brokered through Europe. If you can't help, Donald, then get out of the way.
We will see what happens over the course of another long year. At least, it is starting to warm up in Eastern Europe and Ukrainians will get a little break from the insufferable freezing temperatures. Great efforts have been made to send generators and other means to keep their homes and emergency centers warm. I remember the long lines to give jackets and warm clothing to Ukrainians back in 2022. Lithuania has long stood for Ukraine and will continue to do so.
Their freedom is our freedom and vice-versa. We know what it is like to suffer through these cold winters of discontent, having gone through it ourselves in 1990-1991. We didn't suffer as badly as Ukraine has these last four years but there is peace on the other side. It has to be on our own terms. Not Russia's terms. This is what the Trump administration fails to understand.
So once again, Slava Ukraini! Heroyam slava!
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