I’m often asked for my opinion on the Ukrainian crisis. In France politics are a deeply valuable table subject where even the deepest, most painful topics are dissected in the finest detail. No shame in asking a Ukrainian about her home, I suppose. There's just one problem: my answer is quite surprising and a bit repulsive to some. Why ask a question when you expect a certain answer?
Ukraine is merely 25-years-old, quite young compared to all other nations. Only a bit younger than that, I belong to nearly the first generation of Ukraine as an independent country. I have experienced crises such as the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan firsthand, although not always permanently in the country. Now I am myself living abroad, studying a language I do not speak and trying to figure out some direction in life. Multiply those personal issues of a college student by roughly 45.5 million, and you have a confused and lost population of a fairly new country going through an identity crisis.
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Going back to my initial question, I am always expected to express outward hatred of Russia. In fact, in my experience, Russia is to blame for everything in Ukraine and not. Russia is just as young as Ukraine, but three times bigger with that many times more problems and dozens more cultural differences to deal with. Let’s forget the current situation for a moment to look at the overall situation of an older, bigger country that had to start anew; Ukraine is a smaller, less experienced country that followed the same path. Thus, both countries were destined to encounter problems proportional to their sizes.
Imagine if I just turned around to my parents and blamed them for my own indecisiveness and irresponsibility. My parents, who grew up during the Soviet Union, were forced to accept that they now lived in a different country and adopt new government ideals as well. They had to adapt just as I had, and that mimics the more tense relationship between Russia and Ukraine. There's a difference in dealing with a similar situation because of distinctions between the two.
Fortunately, due to physical and political barriers, Russia and Ukraine are still largely unexplored and thus unspoiled areas by consistent bloggers. Unfortunately, the few news clips that we receive from Russia involve p*ssies, corruption and homophobia that do not always parallel reality. From Ukraine we have images of pig fat, protests and anti-Russian propaganda. While pig fat and p*ssies may indeed reflect reality, no devil is as scary as he is painted, and neither are these unexplored places.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, with all due respect, has kept the geographically largest country on Earth still pertinent in international politics. With highly questionable tactics, he keeps in-country production at an all-time high. He even maintains international relations while still maintaining a strong personal opinion. Some of his actions, especially those involving taking back Crimea, were rash and quite rude to say the least. I cannot fully support him in these cases, but neither can I support the golden-toilet ex-Ukrainian president or the current, corrupt chocolate magnate of a president. Both countries are extremely inexperienced and worse, dissonant within.
Could anyone else have done a better job than Putin? Perhaps. But his most important accomplishment is a generation of open-minded millennials that will soon replace his generation with new time-suiting legislations. The situation is a bit more difficult in Ukraine, where education was not as stressed throughout the country, but either way, change is bound to happen as the country matures and figures out its political mentality.
No, I do not hate Russia, nor will I blame all of my country's problems on Putin. Either way, I am Ukrainian after all, so Слава Україні!
