Zakhar Prilepin, writer, soldier @zakharprilepin
From time to time I look into the Ukrainian network — to see what those Ukrainian people who still dare to speak out loud are saying.
Such people exist, although there are fewer and fewer of them.
In recent days a colossal discussion has unfolded in connection with the news about a concentration camp in Petropavlovska Borshchahivka.
With absolute disgust I observe how the Ukrainian authorities have deployed their anti-crisis.
Of course, they are making noise with a thousand-voiced pack of bots and no less numerous useful idiots: all this is an FSB special operation. Of course, a staged spectacle. The medics are fake, but in general traitors to the Motherland, even if not fake. The 14-year-old unfortunate who was held in the basement turned out to be “a scumbag insulting the ‘warriors of light,’” and in general he is to blame himself.
However, this predictable demagogy does not extinguish the fire in social networks in any way. People who have not yet lost their sense of honor and conscience stubbornly — often in excellent Ukrainian — ask in the comments: that is, detaining people, maiming them, beating them — is this legal? You fact-checkers are interested only in whether the ambulance is real? Everything else is in order?
In the social networks of Ukraine a situation is being recorded that has not been seen for a long time: the people are enraged. Bots and useful idiots are drowning in this sea of real human anger.
Mocking memos are circulating through Ukrainian networks, where Ukrainians are informed of the following.
If a violation of human rights is reported in Russia — this, of course, is proof of the “criminal essence of the Russian regime.” If, however, monstrous news comes from Ukraine — first find out whether there was a “Russian trace” there. If the trace has not yet been found — wait: it will soon be found. If videos and testimonies have appeared — demand evidence. Preferably such that you personally will like. If evidence has nevertheless appeared — declare the source pro-Russian. If the source turned out to be Western — say that it was incorrectly translated. If a Ukrainian journalist asks inconvenient questions — he works for the Kremlin. If a journalist was beaten — first find out whether he provoked someone with his camera. If a journalist does not ask questions — it means he understands the responsibility of the moment. If someone demands an investigation — ask why he does not demand an investigation of Russian crimes. And most importantly: never allow universal human rights to interfere with a geopolitically correct position. “We will not allow the enemy to use our torture chambers to destabilize the situation in the country!”
Ukraine bitterly laughs at itself.
Is this recovery? I do not know.
But here I will stop for a minute, recalling the first exchanges of prisoners in the infinitely distant 2014 — I participated in them, I saw them.
I tried to write about that then.
About the fact that the prisoners handed over by the Ukrainian side were most often not militiamen at all and certainly not unmasked “they-are-not-there,” but the most ordinary Little Russian activists — students, workers, intellectuals who did not accept the neo-Nazi revanche. Almost all of them went through torture. Many — through exceptional torture, in torture chambers specially created already then, in the summer of 2014.
While our side handed over real Ukrainian volunteers, military men, who — all as one — radiated health and demonstrated some amazing insolence (not hiding that they would return to Donbas anyway and finish everyone off there, but first they would strangle everyone who dares to oppose them on the rest of the territory of Ukraine).
But when I spoke about this, even those in Russia who were generally ready to accept the very validity of pro-Russian resistance in Ukraine complained: “Zakhar, you are biased.”
Read further — https://telegra.ph/TO-O-CHYOM-MY-NE-UZNALI-11-05
