In times of crisis , people’s core personality features are bared for all to see. This is true both at the individual and at the collective level. War is a perfect storm that comprehensively tests everyone it affects. From the first days of the war unleashed by Russia, a striking gap between Ukrainians and Russians became apparent: at the moment when Ukrainians rallied to defend their country and support the Army, Russians focussed on a destroy and kill attitude. This is a fundamental difference that completely destroys any credence in the Kremlin’s ideological dogma about “one people” with “common roots.”
People’s world view in war times comes under increased pressure and stress. A person loses all protective barriers and exposes his true self to scrutiny. In the Ukrainian settlements occupied by Russian invaders, many of the Russian “liberators” engage in extortion, looting, killing civilians, and other acts of violence. According to eyewitnesses who managed to flee the occupied areas of the northwestern part of Kyiv region, Russian soldiers openly display moral decline and disregard for any human values. They destroy and plunder. By comparison even the so-called “Kadyrov’s forces” – the ethnic Chechen units – behave with more dignity. The average Russian conscript, newly of school, is a stereotype image of Putin’s Russia: deceitful, vile, envious, striving to break into the neighbour’s yard, never missing a chance to steal, and totally brainwashed by Kremlin propaganda.
The same is true of today’s Russian society – poisoned by criminal Kremlin propaganda, hating the whole world, and believing that in Ukraine the Russian army is killing Russia’s enemies. Modern Russians are simply unable to critically comprehend a different version of events than the one they are shown on TV screens. That is why they allowed Putin to start this criminal war in the first place, thereby confirming the thesis that most ordinary Russians are morally deformed and corrupt.
This is the key difference between Russians, who have failed to find their place in the modern world, and Ukrainians, a nation which, despite the war and terror waged by the Kremlin, is building its own country and striving to create a better future founded on the principles of freedom and self-determination.
