«Revolutions always reminded of Mao Tze Tung are never a gala dinner». And wars a lot less. To understand this, just watch the video published in Europe by the German newspaper Bild. In this video, we first see a dozen Russian soldiers on the ground, bleeding and in pain, and then Kalashnikov fires at the legs of three of their comrades who have just been pulled out of a van. In short, a group of gambles intended as summary punishment for a Russian reconnaissance unit captured on the battlefield and suspected of trying to get in behind the lines.
The video, shot around Kharkiv, the city just 30 kilometers from the Russian border that has been under siege for over a month, is a real gut punch. But this horrific video, albeit brutal, has an instructive aspect. In fact, it helps to understand the horror of war. And above all, the horrors of a conflict like that in Ukraine, which is shrouded in a huge propaganda fog that can obscure, confuse or nullify the behavior of one side or the other. Above all, it will change the beliefs or illusions of those who are convinced that the villains in this war are always and exclusively Russian soldiers confronting a Ukrainian force presented as a model force for good. Politically that may be so, but on the battlefield the truth is never that linear. As the terrible bombing of Dresden in World War II shows, war can also be won by instilling fear and terror in the opponents. And that’s probably happening on both sides in Ukraine. Obviously, the massive dose of propaganda, also generated with the support of NATO “psychooperations (psychological operations) experts, pushes us to perceive the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the weaker party, turning it into the collective imagination a sort of little David fighting an evil and overbearing Goliath. But these certainties have very little to do with the horrors of a conflict in which two peoples lived together in the common space of the Soviet Union until 1991. And they don’t let us see the mutual hatred that arose after 2014, when the Ukrainian and Russianspeaking populations began to see themselves as opposing and hostile factions. But the reality on the battlefield also contrasts with the habit, widespread over the past month, of countering Vladimir Putin’s authoritarianism with a Kiev regime described as an example of democracy and freedom. With this correct but very euphoric support for the weak, many ignore or underestimate the restrictions on freedom of expression imposed by Kyiv after the war began. For example, on March 20, the “National Council for Security and Defense of Ukraine tightened already strict rules of martial law by banning all activity by 11 political parties accused of supporting the Russianspeaking minority. And Zelensky himself thought about announcing the decision, declaring that “the activities of those aimed at division or collusion” will receive “a harsh response.” “Today, in Kyiv and other cities, our people live in terror or in captivity Mikola Azarov, Ukraine’s last proRussian prime minister during the tenure of Viktor Yanukovych, told the newspaper”. “Martial law is being used to imprison journalists, human rights advocates and anyone who opposes Zelenskyy Azarov continues Elena Berezhnaya, one of our historic human rights advocates accredited to the UN and OSCE, has since been held 16 to an attorney of trust. And the same thing happens to journalists like Dmitry Dzhangirov and Anna German. In Europe, people have forgotten that justice is never on one side».