This column is hard-to-write for me. As a Russian citizen, I fully support my country in what the Western media call ‘the Russian invasion to Ukraine’ and the Russian media call ‘the special operation to liberate Ukraine from the Western occupation’ — which, no matter its name, has been running for more than a year and so far is unlikely to finish.
As a Russian national, I fully empathise with the Ukrainian people — along with my compatriots Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol who were the Fathers Founders of the Russian XIX century literature and admired Ukrainian local nature, its peasant music culture, and unique folklore.
And as a grandson of a Tatar grandmother, I fully understand my Turkic friends who want to maintain neutrality in the current military crisis in Eastern Europe, or even to partly support Ukraine — given the top world media favoring the same and multiple assaults between Türkiye and another part of the conflict, Russia.
I mean not only old stories: an average Turk would remember the near past, when Russia did not prohibit the YPG’s presence in Moscow, or supplied Nicosia and Athens with its S-300 missile systems some of which are now based on Crete : a deployment posing threat from the Türkiye’s viewpoint.
On the other hand, the current Russian activities over Ukraine could be compared with the Turkish efforts to protect its compatriots in Northern Cyprus in 1974 or the Peace Spring operation in Northern Syria in 2019. Both advances of Ankara have caused Western anger and international media’s criticism as it challenged the US’ exclusive role of a single gendarme mondial. Consequently, Türkiye and Russia have found themselves in similar world cells and their further rapprochement is inevitable.
To disrupt this newly-raising alternative center of power, the US uses the Ukrainian case. After the 2014 coup in Kiev, Washington totally controls the entire country. The US Embassy issued a statement that Ukraine would not use the Russian anti-covid vaccine; the son of the American leader Hunter Biden openly received millions of dollars as the Ukrainian firm’s board member. At present, after the beginning of the 2022 war, Washington has provided Ukraine over $75 billion in various forms of military, financial, and humanitarian aid — 750 times more than the US State Secretary has pledged to grant Türkiye to combat the tremendous February 2023 earthquake, despite the number of the latter’s victims is likely to exceed the war casualties.
Moreover, notwithstanding the official American agenda of liberal values, the Ukrainian nationalistic battalions are enjoying the US favor — as well as YPG, ISIS, FETO, and other extremist groups in Western Asia.
While the latter have assaulted Turkey earlier, the first are already about to.
On March 5, 2023, in Paris, unidentified persons had shown banners with the Ukrainian flag and anti-Turkish mottos, such as ‘Erdogan! [The Earth]quake is payback for Russian tourists’. The insulting performance was praised(1) by Ukrainian influencers.
This case was not single; similar anti-Turkish hate speeches multiply appeared in Ukrainian social networks earlier, in the days of the earthquake.
I believe that various forms of Turkish support to Ukraine — from Bayraktar and Kirpi to power generators — have no anti-Russian essence, just pure business. Unfortunately, the nature of any radical nationalists is that you will never be able to completely satisfy them even if you might have been given them all your wealth.
Another example. During 2022, Azerbaijan, Turkey’s main ally in Transcaucasia, had sent plenty of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. And what next? In October 2022, Mahir Yusubov(2), an Azerbaijani driver, was anonymously hired to deliver some cargo through the Crimean bridge. The carrier did not know that his shipment was a giant explosive device. He instantly died in a blast along with several other random passengers nearby.
Nobody has officially pinned the responsibility for this attack, but the Ukrainian intelligence services are under the main suspect. Perhaps it was their gratitude to Azerbaijan for all its support.
The reason for such absurdity is obvious. The Ukrainian people are the hostages of the US policy — as well as the Afghanis used to be until August 2021; the Ukrainian authorities and military forces are the same US’ servants as the PKK/YPG terrorists have always been. So far the anger of Ukraine’s nationalistic battalions is turning against Russia, but tomorrow it might target any other America’s adversary: Türkiye, or Iran, or China, or even Europe.
That is why — despite all our sympathy to common Ukrainians — helping Ukraine is nothing else but following the US’ anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic agenda.
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The author is a Moscow international journalist collaborated with Komsomolskaya Pravda (Russia), The Global Times (China), Harici (Türkiye), PuntAvui (Catalonia) and other domestic and foreign media.
In 2021-22, Edvard Chesnokov had been working as an Adjunct Professor at the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU, Vladivostok, Russia). In 2022-23, he was an Adjunct Professor at the Higher School of Economics (HSE, St. Petersburg, Russia).
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- Example: https://t.me/insha_kr/832
- This story was widely covered by the media https://www.mk.ru/incident/2022/10/10/naparnik-pogibshego-na-krymskom-mostu-voditelya-yusubova-opisal-skhemu-pogruzki.html
