What Can Ukraine Expect from the West?

I am writing to you as a former prisoner of conscience from the times of Brezhnev. All other titles, which I have been awarded throughout my whole life, do not matter in the light of the Ukrainian Maidan, which is now bleeding.

My whole life I have admired western civilisation and its system of values. Supposedly, that is why now I paraphrase the words of Shakespeare, saying: “Frailty, your name is Europe!”. We feel as bitter towards Europe, as much we love it.

If anyone from decision-making circles care about it, I will answer the question stated in the title.

First of all: stop “expressing deep concern”. All participants of the protest in Maidan are allergic to this – in the light of contemporary situation – meaningless expression, while all gangsters from the Ukrainian governmental gang delight in mocking the helplessness of the European Union.

Impose sanctions. Do not waste time looking for their Achilles’ heel, which is money deposited in your banks. Enforce your own rights and stop the process of money laundering. Europe, which we want to be a part of, shall never degrade the absolute value, which is the life of a human being, and put the value of money above it.

Block visas to western countries for all these governmental gangsters and their families. This is scandalous, that average Ukrainians, who lead normal, simple life have to present  multigenerational histories of their families only to be able to get a visa to go to the West! While ruling criminals, guilty of murders, “disappearances” and frauds can – before the eyes of the whole world – enjoy the status of virtually free entry to European countries.

Do not listen to propaganda speeches of Yanukovych and Putin. Put ear plugs in. Or learn how to decipher their lies; otherwise it will be them who will decipher your capacity of self-defence. Instead of this, listen to Ukrainian media which sacrifice the lives of their journalists to gain credible information. Do not rely too much on information which reach you with the help of special correspondents from other countries, who came to Ukraine for one or two days. Employ Ukrainians who live in this country to translate for you the Ukrainian cry of pain. Secure funds for this now and do not wait for funds from next year’s budget.

Visit Ukrainian hospitals and talk to the so called “extremists”, who want to “bring legally elected government down”, talk to the ones who “brutally beat” the police and “intentionally” blew explosives up to injure themselves. Indeed, war has a brutal face. However, these people, when they came to Maidan, repeated almost word for word the speech of English King George VI who – addressing the British nation on the 3rd of September 1939 – said: “We have been forced into a conflict. For we are called… to meet the challenge of a principle which, if it were to prevail, would be fatal to any civilised order in the world”.

GFDL Image:Kiev_Independence_Square.jpg Original image by Thorsten1 cropped to rid of the balcony rail by Irpen. Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Quadell using CommonsHelpe

Leave your interior safety zones! Just remind yourselves of the wimps of ancient Rome who refused to do this at the right time. Fawning on Putin will not result in your security. While letting him take control over Ukraine will contribute to the considerate impairment of peace in the world. Ukraine divided by force will not bring the world peace, in the same way as Poland and Germany did not bring peace when they were divided by force in the past.

Let us summarise in the solidarity with the British monarch and Ukrainian society: “The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead, and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield. But we can only do the right as we see the right, and reverently commit our cause to God. If one and all we keep resolutely faithful to it, ready for whatever service or sacrifice it may demand, then, with God’s help, we shall prevail”.

Myroslaw Marynowicz

Transaltion: Anita Stradomska