Volodymyr Kukharenko

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Oct 30, 2024

Just saw a discussion if Russia is a threat to NATO.

Russia is not an (immediate) threat because Ukraine has chosen to fight them. If we welcomed them as Putin expected and joined forces, the pants of EU politicians would be wet by now. Moldova would be gone real quick (they have less than 10k active army personnel). Baltics wouldn’t hold long. Polish army had real plans to retreat behind the Vistula River to hold the defenses after losing 40% territory. And Putin would still threaten nukes like he does now and would demand East Germany.

History knows no ifs and no one thanks for preventing terrible things. If someone prevented 9/11 by introducing security checks in airports, he would not get a hero badge, but would rather be heavily criticized for extra inconvenience the passengers would get. No one would be praised if he did not let Nazis come to power in Germany as no one would know the horrors of the Holocaust.  Simply because you never know what you might avoided.

So I do not know what would happen if we welcomed Russians with bread and salt and not with fire and steel. We can’t make a computer simulation of the event that would follow. But we do know the intentions Russia has, they’ve been articulated many times, and they are embedded into their culture (seen “To Berlin” stickers on their cars? They mean it). We have a historical memory of the genocides they committed and expect they want to repeat them.

And I know that the worst happens when you do not expect it. And it’s better to overestimate the threat and thus take all the measures than just hope it would never happen. We Ukrainians made the mistake of thinking big war would not happen as we were as naïve as many Europeans now. Do not repeat our mistakes. Help us to defeat them if you want peace on your land.

……………………

Even wondered why Russians are calling their rockets “Sarmat”, not “Moksha” or “Merya”? Sarmathians lived in the territory of Ukraine. Romans were calling modern Carpathian mountains as “Sarmathians mountains”, because this was the border between the Roman empire and Sarmatia. At the same time, the territory surrounding Moskow was populated by Finnic tribes (Merya, Moksha, Muroma etc.) which were living nomadic life. Bear, a symbol of Russia, is a typical totem animal of Finnic tribes (Slavic tribes worshipped wolves, not bears). So why don’t Russians praise their ancestors by giving their names to weapons? Even Americans have Comanche and Apache helicopters, and Tomahawk missiles. So why Russians don’t have anything similar? Like Merya rocket, Veps helicopter, Erzya tank. But they have “Sarmat” (named after Sarmatian tribes) and “Iskander” (named after Alexander the Great). Are they ashamed of their ancestors or what? Or want to pretend someone else?

Similarly, they have lots of warships named after old kings of Rus (like “Askold” warship), who ruled in Kyiv at the time when the Moskow area was populated mostly by bears and frogs. It’s like if Americans called their warship “Alfred the Great” (King of the Anglo-Saxons in 871-899).

Why are they bringing the fake remnants of Ingegärd, who was a Swedish princess and the wife of Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv, to show in Sweden? The analysis shows that the bones belonged to a woman of 30-35 years, while Ingegärd died at 56. They really want to look ancient and fake whatever they can.

And the name of their country “Rossia”, is in fact just a Greek spelling of “Rus”, which was the name of ancient Ukraine. Before 1721, their official name was “Moskovia”, not “Russia”. They stole the name from Ukraine.

They disrespect their own history. For them, Kyiv Rus was a colonizer like Romans were to half of Europe, and they could build their narratives and their identity on that. In that narrative, they could say they remember us colonizing them and say they are coming back with some anti-colonial agenda. But no, they are telling the world they are Rus themselves, completely disregarding those tribes that lived there before the advent of Rus. Check Wiki – they say Russia started in Kyiv. But there is one problem in their tale – Ukraine, the direct descendant of Rus. As long as Ukraine exist, their made-up identity is under threat. One of their “historians” said over 100 years ago “there should be only 1 remaining Rus”.

By the way, Russian Sarmat rocket exploded at launch and Askold warship got drowned…

Pictured: Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, its building started by Volodymyr the Great in 1011 and finished by his son Yaroslav the Wise in 1018. Moskow was founded 129 years later and its founder is buried in Kyiv.