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There is now a great deal of coagulation in Ukraine over the national idea, and Ukrainians quickly understood, from the earliest days of the Russian invasion, that they have to either fight or be killed, says Nadija Afanasieva, director of the Ukrainian Institute for International Politics in Kyiv. In an interview with Veridica, the international relations expert explained what Vladimir Putin actually meant when he said that Russia had “noble intentions”, but also what the role of the Transnistrian region in the economy of this war is.
“We, in Ukraine, understand that this is a matter of life and death, so everybody is mobilized”
VERIDICA: The blitzkrieg that Putin hoped for in the first days of the invasion, quickly turned into a war of attrition in Ukraine. The Ukrainian army have been extremely brave, something that no one expected at first. What were the ingredients that led to such resistance from the Ukrainian troops?Nadija Afanasieva: First of all, it is about patriotism. Every man in the army, the territorial security troops that were formed in just a few days and then the volunteers quickly organized themselves. This was an important signal that people understood that they would either defend their homeland or die. All of us quickly understood in Ukraine that there was no other option.So, everyone understood their role in this war. Some went to the front as soldiers, others volunteered, others have been fighting on the information or IT front. Modern warfare perhaps means all these components, in addition to total engagement in battle.
There have also been people that panicked, including men. There were a few days at the beginning of the war when men could leave the country, but then they realized that many more people depended on each of them. Then some of them returned to the country. Many of those who came back had been working abroad for many years. They came and enlisted in the army or in territorial defense battalions.
The Ukrainian army now relies heavily on volunteers. They are not that caught up in bureaucratic procedures. These military recruitment procedures are very fast, and volunteers now account for about 80% of everything that happens on the front. They are receptive and very involved.
On the other hand, everyone who works in government now does so non-stop. There are no days off for anyone. In Ukraine, the [working] day started on February 24 and is not over yet. We in Ukraine understand that it is a matter of life and death, so everyone is mobilized.
“The Russian forces couldn’t deal with the Ukrainian army, so they started taking revenge on civilians”
VERIDICA: What are Russia's goals in this war, because we've seen them change all the time? From “denazification” to Russia's “noble intentions” in Ukraine, as Putin recently called them.
Nadija Afanasieva: Putin spoke about such “noble intentions” before, at the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2014. They said the same thing in 2008 in Georgia and in the Republic of Moldova in 1992. Moscow has always said that it intervenes militarily in these countries to defend ethnic Russians, because they are allegedly suffering and being killed.
We can see now in Ukraine that those cities that are being destroyed to a very high degree are mostly inhabited by Russian-speakers. Think of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, or Chernihiv. In these cities, many people speak Russian.
That's exactly what we could ask Putin, what he thought when he ordered the killing of Russian- speakers in Ukraine. Those men we saw killed with their hands tied behind their backs were certainly not asked by their killers what language they spoke.
Therefore, these “noble intentions” invoked by Putin are actually quite fishy. In fact, Putin is lying and he does it deliberately, but he has to display a certain reality and deliver it to the Russian citizens internally, in order to justify the attack against the “fascists”. Putin tells the Russians that they are attacking Ukraine in order to “liberate” it.
VERIDICA: What are these massacres in Buch and Irpin? How can we term them, can we call them genocide?
Nadija Afanasieva: Of course, we can call them genocide because the Russian forces were not able to stand up to the Ukrainian army so they started taking revenge on civilians. Ukrainian volunteers say that Russian soldiers did not kill people in Bucha and Irpin in the last days before the retreat, but for a whole month, the entire period they were there.
They killed, raped and committed other atrocities. In the last days of their stay there, Russian soldiers began to steal from people's homes when they learned that they were going to withdraw.
Transnistria can be used to attack Ukraine, but its military capability is low
VERIDICA: How is the Transnistrian region seen from Kyiv? There’s been talk of an attack by Transnistrians and the Russians stationed there to make a military junction when the Russian troops attack Odessa. How do you assess the danger in Transnistria?Nadija Afanasieva: This is not only about Transnistria, it’s about three points where attacks on Ukraine can come from: Belarus from the north, Transnistria from the west and the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk from the east. It is still unclear whether an attack on Ukraine will be launched from any of these places. From Belarus we understand that the leader Alexander Lukashenko is not exactly sure of his army. He does not know, if he orders the army to attack, in which direction they will attack.
For example, Ukraine has many volunteer Belarusians in its territorial security troops. And not only Belarusians, there are also Lithuanians, Poles, Georgians, etc. We have an entire international battalion.
We do not know if the Belarusians could cope if they are sent to fight in Ukraine, especially if we look at the state of the Russian army today. And the Belarussian army is much more poorly equipped than the Russian one.
If we talk about the Russian army as the second army in the world, this war has shown us where the money for its modernization was spent. From what we see in the video recordings made by Ukrainian soldiers, the Russian equipment is very outdated.
VERIDICA: The Ukrainian military magazine Militarnyi has written recently that the Transnistrian troops are poorly trained and equipped. Can we expect Ukraine to do something about the Transnistrian army?
Nadija Afanasieva: At the moment, I don't think so. It is very important for Ukraine to maintain the territory we have now and we have a lot of work to do. I do not think that Transnistria is Ukraine’s priority, but we understand that the experience of eight years of war and the training to NATO standards that followed the annexation of Crimea make the Ukrainian army better. The Ukrainian soldiers are also training hard to handle the modern weapons that are being delivered from the West to defend the country.Since 2014, every citizen of Ukraine has paid a fee for the army. And I'm not talking about Ukrainian volunteers who can raise a few thousand dollars in half an hour to buy, for example, a high-performance drone to help the Ukrainian army. We are talking here about a war with modern weaponry.
