Olga Tokariuk Spaces with Aseyev Stanislav & Victoria Amelina
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Olga Tokariuk Spaces with Aseyev Stanislav & Victoria Amelina
Olga Tokariuk is an independent journalist. She has been published in Time and Newslinemag, and appears regularly on Monocle24. She is a non-resident fellow at CEPA and is an expert on disinformation.
Aseyev Stanislav: @AseyevStanislav on Twitter
Aseyev is a Ukrainian journalist and writer, and former political prisoner. He has been awarded with the Free Media Awards 2020, National Freedom of Expression Award 2020 and the Shevchenko National Prize 2021.
“In Isolation” is an extraordinary book on Aseyev’s experience in prison:
In this collection of dispatches, Stanislav Aseyev attempts to understand the reasons behind the success of Russian propaganda among the residents of the industrial region of Donbas. For the first time, an inside account shows the toll on real human lives and civic freedoms that citizens continue to suffer in Russia’s hybrid war on its territory.
Victoria Amelina @vamelina on Twitter
Victoria Amelina is a Ukrainian writer, and human rights activist. She was awarded the Joseph Conrad Prize Awardee, and is founder of New York Literature Festival in New York, Donetsk region, Ukraine.
Victoria Amelina, Who Wrote 'For The Children' On The Russian Missile? Empty Square Journal
On Friday, Apr 8, Russians killed 52 more Ukrainian civilians, including five children, in a missile attack on a railway station in Kramatorsk. One of the deadly missiles that hit the station had the words 'for the children' painted on its side. People unfamiliar with Russian propaganda might wonder what these words mean. Why would somebody write 'for the children' on a deadly missile?
I have been following the dehumanizing fakes Russian media produced during the past eight years. The propaganda about 'Ukrainians killing children' first appeared in 2014, after Russia occupied parts of the Donbas region, with the scary tale of a crucified boy. The terrible crucifixion fake and many others have circulated in the Russian media ever since. The myth about Ukrainians killing children on the territories occupied by Russians never made any sense — well, as much as the myth about Jews killing Christian children never made sense. Terrible lies and hate speech about neighboring nations never make sense, but they always work: justifying the further crimes against those falsely accused.
On Apr 8, the Russian missile struck an area where Ukrainian families waited for trains so that they could be evacuated. I have been at that railway station in Kramatorsk many times. As a writer, I went to speak and read to children in the Donetsk region affected by war since 2014. At a literary festival last autumn, we even built 'a light machine that would stop the war'; the idea came from a book by my fellow Ukrainian authors, Andriy Lesiv and Romana Romanyshyn. We brought a string of lights and let the kids color the bulbs; everyone applauded as it lit up the room. Now Russian bombs are falling on the place where we experienced this joyful moment. And I cannot help but think whether the children who colored the bulbs were among those killed by the Russian attack on the railway station.
'A light machine' from a Ukrainian book couldn't save anyone. The missile with the words 'for the children', inspired by Russian media and books, completed its horrendous task successfully. And I cannot help but think that all the Russian TV staff, the ‘journalists’, the producers, the news writers, the managers, and even their assistants always knew the truth. Still, they continued to work for the propaganda machine for years, earning their money and probably vacationing next to you and me, somewhere in Italy or Florida.
Now some propagandists leave Russia and proclaim they are anti-war. However, what does it change if a missile with this 'For the children' can still hit the families trying to escape? Didn't all those working for the propaganda machine know that their dehumanizing lies about Ukrainians would have irreversible consequences? Did they think their words could lead to war crimes?
It was not only the media. Russians have also been publishing books and shooting films mocking and demonizing the Ukrainian people, our Ukrainian language, and traditions. Russian fantasy books portrayed Ukrainians as mere monsters, just like the Russian news did. Russian nonfiction 'history' books on Ukraine have little to do with facts. Some of the titles include: 'Ukrainian catastrophe. From American aggression to world war?' by Sergey Glazyev (Moscow: Book World, 2015), 'The collapse of Ukraine. Dismantling of the substate' by Rostislav Ishchenko (Moscow: Yauza, 2015), 'Bloody crimes of the Bandera junta: Antimaidan Library series' by Alexander Kochetkov (Moscow: Book World, 2015), or 'Ukraine. Was there Ukraine?' by Anatoliy Tereshchenko (Moscow: Arguments of the Week, 2017). I wonder how the authors of these books feel now. Are they anti-war?
In March 2022, one of the propagandists, Maryna Ovsyannikova, appeared on Russian TV with a 'No war' poster. Yet, I wonder if she had even been trying to address the Russian audience. Why was the text half English? Russians now have such contempt for the West that using English to convince them doesn't sound like a sensible idea. Besides, the anti-war slogan doesn't eliminate the root cause of the war — the hatred and contempt towards everything Ukrainian. The poster said nothing in support of Ukraine. No wonder, unlike real Russian dissidents such as Yuri Dmitriev, Anna Politkovskaya, and others incarcerated or killed by the regime, Maryna Ovsyannikova didn't even end up in jail; instead she ended up hired by the German media company Die Welt. Her performance changed nothing for the Ukrainian people. Still, when interviewed on the streets, many ordinary Russians say they support the war as Ukrainians must have deserved it. Moreover, some say the Polish, Lithuanians, or Estonians might deserve to be the next.
The words 'For the children' on the deadly missile reveal how Russian media and the creative industry are also responsible for the war crimes. It is not just Putin's war, but a war of all those who made the hatred machine work and gave in to hatred for Ukrainians.
'A light machine that will stop the war' is a lovely idea for children; the adults should know better: stopping the war is not about chanting anti-war slogans. But it is, for example, about holding numerous Russian propagandists accountable for their lies.
People inspiring their army to write 'For the children' on the deadly missiles are as guilty as those pressing the buttons to launch the attack. The difference is that the latter can stop killing. But the hatred initiated by the propagandists' words leads to more and more deaths and cruelty towards Ukrainian civilians.
Hate speech in the media and books is more like radiation; it continues to kill. And we are yet to understand how to make Europe a safe place again.