Power Lines Season 1 Episode 12 Transcript
[Protest Chants]
Participant: Sometimes I look at some old photos or remember something that happened before February 24, and there is always this feeling that this is some past life. It was such a long time ago. Now everything is different, and it will never be the way it used to be.
Jakub: February 24th, 2022, it's one of those dates with a chilling quality whenever you say it.
Participant: I was at my apartment in a Kyiv suburb, and around 5:00 AM I woke up to explosions.
Anastasiia: For months before we'd seen the photos of troops in the borders, the satellite images of tanks and planes. We heard the denials too. The rumours of 72 hours until Kyiv would fall, and then the bombs.
Participant: I called my mom who lives in Bucha to tell her that the war had started. She was already up and had heard the explosions too.
Anastasiia: The world has been reeling ever since.
Jakub: This final episode of our first season of Power Lines falls a year on from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So, to market, we reached out to some of the people you've heard throughout this podcast, both in Ukraine and among the diaspora. They've sent us some reflections about that day and the 365 days that followed.
Participant: Just the day before the invasion. I left Kyiv to take my dog and cat to my parents in the western part of Ukraine because I anticipated for something to happen, although I didn't actually believe that Kyiv or other Ukrainian cities would be shelled. But I wanted to be prepared to be useful for my country if anything should happen.
Participant: I sat at my desk to quickly send an email to the editor of the Opinions section of the Washington Post. That day, I was meant to file a story about my take on Russia's build-up on the Ukraine's border as a native of Donetsk, a city Russia occupied back in 2014.
So, I contacted the editor saying that the story had just gotten outdated with all-out war starting. And while I was waiting for his response a Russian missile just landed next to my building. My walls shook, and car alarms went off. I rushed to the balcony to take a picture of the smoke. That was my immediate reaction. My hands have never shaken that much.
Participant: I planned to return to Kyiv the next day, but Kyiv was under the shelling. Around 5:00 AM I was woken up by a friend who was looking for someone to take his wife and their cat out of the city. And then all sorts of things were happening.
I have very few recollections from the last days of February 2022. Everything is blurred. As I often say, in those days, all of us did everything everywhere and for everyone.
Anastasiia: Across the globe, people woke up to a world transformed and the country disfigured. For the Ukrainian diaspora, this was terrifying.
Participant: Early in the morning, I was looking at my computer. I was scanning social media.
Participant: I was in London in my flat, working on an article that I was meant to submit to a newspaper by the morning. It was 3:00 AM in London. When I started to see reports of explosions in Kyiv appear on my Twitter feed.
Participant: I was at university at Stanford, in the U.S. watching Putin's address on my laptop.
Participant: I was awake. I was in New York City on my couch in Brooklyn, following what was happening on Twitter.
Participant: I was trying to stay in touch through my aunts and my cousins with family in Ukraine, in Chernobyl and Chernivtsi. And I was in a state of shock, I think, as were many people.
Participant: And I watched the reports live on Twitter of Russian bombs being hurled at Kharkiv.
Participant: And the first thing I wanted to do, as soon as I heard those words (I tear up just thinking about it), is call my dad, who didn't know what was happening.
Participant: I was reading the reactions in the middle of the night from friends in Ukraine, just completely heartbroken, just an immense sense of grief and anger.
And this is what I tweeted at the time, I wrote, “I have too much rage to fully express how I'm feeling. Everyone who downplayed Putin's terrorism, who rationalised his mass murdering mafia state, you enabled Putin's war as much as the governments finally passing sanctions needed years ago.”
I captured my instant reaction, just a white hot fury. And that grief stayed with me, like a very intense grief. And it's still there. It's still constantly in the background of my thoughts. I pray for Ukraine. I pray for my family and friends there every day. I have to.
Participant: As the days unfolded, there was that mix of panic and concern until, thank God, we got news from family in Chernivtsi particularly, that everybody was alright.
Participant: One of the first things I did was to call a dear friend who had gone to Ukraine a couple of weeks earlier in anticipation of the escalation of the war and wake her up. I struggled to find appropriate words to wake her and tell her about the full-scale war.
I remember saying, “Wake up my dear, it’s started. It was one of the hardest things to say. I really hope that the day will come soon when I'll be able to phone her and say, “Hi, my dear. We have won.”
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: The international community could only look on, feeling impotent so far away. But for those in Ukraine, there was only time for action.
Participant: I grabbed my go bag and left my place.
Jakub: Anna was in a district of Kyiv that came under fire. Her priority was giving herself to relative safety any way she could.
Participant: There was no option to get a taxi or to use public transport. The traffic was already insane, meaning it just froze. Cars weren't moving at all.
So, the only option remaining was for me to walk in the direction of Kyiv, as I live in a suburb. So, I was walking, and while walking, I received a call from a relative living in Donetsk, crying. She was saying that she couldn't believe that this nightmare (meaning Russian invasion), had happened again.
Jakub: Anna was picked up by a colleague at a petrol station in Kyiv and spent the night in the bomb shelter of a relative. People talk about this time as a kind of fever dream, but now those memories have turned to anger and anger that has solidified.
Participant: We may never be able to laugh like we used to, or just be happy. The Russians took too much from us. And I'm not sure if we would ever be able to heal the wounds of loss or fill the gap left by the deaths of our loved ones.
It is worth saying that the feeling of fear vanished during this year, and it was entirely replaced by the fury.
After all, unfortunately, so many wonderful people have died during this time. The best people of our country. These people could have built and developed our country, but they are gone, and no one will replace them. Wonderful people die every day. We cannot afford to lose the best. That is why we yearn for victory so much.
Participant: Because of family and all, I've never really worked on anything that's so deeply personal. And all I can hope for is that Ukraine can flourish and build a state and society that Ukrainians deserve out of this.
And in that we need to think about the post-war as much as we need to think about winning this war. And we need to start thinking about the post-war now.
Anastasiia: Last year, people used to ask how many days, months, or even years, the war would continue for. They asked each other whether Kyiv would fall or how much of the country would be chopped up and butchered in Putin's colonial project. But now, a year on, people talk only a victory.
[Music Playing]
Participant: It's been a year of war. And I think that above all, I'm so proud of us. Again, people gave us three days, and we're at 365, and I don't know if there's going to be an end in sight this year, but Ukraine will all be Ukraine again.
Participant: We're going to win. We're ultimately going to win. This is the Holodomor again, but this time Ukraine has western tanks. This time, Ukraine better be getting serious long-range missiles and fighter jets.
This is a time for the world to correct itself and to give Ukraine all the help and support it needs to rebuild into a strong, independent, dynamic democracy. Ukrainians have made history, and for that, that victory belongs to all Ukrainians.
Participant: They hope that Russia's war against Ukraine will end by the end of this year with Ukraine's victory. By victory, I mean liberation of all Ukraine's territories, including Donbas and Crimea.
By victory, I also mean the responsibility for Russia in a form of a special tribunal for the country's war crimes committed in Ukraine against Ukrainians.
Jakub: So, what have we learned? What can you take away from destruction on this kind of scale? Well, every person we reached out to this week spoke of pride. A country changed, yes, but one that has never been more sure of itself than it is now.
Participant: I feel very proud to be Ukrainian. Over the last 12 months, the people of Ukraine have endured so much, but did so with such resilience and dignity, with so much love for each other and their country.
Participant: We, Ukrainians have changed a lot during the last year. We've become so much stronger and confident in ourselves and our victory. We realised how strong we can be, how quickly we can respond to the problems and challenges. And I guess that we've learned to do the impossible.
This year has hardened us, and I'm sincerely proud of all Ukrainians who work every day for victory, who fight on the front line, who volunteer, and who fight against the internal enemy on the home front. I always knew that we were a great nation, but I didn't know to what extent.
[Music Playing]
Participant: I feel relieved that Ukraine has finally appeared on the mental map of the world. I feel saddened that it took a full-scale war for this to happen. But most of all, I feel hopeful that after so much suffering, Ukrainians will see victory and justice and lasting peace before long.
Anastasiia: It feels fitting in the bleakest of ways that our final episode of the season should fall a year after the full-scale invasion.
Jakub: But where do we look now? To the end of the war, to Ukrainian victory? Sure. It's useful to hold on to tangible gains to trace the lines drawn on maps as they creep back eastward. But the intangible marks will remain.
Anastasiia: The psychological impact of war stretches out in all directions at once. Every Ukrainian has lost someone or something. Future leaders and activists, artists and creators, future mothers, fathers and children, homes decimated by Russia's bombs and others left behind or lost in between.
And more than anything, time, this is not something we can get back no matter the reparations, trials or justice.
Jakub: Right now, we don't have the luxury of counting what's been lost. But it will come, the time to rest, process, grieve and reflect, and to rebuild Ukraine as a country and an identity.
Anastasiia: From Message Heard and the Kyiv Independent, you are listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World.
Jakub: In this series, we're going to be mapping the undercurrents and global consequences of the war in Ukraine, beginning in Kyiv and following the roads out wherever they may lead. I'm Jakub Parusinski.
Anastasiia: And I’m Anastasiia Lapatina.
Jakub: This week is our final episode of the first season of Power Lines. It's also the one-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So, we wanted to end this season by looking to the past and to the future.
Anastasiia: It's also the second in our two-parter on rebuilding Ukraine. And today we're looking at the psychological toll of the war and how Ukraine plans to rebuild its national identity in the years to come.
Jakub: I honestly can't believe that it's now been a year. How do you feel?
Anastasiia: Yeah, it's strange. It's very bizarre because I remember distinctly back in April or May, I think it was, a few of my friends were thinking that we might go and spend some time in Lviv.
But I remember my friend being like, “No, I don't want to go because I want to be in Kyiv for victory day.” Because that was around the time when we pushed the Russians out of Kyiv Oblast and everyone was so jubilant and everyone was so sure that a few more weeks, just a few more weeks and we're going to be done.
That he literally didn't want to go. And he stayed. And I remember having those conversations and waiting just a little bit, just a little bit. And now here we are. It's weird.
Jakub: Yeah. A day becomes a week, becomes a month, becomes a year. It just sort of grows on you.
I had this conversation, I think in the first days of the war with a couple of people who basically reached out to help fundraise for Ukraine, for Ukrainian media. And they asked me sort of what did I think, how many days, weeks would it last? And I just shrugged, I don't know, six days, six months, six years. Who knows?
Anastasiia: Yeah. I also remember thinking just kind of the fact that we're never going to have a normal again. Even after we win, there's still going to be a huge change in society, a huge change in insecurity, especially in the East, whatever that will look like.
So yeah, it's really difficult to wrap your head around how much your lives have changed, especially on an individual level.
For me, my entire life plan has changed because of this war. What I was going to study after grad, what I was going to work in, where I was going to live. I had a completely 180 different plan, and here we are. And all of those goals that you had before February 24th just seem completely irrelevant now.
Jakub: It's crazy how much this is something that is irreversible, right?
Anastasiia: Yeah.
Jakub: The damage that has been done and the consequences, all throughout. And it sort of cascades. It changes the way that people think, the way they plan, the way they behave, the way they talk. And then it sort of goes out through all of these details.
And I think about Israel and when flights will resume to Ukraine, will it be the same as with Israel? Will it be a case that there's a special aisle in the airport and you have to show up three hours or four hours in advance, not just two or an hour, and you'll be questioned and double checked because you're entering a territory of perpetual conflict, perpetual war.
Who did you speak to this week, Nastya?
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: Well actually, this is someone who we've been wanting to speak with for the whole series, as his work on how countries and communities come back from the trauma of war, mass violence and rapid change is some of the most fascinating in the field.
So, Eugene Finkel is a political scientist and historian, born in Ukraine and raised in Israel. He's currently a professor at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
He's the author of multiple books on history and political science, including Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust. And he has two upcoming books focusing on Russia and Ukraine, including Bread and Autocracy Food, Politics, Insecurity in Putin’s Russia, and the incredibly timely To Kill Ukraine.
We were really excited to speak with Eugene to situate the current atrocities in their historical context. And to see what lessons we can learn from the past as Ukraine seeks to rebuild psychologically as a nation.
Hi Eugene, thank you so much for coming on.
Eugene: Thanks for having me.
Anastasiia: So, we're going to be talking a lot about the war in Ukraine and how we're going to deal with the trauma and the reconciliation part and the memory after we win the war. And you studied the World War II and the Holocaust specifically, you've studied genocides.
So, I want you to start with that and ask you, what is the appropriate definition of genocide? How should we define it? And looking at the war right now, would you say the war in Ukraine fits that definition?
Eugene: Well, the definition is one, and it has been set up for us by the United Nations Convention on The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide from 1948.
And here the definition of genocide is very simple, acts committed for the intent to destroy an ethnical, racial, national or religious group as such, in whole or in part.
And it also gives us a list of actions that constitute genocide together or individually such as: killing members of the group or causing bodily harm or creating conditions that make a group's existence impossible. Or even transferring children from one group to another.
So, if you look at the Convention, and it is my view, and my view is not a consensus view. There are people who disagree, but my view is that threshold for the declaring the genocide has been met, I think it has been met long ago. And we are just getting more and more evidence supporting this view.
It's pretty clear that there is an intention to destroy Ukrainians, not as an ethnic or religious group, but more as a national political community.
And we also see quite a lot of violence below on the ground, such as killing civilians, targeting civilians, transferring children from one group to another. That's probably the clearest evidence that right now we have to meet the definition because people can be killed for many reasons that might be crime against humanity or atrocity crime or war crime.
But when we look at transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia and their adoption by Russian families with the explicit goal of bringing them up as Russians, that clearly does fit the definition though we still have to have to connect the dots and to see how this rhetoric of destroying Ukraine as a national group. And this intention that does clearly exist at the top, how it translates to actions on the ground.
And I do believe that we have enough evidence of genocide already. I look at it as a social scientist, as an historian, I look at the entire event.
For lawyers who will be tasked with prosecuting people and putting them in jail for the crime of genocide, obviously, the bar is much higher because they need to prove that the intention to destroy a national group was present in people's action. And it's much harder to do so.
And I agree that from the legal point of view, for individual cases, it'll be much more challenging, maybe even impossible.
Anastasiia: You probably remember the article, which kind of pumped up on Russian news side, what Russia should do with Ukraine, where it was essentially like a blueprint for the genocide.
Would that be used as evidence of proving intent? Since it is a state news outlet, there is no way that that could be posted without some sort of sanctioning from the people above the Kremlin, let's say.
Eugene: Definitely. And this article and articles and statements like that on social media, on various Telegram channel, that’s exactly what we need to prove, intent. And there is no argument about intent right now.
It's pretty clear that this rhetoric is genocidal, and the intent is there, the challenge is to see how this intent is translated to violence.
Anastasiia: I see.
Eugene: On the ground. And where the people who are doing the killing, who are doing the shooting are driven by the same intent. So, to connect what's going on, on the ground with the intent, that has been proven in my view pretty clearly.
Anastasiia: I see. So, in other words, it's not necessarily super clear that the articles and the political statements have been heard by the soldiers who are killing civilians in Bucha or if they received the same instructions, right? So, there can be this gap there.
Eugene: Exactly. So, if there are instructions, or even if they read those articles, so even if they know those views, those views are the ones that are driving their behaviour. So, the fact that this stuff is being published or has been published by the Russian media, you said, only strengthened the case for labelling it a genocidal campaign as a whole. But again, it'll not be enough to put individual perpetrators in jail.
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: Jakub, do you think there is a disconnect between the intention of the Kremlin and what is being told to Russian conscripts on the ground? Or what they're thinking? Do you think all these hundreds of thousands of soldiers pouring into our country are actually there to eradicate the nation and stuff like that?
Jakub: I think yes, there is a little bit of a disconnect. What you have to remember is that Russia, as most post-Soviet countries, has a lot of apathy. And people just sort of disregard whatever is the political messaging.
I think the conscripts on the ground are basically told that they need to run west, and if not, they're going to be shot. Certainly, that's what a lot of the messaging that we're seeing on Twitter and Telegram of the mobiki as they're called, sort of complaining about their situation.
But that doesn't change the fact that throughout Russia, throughout the military indoctrination and across the nation, there is a huge portion of people that see Ukrainians as not quite people.
As a problem to be solved as a malfunctioning type of Russian that has to be eradicated, purified. And the language is that of genocide, of Nazism, of absolute barbarity. And that carries, yes of course, throughout the country to a huge part of the population.
Anastasiia: Yeah, totally. I think they're carrying out the orders and the orders are criminal, and those are war crimes, it's genocide, et cetera. So, it's clear what's happening, regardless of what the soldiers are thinking.
Though, a lot of them are very brainwashed, which is why Ukrainians are pushing back against this broad narrative of victimisation of the Russian people and Russian soldiers. Because when we listen to intercepted calls that are released by our military intelligence services, and we hear what these guys are saying over the phone while they're calling their mothers and wives, et cetera, it's not nice stuff.
They're not saying that “Oh, I don't want to be here because I love Ukrainians, and they're actually great and screw Putin.” No, no, no, they're wilfully admitting to raping women and killing civilians and saying that they stole a bunch of shit from someone's house.
It's the total norm for them. I don't hear any remorse other than fear for being killed. But I listen to these pretty often and I haven't heard a lot of genuine remorse in any of them, so-
Jakub: No, that's a voice that is definitely quite quiet and missing. Basically, you can be against the war, you can be against people dying in the war, or you can be against your country being a colonial empire.
And I see relatively a lot of people being in the first two categories. I don't think that there aren't that many in the third one. And outside of the front lines, all over the world, I don't hear the dialogue of how to decolonize Russia with Russian voices there.
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: Definitely not.
Anastasiia: Now let's talk a bit about the Holocaust. And I'm of course in no way equating the tragedy that happened with the war in Ukraine, but I think it is one of the most well-known examples of a horrific genocide that people often evoke here.
And I want to talk about reconciliation that happened post-World War II and the steps that Germany took to kind of rehabilitate itself and continues to take, because I think broadly speaking, Germany is seen as this kind of success story, especially if compared to Japan, for example. It is just a normal European progressive country by now.
So, I wonder how they got there and what were the steps they took to kind of make it right after the war?
Eugene: Right. So, when we started this conversation, you started with talking about reconciliation after Ukraine wins the war. And that's, I think, the crucial part of the puzzle.
There will be no reconciliation, certainly no forgiveness unless and until Ukraine wins the war. And this future of memory and relations between Russia and Ukraine will obviously depend on how the war ends.
If there is no clear Ukrainian victory, and if there is no clear admission of guilt, then no reconciliation will be possible and no historical justice will be possible.
So, that's part one. The necessary step of what happened to Germany, it has been defeated, it has been occupied, it has been humiliated, dismembered, partitioned. And that was the foundation upon which this reconciliation could have been built.
Now, I don't want to sound too cynical, but people also have a very rosy view about Germany's post-Holocaust trajectory when it comes to memory and when it comes to reconciliation and apologies.
And if you look at what happened in Germany, actually up until 1960s, very little has been done. There was the famous Chancellor Adenauer's apology, which was very watered down.
There were reparations. But other than that, there was very little accountability. Almost no perpetrators were punished besides those at the very top in the Nuremberg trials.
Germans preferred not to talk about what happened. It was a non-issue, both in Germany and in relations between Germany and others.
The real work began only in 1960s when time has passed. A new generation grew up, Germany finally started persecuting and putting on trial perpetrators, although, once again, only a tiny fraction of perpetrators faced justice. And even those who did by and large received minimal punishment, or no punishment at all.
So, after that, after 1960s, 1970s, and especially as this generation of perpetrators started to die out and fade out and lost their political prominence. That's where the real contrition and the real soul searching began.
Anastasiia: Interesting.
Eugene: But we're talking about a very long period, and that I think in the best case, what will happen in the case of future Russian-Ukrainian relations.
I actually had different, very interesting conversation with some Ukrainian politicians, especially local leaders. And I ask them, “Well, how long do you think it will take for future reconciliation?” And the replies that I got ranged.
So, first of all, it depended on how exposed the community was to violence. So, for instance, Vadym Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol, when I asked him this question, when we were going through those years, his calculus was between 80 to 100. So, maybe only four plus generations will be able to forgive.
Other people who were less exposed, who came from communities who were less exposed to violence, gave smaller numbers. But even those were around two to three generations. So 15, 16 years.
I think that reconciliation can happen earlier. I think people will forget, not forgive and not forget, but try to go and find out some way to work together with Russia, because Russia after all is not going anywhere.
So, in terms of what can be done, there are no magic solutions. The only way to do it is a long process of reconciliation, asking for forgiveness. But also, education. And that should come from the Russian state and from the Russian society.
So again, we're talking about starting teaching children to accept responsibility and also to view Ukraine as a different state, and Ukrainians as a different people who are entitled to their own decisions.
But we're talking about the very long process, no magic solutions, unfortunately.
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: Yeah. Let's talk about Germany.
Jakub: Yeah. Let's talk about Germany. So look, I'm Polish, my daughter is Ukrainian. Yeah. You start from a difficult place. And in a way I feel really lucky because I think I'm the first generation of Pole that doesn't have to be brought up in I would say this vivid fear of Germany and my generation didn't get that emotional baggage handed over.
Anastasiia: Interesting.
Jakub: How long will it be for Ukrainians to be able to come back to normalcy with Russia?
Anastasiia: Now, imagine if Russia doesn't attempt. So, imagine how many more decades on top of that we're going to put. And I'm not completely pessimistic about it either.
I do believe that there are people in Russia that have a brain. It's a very, very small minority, but there are people who are aware of what's happening and who are going to try to do what they can to save their nation from this catastrophe after the war.
Jakub: The thing that sort of strikes me as — because we're talking about basically how do you live with the genocide as a part of your identity, as a part of your memory?
And it feels to me like there is a radically different situation between living in a post genocide society, which has been brutalized, harmed, but which is on a path to recovery, and one where the danger is still present and will continue.
Anastasiia: Yeah.
Jakub: And I was thinking about sort of how do you educate children? How do you bring up children in this kind of world?
And I have a two-year-old, she's starting to have lots of opinions, and this is the moment that sort of the personality is starting to form. And in a normal world, you would start by trying to help your child build skills and discover what they like and grow as a person, develop as a person.
And if that child is Ukrainian, and I'm sure it's the same thing for children who are Jewish or from a range of other nationalities that have suffered genocide. You start that conversation with something like this, “There are monsters in the world and those monsters want to harm you. And from the very beginning of your existence, a huge part of your life will be about protecting yourself from those monsters.”
There's a reason that Ukrainians call them orcs because these are orcs that are literally crossing the border. And if the war stops tomorrow and Russia doesn't change, that's still a conversation that I'm going to have to have very soon.
As part of her entry into the world, she needs to discover that there are monsters who want to kill her and her family and her cousins, and her uncle and her baba and her dada. That's something that her life will never escape.
Anastasiia: And that's something she doesn't deserve at all. And also, even if regime change does happen in Russia, we're still going to have to tell this to our kids. This part of our identity I think is never going to change.
I don't see a world, no matter what Russia does, in which Ukrainian children are not brought up with stories of their families fighting in the big war that happened decades ago.
Jakub: Yeah.
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: So, this is fundamental. There is no escape. It's everywhere. Russian atrocities are everywhere.
Let's move towards the view from below, let's say. So, we kind of talked about how Germany tried to rehabilitate itself and what Russia can do. But I'm also really interested in how and how the Jewish people remember that experience and what they do with this memory and how the events of the Second World War and the events of the Holocaust changed their kind of national psyche and national identity.
I wonder if we can draw some lessons from that for what can potentially happen with Ukraine.
Eugene: So, I don't think that there are lessons that can be drawn, those things will happen one way or another. And obviously Ukraine after the war will be a post-genocidal society and post-genocidal societies are going through those traumas for generations.
And we’re actually just now started to discover how durable those traumas are, even on the individual level. So, we know that experiencing large-scale violence changes not just the victims themselves, but also, their descendants, their children, their grandchildren psychologically, but also on a genetical level.
Anastasiia: Oh, wow. I didn't know.
Eugene: So, and with that, the Ukrainian society will have to deal with. Now on the reconciliation level, obviously there will be a lot of negative attitudes towards Russia and Russians. And I think that is inevitable.
And I don't think that no amount of Russian apologising will change that, those attitudes will remain. It doesn't mean that there will be no working relations between Russia and Ukraine. But on the individual level, this resentment and those traumas will be there.
So, if you look at the history of German-Jewish relations, no matter how many times Germany apologised, if you talk to those of the victims of the Holocaust, who's still alive and even their children, you will hear this resent.
Not among everyone, but there will be those reactions. I know people who even in 1990s and 2000s refused to go to Germany, refused to speak German, refused to buy German products.
It stays with you on the political level, it stays with you on the social level. That's not even talking about the economic destruction caused by the war or the experience of the refugees, which is also extremely, extremely traumatising. Genocides don't stop when the killing is over.
Anastasiia: Of course, a big part of this kind of national anger that Ukrainians have is rooted in this idea that Russians absolutely must pay for what happened, pay both literally financially via reparations, but also through trials and prosecutions of everyone who we can get our hands on that were involved in what happened in Ukraine, in the crimes against us.
So, I wonder, what do you think that could look like? Do you envision some sort of something like Nuremberg trials? Do you envision something else?
Eugene: So, realistically speaking, when it comes to people who need to face accountability at the highest levels, which is Russian military and political leadership, I would love to see Putin on trial.
Anastasiia: Me too.
Eugene: In Kyiv, in Hague, in Moscow, anywhere else. I very much doubt it'll happen. And even if you look at what the International Criminal Court has done, it is working very slowly. It is working on a very small number of key cases.
So, it's not that we're going to see large-scale, high-profile trials being conducted by international organisations or international body, such as the International Criminal Court.
What can happen though, what is moralistic is of course internal Ukrainian prosecution of war criminals that the Ukrainian justice system and law enforcement can get their hands-on.
And it's already started with several cases that have been tried in Ukraine. It's important to have those people punished, but it does nothing to punish those who ordered this war and who are in charge of prosecuting it the way it does.
My biggest hope is that the key accountability push will happen in Russia by Russian courts because for practical reasons, that's where most perpetrators are and will be located.
And second, it is an essential component of changing the psyche and reconciliation. Without that though, and right now I'm not very optimistic, most Russian perpetrators will never face justice. And that just the sad reality of this war.
[Music Playing]
Jakub: So, I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on this, Nastya.
Anastasiia: Which part?
Jakub: Basically, Russia will do what Russia will do. Let's leave that aside for a second.
Anastasiia: Yeah.
Jakub: Whatever happens, Ukraine needs to rebuild itself as a society. How do you see Ukraine changing over the next 5, 10 years?
Anastasiia: I think the government must capitalise on the huge spike in patriotism and nationalism, if you will. And the interest in our culture and our literature and our music and our clothing, whatever that may be, our history.
I think the government really must seize on this initiative by average people who suddenly wear the Vyshyvankas every day and listen exclusively to Ukrainian music and who are really interested in their heritage, the government must start pouring in money into this sector.
I know this may seem something that is not the most important thing that comes to mind when you think about destroyed cities and housing problems, but this is really important. This is what this war is all about, it's our identity.
And we really have to enrich it now because we also had, and perhaps continue having, but on a lesser scale, the problem of apathy. And I think that is a huge problem because right now people, because of the war, have gotten suddenly more political as rockets started raining down on their houses. And this transformation in their psyche is a very good thing.
So, I think we have to keep it from kind of going backwards again. I think our society is going to be so much better. There's going to be so much more hope and solidarity, but again, that also depends on what Eugene said. This also depends on how the war ends.
Jakub: I'm really curious to see how Ukraine will sort of evolve as a place of different ideas and concepts and way of living. And the reason I'm thinking about it is a lot of the people who are returning to Israel or ended up living on a kibbutz or in some kind of community, or there was this sort of lots of different micro communities thriving within Israel that were accepting the people returning to the country in their own way.
Although there was also a lot of tension between the Jews from Europe and the Jews from the Middle East on account of the people from the Middle East thought that, “Why didn't you fight?” That was a big question, which will also come back in a Ukrainian context in a way. Right?
Anastasiia: Oh, 100%. It's already showing up.
Jakub: There will be questions about how did you approach this and what were you doing? But I'm also thinking Ukraine, I remember when I first arrived and it was just the 2000s, this was a place where so many religious and philosophical communities were thriving.
You had the Hare Krishna kind of people running around, Buddhists, Protestants. Lots of missionaries were coming to Ukraine because this was this kind of atheist, largely atheist space, post-Soviet where you could try to get people to join you.
And Ukraine has this vibrancy of ideas and communities. So, I think it will once again become a birthplace of different ideas and ways of life. That was my optimist part.
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Anastasiia: Yeah. Both of us are trying really hard here to pull up the spirits. Do you think victimhood will become a central part of Ukraine's identity? Or if it is already and what may be the consequences of this? Because I feel like those kinds of identities almost ignore the state agency in some situations.
Eugene: So, I'm not sure whether it'll become the essential part of Ukrainian identity, at least in the long-term. It'll definitely become the key component of Ukrainian identity in the short-term, and it will become an integral part of Ukrainian identity moving forward, decades and possibly hundreds of years from now.
But not necessarily the key defining part, again, will depend on how the war ends. If the war ends with Ukrainian victory, then this experience of winning the war might overshadow the experience of victimhood and will become the more important component of Ukrainian identity.
But the victimhood and the suffering, of course, will not go anywhere as well.
Anastasiia: And what do you think happens if Ukraine doesn't end up taking back all of its territories, given that the latest polls show that like 85%?
Eugene: I think it's less about territories than about how Ukraine perceives the end of the war. If Ukraine decides that victory is absolutely 100% necessary with taking back all the territories, including Crimea, then of course it's about territory.
But if as a result of some internal dialogue or some other decisions, Ukrainians decide that actually victory means something else rather than territory, just surviving the war, or going back to borders of February 24 for taking Donbas, but maybe not Crimea, that's what the victory will be. That's the internal Ukrainian decision.
Right now, it's pretty clear that victory means taking back all the territories, including Crimea, but that does not have to be so. No, it's not set on stone.
Anastasiia: Of course.
Eugene: The definition of victory and the perception of victory, it's a result of what Ukrainians decide victory is.
Anastasiia: But I guess my question is more like, it's going to look pretty catastrophic in terms of internal stability if the outcome that we end up having is different from what the absolute majority of the state expect. The resentment is going to be poisonous.
Eugene: No, of course I'm not disagreeing with you that right now victory means taking all the territories back. And I do agree with you that unless and until it happens, you will have a heavily militarised, heavily traumatised Ukraine that will not be able to move on from this experience.
And this is a very dangerous existence for everyone, first and foremost, Ukrainians, because they need those resources to go to reconstruction rather than defence.
Anastasiia: Yeah, true.
Eugene: Rebuilding the healthcare system and the education and rebuilding the country rather than building tanks, weapons or preparing for the next war against Russia.
So, I absolutely agree with you that right now, without taking all the territories back, victory is not possible and normal existence is not possible.
But if Ukrainians decide under some conditions that victory means something else, for instance, just surviving as a nation or as a state, then that's what will allow them to move on. Right now, it seems inconceivable, but it's also not impossible.
Anastasiia: Thank you again. Eugene was really, really interesting to listen to you.
Eugene: Thanks, Nastya.
Anastasiia: Jakub, what would it take for you, if anything, to start some sort of process of reconciliation with Russia as a country and with Russians generally or individually?
Jakub: It's hard to imagine something that would really change the approach with Russia other than essentially seeing leaders emerge who would start the process of decolonizing Russia and who would challenge the narratives, not in a anti-Putin way, but in a genuinely trying to rethink what the country is about.
And that's something that's difficult. I do see it on the individual level, by the way. I do see people who are trying to find a path towards that, but on the country level, it's hard to see something without that process going on.
Anastasiia: For me, my approach is similar. I am open to having discussions with, I don't know, a friend from the past or a friend of a friend who is from Russia or somebody who is from Russia, but immigrated to the U.S. like decades ago.
So, I don't have a problem with talking to Russians on an individual level, to Russians who have appropriate opinions.
However, I don't see myself going to Russia anytime soon or ever for that matter. And I don't see myself kind of publicly endorsing something that, for example, a new Russian government is going to do, or-
Jakub: It also feels like a political impossibility for-
Anastasiia: In a way.
Jakub: I'm sort of looking at the people that I know, and again, as I said, I've been very fortunate that everyone has suffered in some cases quite severely, but these aren't the worst cases.
And I think we all know who we’re talking about, the worst cases, people whose loved ones have been killed in front of them, who have lost their sons or daughters who have lost their parents.
I think it's going to be almost politically impossible to start the reconciliation until the moment that people who have been on the front lines and who have suffered amongst the most are ready for that reconciliation.
The way that that will happen, and hopefully it will happen at some point, but is that somebody who has been a prisoner of war from Asov or who has seen their parents or children die after a decade or two will stand up and say, “Okay, now I'm ready to forgive.”
And until those people are ready to forgive, I very much doubt that there will be a large movement, anything more than exceptions, really meniscal exceptions of people who are ready for a process of reconciliation.
Anastasiia: Yeah. I think that's an excellent point. I actually didn't think about this, but now I feel like since my family is doing relatively well, we were affected, our village was occupied and things like that, but everyone's alive. Nobody died.
So, I'm hugely privileged, and I almost feel like it's not my place to forgive, who cares if I forgive? The Russians and the world should care about families of those who died and families of those who've been tortured. Those are the important people in this reconciliation process.
And I think I don't see myself publicly being okay with working with Russia, incorporating with Russia. I'm going to give space to those who were affected more.
Jakub: But I wouldn't necessarily want to sign off this first season of Power Lines with claiming that a pessimistic worldview is sort of what defines Ukraine. I'd almost say that it's the opposite.
Over the past year, we've seen Ukrainians show incredible resilience and creativity in expressing themselves and connecting to the world. And I would almost say that's the more Ukrainian perspective on life that we should take away.
And what I've found, and to maybe bring a bit of optimism to this is over the last couple of years, perhaps even decades, it feels like the world has been becoming a little bit more pessimistic about the future. We're all looking for how the world can collapse.
Whereas actually, if you look at the statistics in many ways, poverty is at some of the lowest levels, crime is amongst the lowest levels. Education is rising. And yes, there has been a downturn against democracy in recent years, but there are reasons to be hopeful.
And I think in a world that has perhaps become too introspective and too gloomy about where it's going, I think the way that Ukrainians have stood up is a reason to be hopeful.
And as we've seen on Power Lines, it's something that impacts all aspects of the world where it's economic, social, political, we're all connected.
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: That is probably the right way to wrap it up. We hope you've enjoyed this first season of Power Lines. Tune in next week to hear our final bonus of the series where we recap some of our favourite episodes.
We'll also be doing Twitter Spaces on the Kyiv Independent Twitter account in the coming weeks, so look out for it.
Jakub: If you want to further support us, you can subscribe to our ad free feed on Apple and by looking up Power Lines + on Spotify.
You can also support the Kyiv Independent by finding us on our Patreon to get behind the scenes content. Go to patreon.com/kyivindependent to continue helping us report on the most important stories in Ukraine.
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Anastasiia: Power Lines is a partnership between the Kyiv Independent and Message Heard. It was produced by Bea Duncan, Harry Stott and Talia Augustidis. The executive producer is Sandra Ferrari. The theme music is by Tom Biddle and Alfie Godfrey.