Anna Chagina. Putin Is a Demon Who Stole My Country

They are being repressed for reposting my texts in Russia now. Here is an interview with Anna Chagina, who is accused in a criminal case for "discrediting the army". 

Nikolai Karpitsky

On the early morning of November 30, the security forces came to the home of Tomsk musician and teacher Anna Chagina: this was how she found out that she been charged with the criminal offense of “discrediting the army.” Chagina had been detained at an anti-war rally on March 6. In September, the Prosecutor General’s Office blocked Chagina’s page on VK over anti-war posts, which have now served as the grounds for the criminal charges against her under Article 280.3.1 of the Criminal Code. The maximum penalty is up to three years in prison.

– Which posts on VK did they deem “discrediting”?

Anna Chagina: I have only read the arrest reports so far, not the stuff in the criminal case file. As far as I understand, the incriminating posts are the ones featuring texts by the Christian thinker Pavel Levushkan and the philosopher Nikolai Karpitsky, as copied from Facebook and posted on my VK page, with the authorship of the texts indicated. Karpitsky is a philosopher who lived in Tomsk and headed the Tomsk Anti-Fascist Committee, but now lives in Ukraine. He talks about necrophilic imperialism and about why Russians behave this way, both in war and in peacetime. Plus the comment “No war!” which I wrote below someone else’s post on VK.

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Nikolai Karpitsky. November 12, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and sixty second day

Today, euphoria from the liberation of Kherson. Tomorrow we will be horrified by the scale of war crimes that will be revealed in the liberated territories. The day after tomorrow will begin the everyday life of a new phase of the war. And in Slavyansk they gave gas, launched trolleybuses. Finally, I can hear the sound of trains that hardly ever run when the enemy was ten kilometers from us. The stores are already so crowded that the usual queues at the cashiers appeared. Groceries are still expensive, but flour and potatoes appeared at pre-war prices. From time to time I met calls for negotiations and peace with Putin from seemingly decent people. I have a question for them: did they really want us to winter here without heat and water under constant shelling? Or that people continue to be captured and tortured in the occupied territories?

In the Battle of Kherson, the Russian army proved to be a strong adversary, and the evacuation to the left bank was carried out quite professionally. However, the Ukrainian army demonstrated not just professionalism, but the highest level of strategy and tactics: first, they managed to lure the best parts of the invaders to the left bank and, thanks to this, inflict an unexpected defeat in a completely different place - in Slobozhanshchina, and then make the enemy flee from Kherson! It’s unbelievable, especially since the enemy always had the advantage. It was impossible to achieve a better result with the forces at Ukraine’s disposal.

However, I still hoped that Putin would not let the army escape and would expose it to complete defeat. I thought so on the grounds that he is guided not by military, but by political logic within his distorted picture of the world. After all, this explains why he previously transferred fresh forces to the Kherson bridgehead, and when things didn't go well, declared the Kherson region part of Russia, began mobilization and threatened with nuclear weapons. Never was the world as close to nuclear war as it was this fall. In any case, he firmly demonstrated he had no intention of surrendering Kherson under any circumstances. It is all the more difficult to assume that he timed his decision to surrender Kherson to the G20 summit. Most likely, there was a threat that the army would begin to retreat without permission.

Now, after the liberation of Kherson, we can evaluate the results of the battle. Since it was impossible to provide a full-fledged supply of troops on the bridgehead, it was futile to hold it. 

Military logic demanded withdrawal, taking up defense along the Dnieper, and transferring the released troops to another, more promising area where they could be properly supplied. Therefore, the withdrawal from near Kherson should have strengthened the Russian troops. This would have been the case if they had been withdrawn immediately. But now the retreating troops are frayed and demoralized, and, in addition, lost a lot of equipment. It will take a month to replenish them with the mobilized and bring them to combat readiness. At the same time, the AFU's brigades are freed up, replenished with trophy weapons, retained their strength, and encouraged by the victory. And they can be put into combat at any part of the front right now. In addition, it is now possible to put all exits from Crimea under fire control, and in the future, to force its demilitarization even without forcing the Dnieper, as happened with Serpent Island.

Leaving Kherson for Putin is politically disastrous. Even if the mobilization, on which such hopes were pinned, could not stop the advance of the AFU, it means that the war is pointless and all the casualties are in vain. Besides, if the army has imposed on Putin the decision to retreat, then he can no longer rely on it. In fact, he does not rely on it, so he created an alternative tonton-macoute army led by Prigozhin and Kadyrov. They are fiercely hated by the entire Putin elite, the military and special services, which further undermines the power.

In order to keep control of the situation under these conditions, Putin needs success on the front by all means. But where? There is already a continuous offensive on Bakhmut, but there the AFU are successfully grinding hordes of criminals from the Wagner PMC. There is another option: to create new units from the mobilized, to put there as commanders the veterans who managed to be taken out from near Kherson, and then throw them on the Ugledar. If successful, it would be possible to go into the rear of the Ukrainian group near Donetsk and then reach Bakhmut. But it takes time to prepare for such an offensive, and the AFU will not wait. If they take the offensive themselves near Ugledar, they will cut the only railroad line along the Azov region. Then all the positions of the invaders in the south of Ukraine will crumble. That is why Putin took an unprecedented step of publicly humiliating himself, calling Ukrainians "partners," and begging for a temporary truce.

I can't say how the military action will develop further. On the one hand, Putin always has some reserves, but on the other hand, the AFU always acts unexpectedly. In the long run, the defeat of Russia is inevitable, and then the threat of losing power hangs over Putin. Probably, at the last moment, he will issue an order to use nuclear weapons, which the military will refuse to execute, leading to a coup. It is possible that he will not have time to give such an order, because he is already  destroying his own vertical of power. In particular, he has already abolished the state's monopoly on violence by creating a private army of criminals. Moreover, he delegated the pardon power, which is the exclusive privilege of the president, to these same criminals.

All Putin's elite are deathly afraid of the tonton macoutes, so sooner or later they will unite with the army and the FSB to destroy them. Prigozhin and Kadyrov understand this very well, so the seizure of power is the only way for them to physically survive. This is what they are preparing for right now. With the most thuggish, such as Zolotov and Surovikin, they are trying to make an alliance, they are trying to replace those like Lapin with more convenient ones. 

 

If, as a result of further defeats on the fronts, Putin loses control over the situation, the war with Ukraine has every chance of escalating into a civil war within Russia. The combat-ready army units will have been destroyed by that time, the mobilized guys will rebel everywhere, and Prigozhin will have a huge reserve at his disposal - colonies of prisoners. Of course, the majority of criminals are not ready to go to die in Ukraine, but they will agree much more willingly to rob and kill their own compatriots on the territory of Russia with impunity. This means that the nightmare of Bucha and Mariupol can be repeated in any Russian city.

Suppose the military and the FSB manage to eliminate Prigozhin. What then to do with this huge army of criminals? Disband? Then they will be free to use their military experience to create gangs. Send them back to the camps? But they will resist to the end, and we are talking about many tens of thousands of people. This means that the war will be a war of annihilation, as no reconciliation is possible. 

The world community will not tolerate the chaos of a civil war on the territory of a nuclear state. Naturally, no one will attack Russia, but to protect the local population, an international coalition may well be created to introduce peacekeepers.

Along the way, the problem of nuclear weapons on Russian territory will be solved. All those who now support Putin and shout that NATO attacked Russia in Ukraine will be the first to beg the West to bring in peacekeepers to stabilize the situation in Russia. However, the peacekeepers cannot stay in Russia indefinitely, they will have to hand over power to someone. If power is transferred to any body involving a single decision-making center, be it the president or the parliament, the imperialists will sooner or later take revenge, and the war will repeat itself. To prevent this, power will have to be transferred to such a federal body, which only harmonizes decisions made in the regions and not in one center. In this case, the regions themselves will not allow the revival of the empire, at least for selfish reasons, because it is unprofitable for them. 

It’s just one of the possible scenarios. I only described it so that people can understand what choices they can make in a crisis. In fact, the future is unpredictable.

Nikolai Karpitsky. November 5, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and fifty fifth day of war

The impression of the planned blackouts. Getting dark early, the house is cold. I’m wearing three sweaters and a hoodie. I don't notice the cold, as I'm immersed in work. Suddenly everything goes down, and I find myself cut off from the world. The darkness obduces me along with the cold. How long it will be like this, nobody knows. In summer there was no light for several days, but then it was warm and the nights were short. I could sunbathe and ride my bike. Now it's cold and damp at home, if you sweat, there's no place to dry and warm up, so riding a bike became problematic.

Now all I can do is to crawl under three blankets and wait. I feel like a bear in a den, it's dark and warm, but it's slowly getting colder outside. The only thing left to do is meditate. The consciousness sinks into a half-slumber and disperses, allowing me to think in several directions at a time, to ponder the various topics I was about to write on. Then, imperceptibly, I find myself on the other side of sleep, but not far from the reality of wakefulness, so that at any moment I can return. It would be nice to wait out this terrible winter that awaits us in this way. Like a bear. I wonder if bears are also dozing in the den, or are they completely out? Or maybe they live a brighter and more fulfilling life in the world of dreams.

Suddenly the light came on and I'm working on the computer again. There was no light for only three hours, fortunately, the temperature outside is above zero, you can live. It was just a warning about what awaits us in the winter. Iran entered the war on Russia's side, and we will be hit by Iranian ballistic missiles in winter. These are not primitive shaitan-mopeds, they are difficult to intercept. So this winter will be the hardest since World War II. With such terrorist tactics against civilians, Putin wants to force Ukraine to capitulate. But that is impossible. Better to freeze than to submit to a necrophile. I believe that no negotiations with Putin are acceptable. He is a criminal, and if we enter into negotiations with him, we thereby legitimize him as a state leader.

In order for Ukraine to hold out, it is necessary to hit back at missile launchers and military industry facilities. This requires missiles that will reach military facilities behind Russia's lines. People in Ukraine are now very angry and dream that in response to the destruction of the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, the Russian one is destroyed as well. Like, an eye for an eye. Emotionally, I understand them, and I myself would like those of my acquaintances in Russia who support the attack on Ukraine to experience all that we are experiencing. However, Ukraine is a democratic state based on the rule of law and will never deliberately target civilian objects in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Another thing is the military infrastructure in the rear of Russia, which is a legitimate military target. If Ukraine does not strike back, it will not be able to protect civilians from Russian missile terror. And to keep us from freezing in winter, we must convey this understanding to the Western public, because Ukraine is now protecting the entire West, so it has the right to count on the supply of missiles that will allow to protect its inhabitants.

Nikolai Karpitsky. October 30, 2022. Ukraine. Two hundred and forty-ninth day of war

After the enemy was thrown back from Slavyansk, the city is coming back to life. There is water, they promise to fix the gas supply, but so far the houses are cold. There are more cars and more people on the streets. 

Cannonades are not heard for a long time, however, there are occasional single explosions. The night before last, there was a series of five explosions, the previous one - of two. It's like that everywhere in Ukraine now. But today it seemed to be quiet.

A lot of classes, I have no time to write anything else. I teach classes on the Internet from home. I've got a message that my colleague, professor Mikhail Logvinenko, died as a warrior. One of the best professors. I remember him passing my candidacy exam brilliantly. Now, in my close circle of acquaintances, there are those who died at the front. This war in Ukraine has affected everyone, very soon it will affect everyone in Russia, and there will not be a single person whose relative or friend wouldn't die in this war.

The situation is difficult. The counterattack on Izyum and Liman was successful despite Russia's superior military potential. Now that the occupiers have saturated the front with mobilized men, it is harder to fight, and all those analysts who name the dates and directions of the next successes are irresponsible. A real military analyst can assess the current situation, but will not predict the course of the war. And there is a request for forecasts. As a result, we get such a picture. He sits at home, somewhere in Germany, a humanitarian, reads reports, and then, on the basis of simple induction, begins to write forecasts on Facebook. If someone's troops, for example, have advanced in some direction, then they will continue to advance, surrounding everyone and capturing everything. 

And it turns out that he is not assessing the actual military situation, but the hypothetical one that has developed only in his head. It looks as if an amateur undertook to comment on a chess game of masters: “You see, he won back the pawn, which means he plays very well, and if it goes like this, then he will win back the bishop, and then, you see, it will come to the rook!”

The essence of analysis is not to predict what will happen, but to assess the current situation. Critical analysis means that we reassess the correlation of factors in each new situation, without adjusting them to already established ideas or expectations. This distinguishes an analyst from a propagandist who rejects even such a simple induction and takes as truth only what corresponds to his picture of the world. A simple induction is when, for example, we see a successful offensive of the Ukrainian army, and on this basis we conclude that it should also continue to advance, liberating city after city. But as soon as expectations diverge from reality, accusations of “treason” and “agreements” immediately begin. The principle of conformity to one's own picture of the world is when, for example, someone believes that the Russian army is invincible, and therefore interprets all its defeats as cunning maneuvers, without doubting that it continues to win even now. And there are such people, too!

It is irresponsible to predict the course of a war, as it depends on free will and innumerable factors that cannot be taken into account, but one can analyze the already existing situation to see what prospects it opens up. Accordingly, we can see that Russia has no strategic prospect of victory, while Ukraine does. The course of the war may be unpredictable, but this will not change the overall perspective. Paradoxical, but true: Putin's only chance after the February 24 invasion was to quickly lose the war. This would allow him to retreat, retain power and prepare for a new attack. Instead, he began a long war of attrition. This means that, after defeat, Russia will never regain its power enough to threaten its neighbors, and its very existence is highly questionable. As it is now, it will definitely no longer exist.

The military situation is now as follows. The most combat-ready occupant units are locked in the Kherson bridgehead.  Putin is bringing in fresh forces, hoping to turn the situation around and go on the offensive, but it is very difficult to do so when the entire bridgehead is under fire. On the other hand, the bridgehead was turned into one solid fortress, and it cannot be taken head-on, and the gap in the defense is no longer found. Thanks to this, the invaders managed to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive near Kherson. And here again, the paradox. The tactical failure of the Ukrainian offensive on Kherson is already turning out to be a success at the strategic level. The rapid liberation of Kherson would free the occupiers from the need to keep there the best forces that they could redeploy to other fronts, gaining a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper. If not for Putin's stubbornness, they would have done so long ago, and we would have been in a lot of trouble then. The more Putin drives his troops to the Kherson bridgehead, the more his frontline sags. For the Ukrainian army, this is the most advantageous situation when all the main forces of the enemy are concentrated on a small patch from which they cannot deploy, exposed to continuous shelling. In fact, this is the decisive factor that determined the turning point in the entire war. Mobilization helped to deter the advance of the AFU, but only temporarily, because while the Russian army is being replenished by untrained mobilized men, the Ukrainian army is receiving modern weapons. 

Of course, Putin can mobilize endlessly and will eventually begin to conscript women, but each new wave of mobilization will face an increasingly equipped Ukrainian army. You can't win this way, but you can postpone defeat. In fact, mobilization is a conveyor of death. So far it is in the process of being fine-tuned, but it'll soon be turned to full power. Many are frightened by this escalation and call for negotiations and peace, but I think that even peace will not stop the mobilization. However, negotiations with Putin are impossible anyway, so this is all empty talk.

The situation in the world is changing so that Russia has almost no chance for the future. Supporting Putin has become collective suicide. I just don’t see how, after all the crimes that Russia has already committed, it's possible to maintain a pan-Russian national identity. However, it is not for me to decide, but for the next generation, which will be ashamed of the parents who betrayed their children. Besides, the other day China finally established a monarchical dictatorship. This means that very soon China will require full control over Siberia and the Far East. Unlike necro-imperial Russia, China has enormous resources, and no one will stand up for Russia. 

Let me fantasize a bit. Let’s say Yeltsin did not appoint a successor. There would have been no explosions of houses, and then Primakov would have come to power, in his worldview very close to Comrade Xi. With huge petrodollars, he would have built an empire as powerful as modern China. But, apparently, the world could not withstand two such empires, and providence willed that Putin destroy Russia.

However, Russia did find an ally from its weight class, Iran, which joined its side in the war against Ukraine. Archaic empires based on tradition were replaced in the 20th century by totalitarian empires based on ideology, such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Today's Iran belongs to this second type of empires, which in the 21st century have also become archaic.

Russia, on the other hand, is a necro-empire, the third type that arose in the 21st century. Iran's alliance with Russia completely discredits Iran's ideology, since, from the standpoint of Islam, Putin's worldview is demonism. This leads me to believe that in reality the government in Iran has replaced traditional Islam with pseudo-Islamic ideology.

The Iranians are already killing civilians in Ukraine with their kamikaze drones. This means that Iran is taking part not only in the war against Ukraine, but also in Putin’s special military-terrorist operation against peaceful Ukrainians. It follows that the Iranian authorities are just as war criminals as the Russian and Belarusian ones, and therefore must share their fate.

Piotr Kaszuwara (in Polish) and Bradley Woody (in English) talk to Nikolai Karpitsky: Together we are strong. Sloviansk, September 10, 2022

Nikolai Karpitsky. Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason. Interview 08.07.2022

Nikolai Karpitsky (1968) - Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Philosophy. He completed an internship at the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the Latvian State University (1989) and at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University (2004), worked at the Tomsk Research Center for Human Rights (1996–1997).

He defended his Ph.D. thesis "The Dialectics of Human Being" (1995) and his doctoral thesis "Transcendental Premonition as a Phenomenon of Human Subjectivity" (2004). Lives in Slavyansk.

What do you see as the fundamental meaning of the current war?

For Ukraine, this is a war for the existence of the state, culture and people. There is no economic or political reason for Russia to wage war. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason, using the Maidan events as a pretext. Now Russia has launched a large-scale invasion also without a reason.

This means that the real causes of the war lie in the Manichaean picture of the world and are of an irrational metaphysical nature. The essence of this picture of the world is that it requires the obligatory presence of an enemy in the world, and if there is none, then it is created and inherent evil is attributed to it.

In relation to the enemy, any moral principles are canceled. Any good done to the enemy is considered evil, and in accordance with this, the entire system of ethical values is turned upside down, good and evil in it change places.

The authorities in Russia attribute evil to the entire West as a civilization, and the conquest of Ukraine is only preparation for a big war with it. Therefore, the war has an existential civilizational character.

How would you define the essence of Russian imperialism historiosophically and metaphysically?

The archaic Russian imperialism of the Third Rome is ordinary, because there were many empires in history, but their time has passed. The revival of imperialism in the 20th century on the basis of the Manichaean understanding of evil led to its mutation and the emergence of totalitarian imperialism in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The goal of a totalitarian state is to conquer the world in order to free it from evil, which was seen either in social and class nature, or in national and racial. The second mutation of imperial consciousness on the scale of society occurred with the coming to power of Putin and the special services, but it began in the bowels of the Cheka and the NKVD, which perceived the killing of innocent people as a universal method of simplifying the social situation.

From the position of archaic imperialism, power is needed for prosperity. The attitude to the surrounding world as evil turns archaic imperialism into a totalitarian one, from the position of which power is needed for the sake of power. Fear of the complexity of the world turns totalitarian imperialism into necrophilic, i.e. into necro-imperialism, from the position of which power is needed for destruction.

What will be the consequences of the war and the fate of civilization?

Russia will inevitably lose the war, but since the society in it is infected with necro-imperialism, if the colonial system of government is preserved, the war may repeat itself. Either a new dictator will come to power, or the democratic forces will temporarily win, but then the dictatorship will be established in the next political cycle.

The transition from a presidential to a parliamentary republic will not solve anything, since a single center for decision-making and resource allocation will remain. The West sees an existential threat in the collapse of Russia or in a civil war, and therefore can support moderate authoritarianism in it as a lesser evil.

The only way out is if the whole world unites and forces Russia to abandon the colonial governance structure. This means that the distribution of the budget, the appointment and removal of heads of law enforcement agencies should be handled by a federal body consisting of heads of regions elected in free and competitive elections.

Even if imperial sentiments reign in Russia, the heads of regions will still be forced to negotiate among themselves in order to defend the interests of their own region, which will switch their attention from geopolitics to domestic politics and make Russia safe for its neighbors.

URL: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/russia-invaded-ukraine-reason-mykola-karpitsky-phd-irina-mirochnik?trk=pulse-article_more-articles_related-content-card

Source in Russian: Huxleў. 08.07.2022

Nikolai Karpitsky. June 15, 2022. Ukraine. One hundred and twelfth day of war

I spoke to a student who was evacuated from Liman. Like Slavyansk, Liman was also hit with rockets, but they began to fire from cannon artillery only on April 26, when the invaders finally entrenched themselves in Zarechny. At that time they were about the same distance from Lyman, as now from the eastern outskirts of Slavyansk. First they shot the hospital, the House of Culture, and then regular artillery duels began and all the life support of the city ceased. As a rule, the shelling was continuous from four to ten in the morning, a lull in the afternoon until six in the evening, and then it continued again until one o'clock in the morning. And that was going on every day. Thanks to some Western howitzers being transferred to us, the situation is a little better now. We just have to hold out until large deliveries of weapons.

The electricity was cut off yesterday morning. I drove around the city. In our central park "Shovkovichny" it is beautiful and well-groomed, but there is not a soul. On the outskirts of the park there is a sports ground where young people exercise. Girls passed by. Why don't they evacuate? I think that Slavyansk won’t be taken, but war is unpredictable, and if Russian soldiers come, they will not be spared.

About a quarter of the inhabitants remained in the city, I am sure they also should evacuate. I get offered this all the time. I'm constantly being asked to do so myself. One of the reasons I stay here is the need to understand war from my own experience. The point is that all people, in order to navigate the world, need to be able to distinguish what is possible and what is impossible. We do this either on the basis of our picture of the world, or on the basis of the experience of life itself, when one is a direct participant in events. In the latter case, a special vital intuition of understanding events wakes up, for the sake of which I am here.

I'll show you a specific example. The other day, someone shelled the center of Donetsk, and Russian propaganda launched a fake, as if the armed forces of Ukraine had done this in order to provoke the Russians to retaliate shelling of Kyiv and Kharkov and ask the West for weapons for this. In fact, Donetsk was shelled by the Russians, but those who believe in Russian propaganda will not believe me. Similarly, they did not believe me that the FSB blew up houses with residents in the fall of 1999, although then there was already cast iron proof of this.

In their picture of the world, it was impossible for the authorities to blow up their own residents in their homes. I proceeded from my own life experience. When I lived in a wooden house in the center of Tomsk, the same wooden houses around me were set on fire from time to time to clear space for construction. Sometimes people were burned in the fires. Now I am in Slavyansk, and a rocket can hit my house at any moment, but the probability of this is exactly the same as the probability of burning to death in Tomsk in a night fire. I'm just used to this level of danger.

If they burn homes along with the inhabitants even for a piece of land, would they be ashamed to blow up a few houses for the sake of the presidency? And if in Russia they blew up their own houses along with the inhabitants, would they really not dare to shell the center of Donetsk?

An objective analyst, even without such life experience, will also come to the conclusion that Donetsk was shelled by Russians. After all, Russian troops have a tenfold (and somewhere more) superiority in artillery. The Ukrainians are throwing all their efforts into containing them, and have no resources to shoot at residential buildings. Of course, during artillery duels residential buildings are hit from both sides, but the shelling of Donetsk is clearly not the case. In addition, if Russian artillery shells the entire area, regardless of what is there, the Ukrainian shoots not at the areas, but at specific military objects, which reduces the risk of hitting residential buildings. In addition, while Russian artillerymen fire on an entire square regardless of what is there, Ukrainian artillerymen do not fire on squares, but on specific military objects, which reduces the risk of hitting residential buildings. In addition, if Russian artillerymen fire at the entire square, regardless of what is located there, then the Ukrainians fire not at the squares, but at specific military facilities, which reduces the risk of hitting residential buildings. Thanks to this tactic, Ukrainian artillerymen manage to fight on equal footing with the superior forces of the Russians.

However, this will not convince a believer in Russian propaganda, since in his or her picture of the world, vicious Ukrainians are ready to shoot at civilians in defiance of common sense. The argument becomes insoluble because two different pictures of the world collide. And here the decisive vote belongs to those who assert the truth based on life experience rather than on the picture of the world. For when knowledge becomes part of life experience, a special historical intuition for the perception of events awakens, which a scholar who perceives events from an academic distance does not have. 

I will not enter into an insoluble dispute, but simply testify to the obvious. After all, for the sake of this I am here in Slavyansk. Let’s distinguish what believers in Russian propaganda do not want to understand and what they simply cannot understand.

I. What they could understand, but don't want to.

1. For Ukrainians, Donetsk is their native Ukrainian city. 

2. The Russian occupiers are shelling residential areas without any reason, just as Russia attacked Ukraine without the slightest reason. The Russians are still constantly shelling residential areas where there are no troops. They don't need a reason at all.

3.  The supply of weapons from the West is extremely slow, but the intensity of Russian shelling has no influence on this. If the leaders of the countries of old Europe were not even affected by the shelling of Kyiv, when the UN Secretary General was there on a visit, nor by the burial of the executed civilians being discovered right now, it is naive to think that they will be affected by additional shelling of Kyiv. 

II. What can be understood only in Ukraine.

1. In Russia, the army is perceived as something cut off from the people, sometimes opposing the people. Now in Russia contracts with the army are signed by lumpens who go to Ukraine to rob, rape and kill. And the Russians, transferring this image to Ukraine, begin to judge Ukraine by analogy with the situation in their own country. However, in the minds of Ukrainians there is no army separate from the people. The army is exactly the same Ukrainians, the same people, the same relatives and friends. For example, for me the Ukrainian army is my students, my colleagues, philosophers, religious scholars. That is why such an army, in principle, cannot shoot at peaceful cities. It would be like shooting at yourself.

2. Russians think that we refuse to believe Russian propaganda because we are affected by the opposite propaganda from the Ukrainian authorities. Here again, they judge by themselves and cannot imagine that public opinion can be formed in a fundamentally different way. There is a very high level of civil communication in Ukraine, it is enough to turn to acquaintances and you can find eyewitnesses of any events. Therefore, the main source of information is horizontal connections between people. Television and the official media are of secondary importance here, which is why it is impossible to conduct state propaganda as effectively as in Russia. If the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired at civilians, as the Russians do, it would immediately become known through horizontal connections, and no propaganda would help.

This is the fundamental advantage of Ukrainian society, which is so self-evident for me that I did not even think about it until I began to analyze the fake. However, this needs to be discussed, because not only in Russia, but also in the rest of the world, they do not understand what Ukraine's strength lies in.

Nikolai Karpitsky. June 3, 2022. Ukraine. Hundredth Day of War

I spent the first summer days in Slavyansk without electricity and the Internet. On June 1 at five in the morning I was awakened by a powerful explosion - it flew in somewhere very close, then the cannonade began. I slept for a couple more hours, then poured boiling water on the oatmeal, and then the electricity went out again. Never had a chance to find out if anyone was hurt by the hit. The most unpleasant is the unknown, when there is no Internet and no way to assess the real danger to the city.

The previous morning, when the missile hit the residential sector of Slavyansk, three people were killed, six were wounded. Before that, the news reported that Russian troops were already fighting in Severodonetsk, and we were being attacked from the direction of Liman. Seversky Donets is on their way, but the enemy only needs to reach the coast and deploy cannon artillery there to begin methodically destroying Slavyansk. For now, Ukrainian troops hold the village of Old Caravan and do not let the orcs reach the shore. But no one knows how long ours will hold out. So the fate of Slavyansk is decided not by kilometers, but by hundreds of meters. There has been no water for a long time. Water and sanitation authority reported that this was due to an accident that de-energized the water intake in the village of Mayaki. This is in the same place, towards Liman on the bank of Seversky Donets, only from our side. So even if the water supply is restored, it will not be for long, although there is not much hope for that either.

Without electricity you have to save battery charge. The only thing left to do was to sunbathe and ride a bike around the city. Although it feels somewhat awkward when you are sunbathing, and combat aircraft are flying low right above you. Every day there are fewer people in the city, but the stores are open. Although they are closed in the center, you can buy everything you need in the central market, though at inflated prices. My house is on a mountain, and it offers a spectacular view for miles. When it starts to darken, white flashes flicker over the horizon - a battle is going on somewhere very far away, but no sounds are heard. So you can see directly that even when we have silence, desperate fighting continues throughout the Donbass arc, and people are dying there now.

The electricity came on last night, and the first thing I did was check the news. For two days, the occupiers have not advanced anywhere, and that cheers. The offensive is fizzling out, which means that Slavyansk has a chance to survive, although you should not count on it much.

When the invasion of Ukraine began, I hoped it would be an ordinary war between states. Now one makes war not to conquer other countries, but to solve political problems, for example, to impose the implementation of Minsk-2 on Ukraine, or to shift the power and create a pro-Russian government in Ukraine. The tasks are obviously unfeasible, but Putin does not know this. However, he unleashed an all-out war without explaining its purpose (he talked about some kind of denazification, but no one understood what it meant). It quickly became clear that this was a war of conquest. But what kind? If similar to the colonial wars of the nineteenth century, then there was hope that, at least to make it easier to govern, the occupiers would not deliberately set the inhabitants of conquered territories against themselves. But even these illusions were quickly dispelled when the systematic bombing of residential neighborhoods, shelling of buses with children, mass rapes, tortures and murders began. The enemy did not even try to pretend to be a "defender of Russian-speakers”. This is no longer a colonial war, but a civilizational war of annihilation. Fighting the aggressor, Ukraine is fighting for universal human values against barbarism, which comes from irrational mindsets (standpoints). They can be called "ethical Satanism”.

On an existential level, I feel it this way. A wave of orcs destroy everything in front of them, then occupy the territory plowed by artillery, and thus slowly move towards my house. Appealing to their human side is useless, and no mercy is to be expected from them. Naturally, I see the orcs as enemies and want them to be destroyed. But they also see me as an enemy and want to destroy me. What is the difference? Both sides equally see each other as enemies. However, there is an ethical gap between our positions.

Orcs perceive everyone who wants to live their own life, independent of Russia, as enemies, because they consider the whole world around them to be evil. Putin himself promised that the destruction of this world would lead them to paradise. Therefore, all of us who now live in Ukraine are automatically considered the embodiment of evil and are enemies for them. They can only allow those who submit to them to survive, and that with no guarantee.

This position stems from the Manichean worldview, in which evil is attributed to the very existence of the world. The surrounding world is perceived as hostile and subject to either subjugation or destruction. I call this picture of the world demonic, or simply put, Satanism. However, I use these terms not as a curse, but as concepts that can be used scientifically. I can argue this.

From antiquity there is an understanding of evil as incompleteness of good, and in Christianity this understanding is specified: evil is interpreted as an incorrect direction of will, denying good. In Buddhism, the world is perceived as neutral. Thus, from a universal human position, with which both believers and atheists will agree, it is unacceptable to attribute evil to the very essence of anything. Contrary to this, the Manichean worldview attributes evil precisely to the essence of the world. This is not Satanism yet, but the way to it, which still has a few steps to be taken.

First step. Evil is attributed to the very essence of the enemy. Therefore, in relation to the enemy, all ethical responsibility is abolished. 

Second step. The individual ceases to evaluate his behavior ethically, as he justifies any of his actions by the presence of an enemy. If there is no enemy, it must be found, and this becomes a universal explanatory principle.

Third step. The value system is reversed: if good is done to the enemy, it is considered evil, and if evil, it is considered good. A new system of values is being built, in which good and evil are interchanged.

Last step. A person begins to do evil, which is no longer motivated by his human interests, but by an inverted system of values. If evil has not human, but some other motivation, what do you call it? In all cultures, it is called demonic, and in Christianity it is also called satanic. Regardless of whether we recognize the existence of otherworldly spiritual entities or not, it would be more correct to call a value system based on the inhuman motivation of evil ethical demonism. Since the word "demonic" has too wide range of associations with various artistic images, the term "ethical Satanism" can be used in certain contexts.

If Putin simply wanted to conquer Ukraine, it would be pointless to bomb residential quarters and shoot refugees. Orcs, killing everyone, destroying everything in their path, have no human motivation to do so. They see all of us as enemies based on their own demonic worldview.

 

I consider them enemies, too. But unlike them, I do not treat anyone as an enemy on the basis of their essence or natural qualities. I will never consider anyone an enemy based on place of residence, nationality, race, religion, culture, citizenship or language. For me, the enemy is only one who has self-determined to evil. It is his choice, and I believe that this choice must be confronted by force, and if necessary by military force, which is what Ukraine is doing now, saving the civilized world from this evil.

Nikolai Karpitsky. May 30, 2022. Ukraine. Ninety-sixth day of the war

I began writing the post yesterday, so it begins with the events of yesterday. Since there was no electricity, I could not finish right away.

It was quiet in the morning. Alexander Reshetnik told on Facebook about his trip to the village of Bogorodichnoye. It is between us and Izyum, two kilometers from Svyatogorsk. The Russian military is constantly bombing it, they destroyed the Orthodox church there. I glued together a video from Alexander and as soon as I uploaded it to YouTube, they cut off the light and water. It turns out to be the same all over the city. I understood this when I crossed Slavyansk on a bicycle. Despite the good weather, the number of people on the streets in the middle of the day was about the same as usual at six o'clock in the morning. 

The city really began to look like a front-line one.

Someone was mowing the lawn in front of their house. Most often, the howling of sirens is now heard, in second place are the sounds of lawn mowers. The threat of the destruction of the city is quite tangible - from the Liman side, the invaders have already approached us at ten kilometers or even less. Despite this, people are trying to preserve the life of peace as much as possible.

When I returned home, there was light, but no water or Internet. Then the cannonade started again, the electricity was finally gone, and the phone stopped picking up the connection. So, it's for a long time. Then I sat down to write this post while there was a charge in the laptop battery, but I was completely cut off from the outside world. The orcs would break through, and I wouldn't know. But this is already a fantasy - yesterday their offensive slowed down, there is hope that the offensive will soon fizzle out. Although who knows... The cannonade is intense, a helicopter is circling somewhere, I don't know if it's ours or the enemy's.

The invaders are trying to demoralize us, which is why they are destroying infrastructure, especially water supplies and power lines. Without the Internet, it is impossible to assess the degree of danger. As I write, telephone connection has been restored, which is a good sign, but the cannonade has not subsided, there is no electricity. It is very difficult for people in such a situation, so I decided to outline my reflections on spiritual practice in the frontline zone, namely, the method of overcoming fear and despair. If spiritual practice isn't interesting now, you can read no further than this point.

* * *

The premise of practice is the ability to distinguish between two spheres of mental life: the external sphere of experience given to me and, in its depths, the inner sphere of my efforts of will. Emotional experiences in these spheres manifest themselves in different ways.

1. Fear.

In the external psychic realm, fear manifests itself as an experience given to me that presses on me, restrains my actions, but I can resist it just like any external force. But as soon as I let fear into my inner psychic realm, it turns into a force that acts from within my effort, replacing my will, and gives the effort its own inertia. Thus, my volitional effort ceases to be mine and is further driven only by fear. This is how a state of complete absorption in fear arises, in which I lose myself and my will. However, until I have allowed fear into my inner realm, it cannot subdue my will, remaining merely a mental event from which I can turn my back. 

In order for fear to subdue the will of a person, a special act of consent is needed for this fear to pass from the external mental sphere to the internal one. In accordance with this, the method of overcoming fear is defined, the essence of which is to separate oneself from the emotional experience, to make fear only an external phenomenon, like a traffic light indicating when it is safe to cross the road and when it is not. But since fear has its own power, tending to penetrate into the inner sphere of the psyche, constant effort of the will is required in order not to let it in.

Many people say that they cannot resist when fear takes over the body and penetrates through it. Therefore, it is necessary to control not only emotions, but also the body. For example, I immediately see a student's fear at the exam by the rhythm of breathing, smoothness or angularity of movements, and on this basis I try to support him morally. To prevent fear from penetrating inside yourself through the body, you need to change the rhythm of breathing. It is best to reproduce the rhythm that corresponds to a calm and confident state. Then you can already make sure that the movements of the body remain as natural as usual, not allowing them to get out of step under the influence of fear. This brings back the familiar natural sense of the body, which should be extended to the entire surrounding reality, as if it were an extension of one's own body.

However, if the fear has already penetrated into the inner sphere of the psyche and it is no longer useful to turn away and control the body, then it will be necessary to retreat even further inland, to pass to a new line of defense, as the Ukrainian army does, when the enemy artillery mixes the forward position with the ground. In this way, the inner sphere of effort of the will, which is seized by fear, becomes external in relation to the new inner position from which one can look at one's fear again detachedly, like a spectator of a horror movie who suddenly realizes that the events on the screen do not affect him in any way.

Despair.

Despair is more difficult to fight, because it not only paralyzes the will, but also forms such a false perception of reality, which develops into a closed isolated world, in which a feeling of helplessness and senselessness of any efforts overflows, and there is no more strength to get out of it. Here, too, one has to retreat within oneself, for it is no longer useful to cling to everything that is dear, to old attachments, hopes, habits.

When despair completely deprives you of all your strength, the only thing left to do is to move inward to an inner position and abandon your usual life, however, not to remain a bystander, but to find the strength within yourself to rebuild a new reality. At first, it will be difficult, for in the state of detachment from everything, it becomes empty inside. It is impossible to immediately fill this empty space with the whole world. The world will be built anew gradually as the new sense of life is revealed in actions. Let it be very small things at first, like mowing the lawn, when it seems it makes no sense of doing anything at all, but then, when the new power of life is awakened, you can become a real creator of your own destiny.

3. Loss of will to live.

Despair is followed by the most dangerous temptation - loss of will to live, when it seems that there is no point in living and you want to die sooner in order to free yourself from the need for pointless efforts. I could give many reasons as to why this position is false, but I will not do so, for this issue is not polemical but spiritual, and is linked to self-determination. Either we assume that nothing makes sense, or that existence in itself is good, despite the fact that life is difficult. But if so, even in the face of imminent death one must fight for every minute of life, for every moment is self-valuable regardless of the circumstances. The only way to overcome this temptation is through this kind of value-based self-determination, and no other methodology is likely to help.

I think that the current war between Russia and Ukraine is also a war for the highest spiritual value. For the occupiers, life is not intrinsically valuable and must be sacrificed for imperial ideas. Therefore, they destroy the civilian population and do not consider their own losses. Putin simply brought this imperial ideology to its logical end - to necrophilic imperialism. For its adherents, the meaning of heroism is heroic death, so they do not understand that for Ukrainians a hero must survive, because life is the highest value. Recently, a Russian fascist who fancies himself a philosopher reproached the Azov people for not wanting to die heroically. Even the heroism of the Russian fascists must necessarily be necrophilic. They can’t understand that Ukrainians fight not for the symbols of heroism, but for the sake of life, so the heroes must live, and Ukraine will do anything for this. 

Nikolai Karpitsky. May 23, 2022. Ukraine. Eighty-ninth day of war

The past week has been hot. I thought that by May 9 the enemy will have exhausted all reserves, but it seems he has the opportunity to replenish the troops. Ours are also replenished and saturated with new weapons, as evidenced by the intensity of the cannonade. In the middle of the week, the occupiers broke through the defenses around Popasnaya and advanced in all directions at once. In the north, they seek to encircle Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, and in the west they want to capture Bakhmut, from which they can attack any city in the Donbass. Several days have passed, and so far Ukrainian troops are holding them back on the new line of defense. Fighting was fierce on Friday and Saturday. They were shooting very close to us. It looks like everything was involved - aviation, howitzers, hailstones and other rocket launchers. The planes are flying very low above us, I think they’re ours, otherwise they’d be shot at by stingers. Today again, disturbing news comes from Liman and Mironovsky. The enemy is advancing, and it is not yet clear at what lines it can be stopped.

Yesterday I rode my bike to Good News Church. Most of its members have already evacuated. I thought there would be no one, but there were a lot of people, more than two hundred. It's already new ones coming in. At least a fifth of those present were at the meeting for the first time. The city is alive, but people and cars are three times less than usual. I think that only a third of the inhabitants remained in the city. In stores, the range of goods has been greatly reduced, prices are twice as high as before the war.

The adherents of the rashism are upset that there was no blitzkrieg, nevertheless they rejoice at the advancement of their troops, albeit slow. They are indifferent about losses, they believe that they have unlimited reserves of old equipment and conscripts, which means that sooner or later they will squeeze. First they will surround the Donbass group, then they will finish off the remaining military units. We see the situation differently. The invaders are being held back even with the forces that were initially available. And while the enemy is expending his last forces in an attempt to break through our defenses, we are preparing new reserves, equipped with Western weapons.

This is how it looks in a broad panorama, but here in the Donbas everything is perceived differently, more concretely. In the first weeks of the war, the enemy attacked in five directions at once, and the Ukrainian army withstood the onslaught on the limit of its possibilities. Now the enemy has concentrated half of all his forces in just one area from Izyum to Popasnaya, and is pressing with all this power. He destroyed Mariupol, Volnovakha, Popasnaya, and Rubezhnoye to the ground, and now he is destroying Liman. Ukrainians fight desperately, professionally and creatively. But it is impossible to fight without mistakes, and any mistake can be fatal. However, there is no choice but to hold back the enemy's advance while our reserves are slowly being saturated with Western weapons. 

This morning I saw a video that Alexander Reshetnik posted on his Facebook. I met him back in 2015, during a trip to the frontline zone. This is a real hero of Donbass, a volunteer of the Good News Church. Since 2014, he has been taking people out of the shelling zone, he was captured. This morning he went to Liman. The murderous naivety of ordinary people is astounding: they posted information about the place and time of evacuation. Did they seriously think that the rashists would not shoot at the refugees? Of course, the evacuation point was bombed and then they tried to hit Alexander's car as he drove back. In this connection, I collected all short videos about his trips to Liman, combined them and named "Liman under siege - May 2022. Alexander Reshetnik" posted on my YouTube channel.

The refugees should return, and their homes must be rebuilt. But this is only possible through the complete defeat of the invading army. Neither through negotiations, nor through a peace agreement, nor through a gradual military displacement beyond the state borders, namely, the defeat of the enemy with encirclements and his mass surrenders. No peace agreements with the ruling regime in Russia are possible.

As a schoolboy, back in Soviet times, on the instructions of a teacher, I read a book in which it was argued that once Hitler occupied Austria, he thereby abolished Germany's right to exist. Whoever agrees with this will have to agree with the fact that Putin has abolished Russia’s right to exist. At least formally, since in fact he destroyed the state long ago, replacing it with a mafia-Chekist anti-state hierarchy. But here is a question: don't the inhabitants of Russia have the right to their own state? I am not disputing the right itself, but I will respond with this analogy. Suppose the tenants, through negligence, let criminals into their house who keep them in fear, the house was torn to the ground, and then the neighbors were attacked. But the neighbors turned out to be stronger, and the criminals were dealt with. Do tenants have a right to their home? Of course they do. Only this house does not exist. And there is no power to rebuild it. But the bandits can come back to terrorize the tenants again. You can't do without outside help, but there;s no one who is obliged to help. And if help comes, then not the tenants themselves, but others will decide what and how to rebuild. This is exactly what happened with Nazi Germany, in the footsteps of which Putin's Russia is following.

Nikolai Karpitsky. May 8, 2022. Ukraine. Seventy-fourth day of war

Tomorrow is May 9. The occupiers did everything to succeed on the Donbass arc by this date, but Ukrainian troops held out. Three weeks ago, the invaders threw all their forces into the offensive, in the first days captured Kremennaya, Yampol and got stuck near Liman. All this time there were fierce battles. The enemy has a huge advantage in artillery shells, but the positions of the Ukrainian troops are much more convenient for defense. A wooded ridge stretches along the southern shore of the Seversky Donets. From there you can see the roofs of the Liman houses, which is ten kilometers away. This is an ideal place for artillery, which paralyzed the advance of Russian troops. However, the offensive potential of the invaders is still significant. Yesterday they entered the village of Shandrigolovo in the north of Liman. Today it was reported that the enemy managed to seize the ruins left of the town of Popasna.

The battles near Slavyansk this week were very hot, they fought even at night. It is here that the density of Russian troops is highest, although the terrain is completely unsuitable for an offensive - it is full of ravines, hills and forests. You can advance either along the road, which is shot through, or along the paths. All this time I wondered whether Slavyansk would survive or share the fate of Rubezhnoye and Popasnaya. Sometimes the shooting was very close, there’s a smog and the smell of burning in the city. Finally, yesterday, I noticed that the cannonade was heard much farther than usual. Obviously, there was a counterattack, and the enemy was thrown another ten kilometers away from us and from the railway connecting Donbass with the rest of Ukraine. At the same time, near Kharkov, Ukrainian troops significantly pushed the invaders away from the city. Hotheads called this the beginning of a counteroffensive, but it is still far from it, although successful counter-attacks are encouraging.

I also hoped that by May 9 Putin would have exhausted all his reserves and that the Ukrainian army would launch a counter-offensive, but the war is dragging on. The occupiers can still pose a threat of breakthrough in certain areas or attrit in endless skirmishes, having an unlimited resource of old equipment and the lumpen to mobilize from depressed cities.

However, Ukraine has much more combat-ready reserves that have not yet been put into action. Thanks to Lend-Lease, there is a unique opportunity to transfer the army to western weapons. Moreover, it is possible to create new military units from scratch according to NATO standards. If this succeeds, the counter-offensive losses will be reduced manifold. But this will take several months, which means that the plans for the liberation of Ukraine are being postponed, at least until fall.

However, knowing the Ukrainian temperament, I can say that the Ukrainian army will not sit on the defensive all this time. The rearmament of artillery on the front line is already underway. Now the Ukrainian military will shoot the last Soviet-made shells and send the Soviet howitzers into scrap metal. They are already being replaced by Western-style howitzers, which hit farther and more accurately. While the Russian military will be defeated in artillery duels, small detachments of Ukrainian infantry under the cover of modern drones will be able to crush the enemy’s rear. Under these conditions, Putin will constantly pull up new reserves of obsolete equipment, not to win, but to wear down the Ukrainian troops. From his position, there is a double win here: on the one hand, this will force the Ukrainians to waste ammunition, on the other hand, it will allow getting rid of extra mouths in depressed cities. Guided by this approach, he is already mobilizing in Donetsk and Lugansk, and then throwing unprepared recruits into battle. In the near future, he will spread this practice throughout Russia, first in small depressed cities, and then everywhere.

Today is May 8 - Victory Day over fascism. Historical analogies involuntarily suggest themselves: Putin's Russia as the reincarnation of Hitler's Germany, while Ukraine playing the role of Britain in 1940, which single-handedly withstood against Germany and undermined the power of many times superior German aviation, turning the tide of World War II. Now Ukraine is saving the world from fascism in exactly the same way, by grinding the Russian army in its fields.

It is important to determine what is considered a victory. Churchill refused to take a position of non-intervention in exchange for the security of the country, because for him victory meant the destruction of fascism. Nor will it be a victory for Ukraine simply to liberate all its territories. While this will be a huge success, it will mean only a temporary truce, not a victory. Now, as then, only the destruction of fascism itself can be considered a victory. After Ukraine defeats the invading army, it will be the international coalition that will be achieving victory. However, the voice of Ukraine will be the most significant. And here we should not give in until the colonial system of government, which makes Russia dangerous to the rest of the world no matter who comes to power there, is destroyed.

Victory Day is an occasion to draw another important analogy with Britain, namely, how quickly it was able to restore peaceful life, becoming one of the strongest powers in the world. Ukraine will also get such a chance. The first years after the victory, it will have great authority and credit of trust as a country that saved the world from fascism. The whole world will help it recover. Huge investments in the construction sector will restart the economy. The surge of interest in Ukraine all over the world will open up new opportunities for the development of cultural ties. But here people have a question. After all, so many opportunities have already been missed! How this time, after the victory, not to miss these opportunities?

I'll try to answer briefly. After any revolution, power passes to the most organized part of society. In Ukraine, this part was the oligarchs and the bureaucracy. An alternative to them can only be civil society, which exists in Ukraine, but it is not organized enough to become the main political force. After victory, therefore, resources must be invested not only in the economy and culture, but also in the development of civil society.  Every city needs a platform for communication that will allow members of the public and all active people to communicate personally. It takes very little money to do this, but in the conditions of such communication it will no longer be possible to hide anything from the public. If this can be done, all the actions of the authorities will be transparent to the public, which simply will not allow theft or inefficient use of funds for the restoration of the country.

Nikolai Karpitsky. May 3, 2022. Ukraine. Sixty-ninth day of war

Five days ago I wrote about the dangerous advance of the invaders who approached Liman. My students and colleagues live there. The city is shelled, residential buildings are burning. Volunteer friends are taking people out under shelling. If Liman had been taken, the artillery could have hit Slavyansk from there. But the front line has not moved in the last few days. It may seem like nothing is happening, but it is not. Putin decided to succeed by May 9 at all costs, and all the while a desperate offensive has been going on. I know about this from the constant artillery cannonade. Fights are going on both on the ground and in the air. Today is sunny, the weather is convenient for flights, so the intense work of our air defense is constantly heard.

The occupiers are laid out in full. This is the maximum they can do, but the Ukrainian military successfully repels all attacks. By the intensity of the shooting from our positions, it is felt that the forces of the defenders have grown. In addition, somewhere in the rear, new reserves are being prepared, equipped with western heavy weapons. When they enter the battle, the defeat of the Russian army will be a foregone conclusion. Until recently, so-called oppositionists from Russia explained that although Crimea was seized illegally, it is technically impossible to take it back. It looks like the problem will resolve itself soon.

Today I was extremely surprised. It turns out, as I was told, Russian TV consumers are still sincerely convinced that Russia is successfully advancing and winning! The most critical of them admit that the Russian troops are temporarily bogged down, but they still do not doubt in victory. And we wondered what Putin would present to his electorate as a success by May 9th. It turns out that there is no need to present anything, people already believe that everyone is defeated.

For me, as for everyone in Ukraine, the inevitability of victory is obvious. A month ago, there were fears that the matter would end with a truce and the withdrawal of Russian troops to the status of February 23, 2022, but now the complete liberation of all the occupied territories is only the beginning. Now we are talking about, in principle, making Russia undangerous for the rest of the world. And here we can compare how our faith in the victory of Ukraine differs from the faith in the victory of Russia zombied by propaganda.

In the early days of the invasion, an acquaintance from Russia sympathetically suggested fleeing Ukraine, which would soon be completely captured, another, condolingly, wrote that he did not expect the Ukrainian resistance to collapse so quickly, thinking they would hold out a little longer. These people live in a picture of the world completely divorced from reality, and with them millions more who even now continue to believe in Russia's victory. The essence of this faith is that the believer is in a passive position in relation to the subject of faith. This begs the comparison to football fans watching the match on TV. They believe in the victory of their team, but they cannot influence the situation and therefore only passively watch what is happening.

By the way, military hysteria in Russia is of the same nature as the hysteria of fans who are not able to play themselves. For a complete analogy it should be added that they observe the match on the tape from which the censor cut out all the goals missed by their team.

The belief in Ukraine's victory is also irrational to some extent, as it initially manifested itself in a seemingly hopeless situation, when Kyiv was supposed to fall within four days, and organized resistance to collapse. This is how the ratio of military potentials worked out according to rational calculations by specialists. However, these calculations meant nothing to the Ukrainians, neither military nor civilians, who together stopped the enemy because they believed in victory. And this faith was fundamentally different from that one of those brainwashed by propaganda. The faith of Ukrainians is not based on ideological convictions or on a disconnected picture of the world, but on their own will to victory. It was that will that formed not a passive, but an active attitude towards the subject of faith. 

The will to win is such an inner intention that does not depend on external circumstances and is able to change the surrounding reality. It arises in internal free self-determination and is revealed in actions in such a way that at every moment a person feels the power to do the right thing and realizes that this act really changes something. It is namely this realization that becomes the belief in victory. This is a special kind of faith as a form of awareness of one's inner intention, which determines an active attitude to the subject of faith.

The passive faith of those zombified by propaganda is of a fundamentally different kind. It will sooner or later make you feel like a victim of circumstances. If they show you a picture on TV that Russia is winning, then everything is fine, you can be proud of yourself. If they don't show it, too bad, but nothing depends on you anyway. All you have is to bear it and wait for the soothing lies of propaganda, in relation to which an addiction is formed.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 28, 2022. Ukraine. Sixty-fourth day of war

The weather is sunny, warm. I’m writing to the sound of artillery cannonade. Ten days have already passed since the occupiers launched an active offensive in the Donbass. This is the hottest time. The fighting has reached an apogee, and the Russian command is burning its last reserves. So far, the attackers have a noticeable preponderance of forces. From the Izyum direction, they moved even closer to Barvenkovo, want to block the railway to Slavyansk. Kremennaya, Zarechnoye were captured from the Lugansk direction and now they are dangerously close to Liman. They are trying to capture Yampol to get to the rear of Slavyansk and Lysichansk at the same time. The enemy offensive is moving very slowly, not enough to achieve a decisive success, but the threat of the Russians getting close enough to Slavyansk and starting to shoot at us with artillery is quite real.

So far, Slavyansk has not been systematically shelled, although there are occasional hits in the city. The invaders are close enough to hit us with artillery, but the Ukrainian military does not allow this, they constantly maneuver and do not occupy any stationary positions. I already know about this not theoretically, but from the sounds of a cannonade - firing at enemies from our side is heard either very close, or very far away, while the invaders either not keeping pace or unable to retaliate, which is always assumed in artillery duels. As always, the tactics of the Russian offensive are suicidal. 

If from the very beginning of the invasion the entire blow fell on the Donbass, it would hardly have been possible to withstand. However, Russian troops began to attack in all directions at the same time and failed. 

Now a new offensive has begun in the Donbass, the logic goes that the enemy should have learned from mistakes. Nothing of this kind! Contrary to military science and common sense, he again launched an offensive in several directions simultaneously - on Zaporozhye, Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev. The result is an unprecedented increase in losses among the occupiers in recent days. Although heavy weapons still showed their worth here, the first batches of which were supplied to us by the allies.

The large-scale invasion of Ukraine is an act of suicide by Russia. And even now, when the Russian command has a chance to achieve local success, it still chooses from all options the one that is suicidal.  Whence such a craving for suicide, which is found at all levels? 

The fact is that any cultivation of death sooner or later gives rise to a suicidal tendency. A real cult of death developed in the Soviet Union: the coat of arms and other Soviet symbols were of a necrophilic nature, they composed songs and made films about heroic death and suicidal deeds. However, no propaganda can subjugate an individual, contrary to his or her free self-determination. I believe that neither upbringing, nor culture, nor nationality, nor beliefs, nor even one’s own thoughts define a person. Only in deeds does a person become who he is, because it is in deeds, and not in thoughts, that self-determination for good or for evil occurs.

Likewise, the future of a country is determined in free choice through the actions that its citizens take. Such an act for Russian citizens was the act of voting for Putin in 2000, when everyone knew that FSB agents were caught in an attempt to blow up a house in Ryazan. Everyone knew about this, but most did not want to accept this knowledge. However, not believing the facts is also a free choice. Having supported Putin, they agreed to the authorities, which physically killed them. I cannot interpret this otherwise than as a suicidal act, which was bound to lead to the suicide of the country. 

This finale was brought closer by the murder of its own citizens, and not only journalists and oppositionists (this can at least be explained by the logic of the political struggle), but random people. In particular, when the terrorists hijacked the planes, they were shot down along with the passengers, and when the school was seized, it was shot down along with the children. There are those who will say that there is a reason for this. After all, when the authorities demonstrated that they would destroy terrorists together with hostages, the attacks ceased. However, once you are in this position, you can't stop. Guided by this logic, Putin began to destroy entire cities, and now, in order to force the West to capitulate, he demonstrates that he is ready to use nuclear weapons, regardless of the victims from a retaliatory nuclear strike.

The whole world wonders how, in the twenty-first century, an entire country consented to its own suicide. In fact, not all Russians support the war with Ukraine, although a significant number do. First, these are people with a self-destructive complex who instinctively try to destroy their own lives and those of others, and secondly, those who once committed this suicidal act - supported Putin. However, most Russians are simply unable to accept reality, to acknowledge that the worst has already happened, so they do not want to hear anything about the war, hoping in vain to wake up from a nightmare. The third part of Russians understands everything and is horrified that their country has committed suicide. They see that there is no more future, and now it is not clear what to do. 

From the initial consent to the suicide of the country, when people voted for Putin in 2000, to the act of suicide in 2022, Russia received so much money from the export of raw materials that Mars could have been developed on them. However, Putin has made a titanic effort to dispose of the country's windfall profits, and now, with maniacal persistence, he is disposing of the Russian army in Ukraine. What is this but a manifestation of suicidal tendencies?

Now the world has realized that in the entire history of civilization, humankind has never been in such danger, when the use of nuclear weapons depends on the mental state of just one person obsessed with this idea. Therefore, the whole world has united against Russia the same way as it would have united in the face of an alien threat, since no one, except Putin's supporters, wants the suicide of humankind.

Nikolai Karpitsky. April 24, 2022. Ukraine. Sixtieth day of war

The battle for Donbass has been going on for several weeks and it's been a week since a new Russian offensive was launched. Last Monday began with the news that the occupiers had taken Kremennaya. While you are in the rear, you can theorize about the situation at the front, but when you yourself are in the front-line zone, there is no time, you need to orient yourself immediately, because life depends on it. They took Kremennaya, what's next? Will they come out to Liman and then start shelling us? Or will they take Rubezhnoe-Severodonetsk-Lysichansk into the ring? Or maybe the Ukrainian military simply retreated to more advantageous positions to make it easier to defend? On the first day, you don't understand anything. Who wins? What to fear? A day later, it became clear that the Ukrainian military was gradually retreating to pre-prepared lines and continuing to defend successfully.

I do not listen to Russian and all other media inclined to lie, even “for objectivity”, to “know a different point of view”. For a very simple reason - after dealing with someone who is prone to lie, I will know less than I did before communication. The problem is not the lack of information, but an overabundance of information noise that needs to be filtered out somehow. As well, I weed out analysts who, although they do not lie, and even conduct an honest analysis, however, sin by arbitrary generalizations that are later presented as truth. For example, if there are statements: “the Ukrainian army in the coming days will not hold Popasnaya and Rubezhnoe, partially taken by the Russian army”, you can not read further. Even if that’s true, the point here is something else, that this analyst values the construct in his own head more than reality itself. However, in reality, war is unpredictable, because it is impossible to take into account all the factors that affect the outcome of the battle.

In modern wars, it is not the number of troops that is decisive, but the supply of ammunition and fuel. The outcome of the battle can be decided by who runs out of shells first in some key area of the battle. Let's say you have a few dozen left, and the enemy no longer has them, and he retreats. Here, for some time, the opportunity opens up to go to the rear or cut the key supply line, and then the entire enemy defense line begins to crumble. It is impossible to foresee such occurrences. You can only analyze the situation that has developed at the moment.

Now it is raining, it is very difficult to advance, especially from the Izyum direction, because there are continuous ravines. Nevertheless, Russian troops are advancing, despite the losses. Their successes are insignificant, however, when they are thirty kilometers from us, every kilometer of advance is perceived with great anxiety. After all, if they deploy artillery near Slavyansk, they will demolish the city. So far, the Ukrainian troops do not allow them to do this, so only rockets reach Slavyansk. Although Kramatorsk suffers more from them, despite the fact that it is deeper in the rear.

Cannonade can be heard all week, even in the rain. Yesterday was especially intense. Easter night was also greeted with a siren. Among the attackers there are those who raped and killed children in Bucha. Therefore, no one has any illusions about what will happen if the invaders enter the city. But I don't think they will. There's a good chance of keeping them at bay until new weapons arrive. We just need to hold out for another week, maximum - two.

Today is Easter, the day of victory over death. However, Putin would not be Putin if he had not tried to kill someone for this holiday. Cultural consciousness is arranged in such a way that we symbolically correlate what is happening with samples from real or sacred history. Therefore, regardless of the attitude to religion, biblical associations still arise. In this regard, the killings by a rocket attack on Odessa before the Easter holiday are perceived as symbolic complicity in the execution of Jesus Christ. 

Which of the participants in this New Testament story can be likened to Putin? I think no one. At least among people. After all, all the accomplices in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they did not want his death, they simply acted according to circumstances. Unlike Putin, none of them wished death for the sake of death itself. Perhaps Putin is trying on the role of the one who tempted Christ? 

And what symbolic role have Russian church leaders - Sergey Ryakhovsky and Kirill Gundyaev - chosen for themselves in this holiday? I think that they placed themselves below the members of the Sanhedrin, who sentenced Jesus to death. For behind the cruel sentence was, though erroneous, yet still a good intention to save Jerusalem from destruction. And below the crowd, shouting: “Crucify!” for unlike the crowd they perfectly understand what they are doing. And even lower than Judas, who probably hoped that Jesus would not let himself be crucified and raise up a rebellion. When Judas realized he had made a mistake, he repented and hanged himself. These men have no hint of repentance. They can only be likened to those authoritative and well-behaved people in everyday life who encouraged the crowd to shout: “Crucify!” 

Having supported Putin, they became accomplices to his crimes. However, they had the opportunity to at least not spoil the Easter day. It was enough to support Pope Francis’s request for an Easter truce. They did not even dare to do this, and now the sacrifices made by Putin for the Easter holiday, including the death of a three-month-old girl in Odessa, are on their conscience as well.