The Russian invasion of Ukraine is leaving a very long trail of dirty cottons

@ElentirENG ES 9·10·2023 · 7:02 0

In the 1980s, an advertisement for a household cleaning product, starring a butler, became famous in Spain.

The images of the Russian terrorist attack against a commercial area in Kostyantynivka
The more than 500 Ukrainian children killed by Russia and the appalling silence of many people

This butler tested how good a cleaning product was by wiping a piece of white cotton along a wall. If the cotton appeared stained, then the product was not as good as some believed. The butler said a very catchy phrase: "cotton does not deceive." That phrase became very famous when I was a child and I always remember it when I encounter situations in which someone or something They are not as good as they seem.

After the horrendous wars in the former Yugoslavia, some of us thought that we wished Europe would never see anything like this again. And then, in 2008, Putin invaded Georgia. In 2014 he invaded Crimea and Donbas, Ukraine. And in 2022 he set out to invade the rest of Ukraine. The Russian dictator hasn't been alone in his efforts to trample his neighbors. In 2008, after the Russian invasion of Georgia, I denounced here the support for Russia by far-left and far-right parties from several countries. Little has changed since then: totalitarians on both extremes remain Putin's useful fools.

The common denominator of the messages of those supporters of Putin was anti-Americanism, which is like the magic wand of totalitarians from both extremes to turn manure into cologne. An anti-Americanism that extends its hatred to NATO for being a military organization that has the support of the United States. For some, if Putin invades Georgia and Ukraine, the bad guy is the US. If Russia murders civilians, including children, the bad guys are NATO and the US. If Putin is a tyrant who is dedicated to murdering his opponents, the bad guys are NATO and the US.

This propaganda for idiots (it cannot be described any other way) is not something new. In 1939, the communists loyal to Stalin presented France and the United Kingdom as the culprits of the war in Europe, even though that war had been started by Nazis and Soviets with the invasion of Poland. It was the same propaganda for idiots, but directed at the idiots of that time, for people incapable of distinguishing between an invading nation and an invaded nation.

The problem that those who produce this propaganda have is that not everyone is an idiot, and their speech, both in 1939 and now, cannot bear the passage of a cotton ball. From a merely logical point of view, and except for an evident absence of the slightest sense of shame, a discourse that claims to defend the sovereignty of nations and at the same time justify the invasion of a sovereign nation cannot be sustained as Ukraine is, as Poland was in 1939. If we go to the extreme left, it is very cynical to go around saying that you are "anti-imperialist" and at the same time support an imperialist power like Russia . There is no cotton that can stand it.

But the inconsistencies do not end there. Since this war started, I have seen people who call themselves democrats and who support a dictator like Putin, justifying their aggression against Ukraine under the idea that this country has a problem of political corruption, when precisely Russia is the champion of political corruption in Europe. I have also seen people who call themselves pro-life supporting Russia while it is dedicated to murdering civilians, including children. I am pro-life and I cannot understand how someone who claims to defend life can support a criminal like Putin. I can say the same about some Christians who support Putin because they see him as a defender of the faith, while the Russians raise communist flags in Ukraine, in an invasion that it is a clear sin against the fifth commandment: "thou shalt not kill."

In this sense, that Putin received the support of communists and nazis was something predictable: the totalitarians demonstrate excellent harmony among themselves, the same one that led them to ally in 1939 to invade Poland. In his case, his cotton had been stinking for many years, they were no longer fooling anyone. Those who have it most complicated are those who boast of high ideals and then support a criminal like Putin, or simply remain silent and look the other way, as if the invasion of Ukraine is something that we should not care about, as if we have a tyrant with nuclear weapons threatening peace in Europe was not with us.

There are also those who pretend a false equidistance. Putin is bad but Zelensky is not a saint, they say. This speech is not new either: it is very reminiscent of those who excused Hitler by saying that Churchill was a drunk. According to that peculiar idea, not being a saint leaves you morally tied with any criminal who wants to invade your country. Of course, Churchill was not a saint and Zelensky is not one either, but I cannot do less than < strong>support the Ukrainian president in his legitimate defense of his country against a foreign invasion, in the same way that I would support the British prime minister if this article were being written in 1940, while thousands of inhabitants of the United Kingdom were dying under the bombs of the German Blitz. Surely among the victims of ETA there were also many sinners, but that does not equate them with their murderers. It is disgusting that some want to feign equidistance with such an infamous comparison.

Obviously, lessons can also be learned from terrible events, and the invasion of Ukraine will be no less. Since February 24, 2022, I have not stopped being disappointed. I am a simple sinner and I do not expect others to be more virtuous than me, but when we witness a mass crime as colossal as the one that the Ukrainian people suffer, certain justifications and certain silences cause retching. This war is going to leave many more marks outside Ukraine than some imagine. At the moment, this war is leaving a very long trail of dirty cotton, and in the age of the Internet, when it is more difficult than ever to erase traces, all those cottons are going to be difficult to hide in the years coming. Some should seriously think about it.

---

Main photo: Serhii Nuzhnenko. The graves of Ukrainian civilians murdered by the Russian invaders in the Izyum Massacre, in 2022.