Sławomir Sierakowski: Savchenko may prove to be a Russian bribe, which was presented Western governments – Virtual Poland

Moscow, deciding the sentence to 22 years of Nadia Savchenko, began the last phase of trade negotiations with Ukraine and supporting the West. Vladimir Putin, in addition to commercials with whales and tigers and directing a talk show with the participation of Russian journalists is also time for human trafficking. Provided that it is a luxury – says Slawomir Sierakowski for the Virtual Polish.
 

In the West, Russian oligarchs are known for buying expensive things for the money stolen from the Russian society. Putin is known for selling captives people to other countries is not the money, because they are too little worth, but for other people. Both benefits the rulers of Russia and shame the Russians. Before examining how and for what Putin przehandlował Ukrainian heroine, let’s cultural context. Because Savchenko is not the first, nor likely will not be the last victim kidnapped by the Russian state. From white to red and back to Tsarist

This civilization is different. Then, when she began to threaten the existence of the globe, it created a whole branch of science dealing with the difference between Russia and the West. When in 1957 the Russians fired Sputnik, the West realized that the Soviet Union is able to carry nuclear weapons over long distances. This is how the Kremlinology. Washington has allocated huge funds for this, but ultimately any sowietologowi failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. The money, however, were not in vain. Research on the history of Russia and neighboring countries, as well as the history of ideologies, enabled the creation of entire libraries of valuable books in which the authors tried a million ways to solve one riddle: “How to explain the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union?”.
 

From the beginning, the leaders lived in these studies Poles, who had the most direct experience of confrontation with Bolshevik Russia. Founded in Vilnius in 1930. Scientific-Research Institute of Eastern Europe became the precursor sowietologicznych institutes in the US, such as the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The last of the “Polish school” is a well-known historian Richard Pipes, who was born in Cieszyn and speaking flawless Polish.

Experts took care of analyzing the history of Russia, easily noting the lack of any autonomous power between the ruler and the people. Around the rulers there were only advisers, the army and the bureaucracy. But it was not like in other countries the bourgeoisie or the nobility or the middle class. Even the working class in Russia spawned significant quantities only after the workers revolution, made a substitute for the missing workers by intelligence combats always with all their strength the Russian state.
 

An important consequence of this division was distinguished Russian society contrasting duality: either the Russians are massively for power – as it is today, and if they rebel, it whole and without any resistance, as the peasant uprisings or the October Revolution. Nowhere seize power were not so brutal. Nowhere rulers were not as tyrannical. Nowhere masses were not so passive and never experienced suddenly so rebellious and destructive.
 

Attempts to explain this by the experts repeated today the phenomenon has led to the creation of two schools. One give priority to cultural differences between Russia and the West, resulting primarily from the difference between the Roman and Greek Christianity, Byzantine and Tartar despotism lesson at the dawn of the Russian state, as well as the lack of Roman legal tradition. The other school, the parent in times of war, explained the influence of Bolshevism ideology (Marxist) in the absence of liberal traditions of the East. The first belonged researchers such as Martin Malia, Leszek Kolakowski and Andrzej Walicki, the second example. Director of the Library of Congress James Billington whether that Richard Pipes. The most radical follower of the school “culture” was John Kucharzewski, author of the book, talking about all the title, “From white to red tsarist regime” and the politician who held the post of Prime Minister in 1918, even before the first official of the government of the Second Republic.
 

The war has nothing to do with Savchenko
 

Both warring schools were consistent in one thing: do not give much hope that the “Russian soul” ever get rid of imperial ambitions and will allow Russia to adopt a liberal democracy. Its integral virtues must be respect for the rights of the individual, the right to a fair trial, independence of the judiciary and the media, and so everything that Russia has always consciously disregards. Only the last example of this is the process of Nadia Savchenko. All pages well aware that Savchenko is innocent, and the court is controlled from Moscow. The Russian culture is one virtue: strength. This is the Eastern concept of politics. Have you wondered if the Russians sympathize with a young woman? Or do they have respect for her courage and steadfastness? I do not want to disappoint you, but do not expect too much. On Savchenko in Russia force the black legend in which Nadia is proof of how tough and determined the Ukrainian state, since to perform the dirty work in the sniper shooting of civilians uses young women. And these “well known” are known for their exceptional cruelty. Someone like Savchenko does not deserve so compassion or respect.
 

Who still does not believe, let him cast a look at the book “War has nothing to do with women,” this year’s Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Aliksijewicz. When there is a war in Russia, women do not have special status. In war, a woman is worse than a man. It is proof of iniquity opponents. Courage Nadia Savchenko in the eyes of the Russians is the best illustration of the fact that they are dealing with a strong and formidable opponent. Therefore freely it can be shown by the media.
 

How much Savchenko?
 

So much about ideas. Putin, they do not care. The modern car has a plan for what to sell Ukrainian heroine. And even if a particular price has not yet defined, it knows that it has to be high, given that for a Ukrainian stood the entire western world. Soon to arrive in Moscow the foreign ministers of Germany and the United States to talk also about the fate of Savchenko. Quite likely to be replaced. This happened with the previous loud kidnapping Estonian officer, captured in 2014 in the borders of their own country. Eston Kohvera court found guilty of, among others, espionage and sentenced to 15 years. Prosecutors, so as to Nadia Savchenko, brought in a year more. Estonian sentenced in August 2015 month later was replaced Aleksei Dressen, a former officer of the Estonian Security Police, serving a sentence for passing classified information Russian special services. In the case of Ukrainian Russians should hurry, because – although it is not the first to starve imprisoned – Savchenko announced that starting April 6 strict fasting, which may result in her death. Then Russia zgotowałaby a Western reaction comparable to this, the reaction was to shot down by separatists Malaysian aircraft to Ukraine.
 

Do Ukrainians themselves afford a ransom? I did not know, because Ukraine does not reveal all the captivity in Donbas Russians, trying to force a better treatment of prisoners of Ukrainian. The starting price announced by Poroszenkę, the two officers on trial in Kiev: Captain Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Sergeant Alexander Alexandrov. But probably Ukrainians have much valuables officers Spetsnaz, belonging to the GRU (Ukraine Russians use military special services, and not the Foreign Intelligence Service), and would give them a greater exchange, which released may already be sent to the gulag Ukrainian director Oleg Sencow (in his defense also starred Russian artists, including Nikita Mihałkow friendly with the Kremlin).
 

Savchenko may prove to be a Russian bribe, which was presented Western governments for closing an eye to the sanctions imposed on the Russian oligarchs. It is valuable in the context of negotiations on the freezing of the conflict in Donbas. So far, they stuck in the Ukrainian parliament, who is unable to vote on the law on decentralization of Ukraine. In this situation, Russia could try to interfere in the political struggle in Ukraine, trying to strengthen either party (not free, of course), its “giving” Savchenko. The most natural candidate is Yulia Tymoshenko. Not only because the deputy her party is Savchenko, but also because only Tymoshenko is gaining today in the survey posts in Ukraine and seeks to early elections. So you can end the crisis the government Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which can not yet replace any other. Tymoshenko did not participate in the negotiations in Minsk, so you do not need and do not want to pay the political price in the society for the adoption of the law on the special status of Donbass, for which there is no way to convince the Ukrainian public. Unfortunately, Tymoshenko is one of the most populist polityczek in Ukraine and can easily once again drown his second revolution in Ukraine. As will be no way to predict today.
 

One thing is certain, a cruel sentence for Savchenko is nothing compared to the price we pay for it will come in Ukraine.
 

Slawomir Sierakowski for the Virtual Polish
 

Slawomir Sierakowski – sociologist and journalist. Head of “Political Critique” and the Institute for Advanced Studies. Scholar of Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Publishes, among others, in the “New York Times”, “The Guardian” and OpenDemocracy.net.