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JANUARY 16, 2018 ISSUE No. 1 (1133)<br />
Tel.: +38(044) 303-96-19,<br />
fax: +38(044) 303-94-20<br />
е-mail: time@day.kiev.ua;<br />
http://www.day.kiev.ua<br />
Sketch by Viktor BOGORAD<br />
Not just Javelins<br />
Valentyn BADRAK:<br />
“It is important for Ukraine<br />
to build on the American<br />
anti-tank missiles<br />
deliveries and become<br />
an ally of the US”<br />
Continued on page 5<br />
Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day<br />
We need clear<br />
guidelines<br />
The Verkhovna Rada is<br />
to consider a bill<br />
on the restoration<br />
of sovereignty of Ukraine<br />
on January 16<br />
Continued on page 7<br />
THE WAYS OF THE “PHILOSOPHY<br />
OF COMMON SENSE”<br />
Continued on page 6<br />
Serhii SEKUNDANT on how to learn to distinguish the truth<br />
from lies and drop the stereotypes of totalitarian mentality
2<br />
No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018<br />
DAY AFTER DAY<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
REUTERS photo<br />
A “nation of immigrants”<br />
is preparing for reform<br />
#Oprah 2020<br />
TV star and media mogul<br />
Oprah Winfrey’s Golden<br />
Globes speech is<br />
considered her first step in<br />
the next presidential race<br />
By Anastasia RUDENKO, The Day<br />
Oprah Winfrey has received<br />
the Cecil B. DeMille Award<br />
for outstanding contributions<br />
to the world of entertainment.<br />
The speech the<br />
celebrity delivered from the stage is by<br />
far the most significant one throughout<br />
the history of the Golden Globes<br />
ceremony.<br />
In her emotional address, Winfrey<br />
mentioned Recy Taylor, a black woman<br />
who had died 10 days before. She was<br />
kidnapped and raped by white men in<br />
1944. Although she told about this<br />
crime, the rapists were never prosecuted<br />
because, to quote Winfrey, “justice<br />
wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow.”<br />
The TV presenter said proudly that<br />
those days were undoubtedly gone now.<br />
“So I want all the girls... to know<br />
that a new day is on the horizon! And<br />
when that new day finally dawns, it will<br />
be because of a lot of magnificent<br />
women, many of whom are right here in<br />
this room tonight, and some pretty<br />
phenomenal men, fighting hard to<br />
make sure that they become the leaders<br />
who take us to the time when nobody<br />
ever has to say ‘me too’ again,” she said.<br />
Following this brilliant speech,<br />
Western political media and celebrities<br />
launched the hashtag #Oprah2020,<br />
journalists and columnists rushed to<br />
compete in eloquence, assessing the<br />
legendary TV presenter’s prospects in<br />
the election race. At the same time, the<br />
column of Ashley Feinberg in The Huffington<br />
Post suddenly became one of the<br />
most often quoted sources. “If we are to<br />
be ruled by political dilettantes, some<br />
people seem to think, why not a dilettante<br />
beloved by all? Because Oprah is<br />
the antithesis of Trump: a well-spoken,<br />
incredibly smart and confident black<br />
woman who energizes people not with<br />
hatred and anger but with hope and vision,”<br />
the article says. However, “Oprah<br />
and Trump aren’t so different in their<br />
relation to their fans. They both offer<br />
catharsis on the cheap, with Oprah as<br />
the liberal-values alternative to Trumpism<br />
– a better, more humane alternative,<br />
certainly, but the choice of a people<br />
determined to suppress the real<br />
conflicts at the heart of the country.”<br />
“Fortunately, we live in a world<br />
where we do not have only two options...<br />
The answer is to elevate politicians<br />
who do the politics better than the<br />
other guys. Liberals who think their<br />
program will prevail because of the<br />
nobility of their character have had the<br />
run of the Democratic Party long<br />
enough. Time’s up on them, too,” the<br />
columnist says.<br />
By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day<br />
Recently, lawmakers from both<br />
major American parties –<br />
Democratic and Republican –<br />
agreed at a White House<br />
meeting with President Donald<br />
Trump to work together on<br />
drafting a bill on immigration. According<br />
to the Voice of America, their<br />
effort will focus on ways to address<br />
four major issues, including border<br />
security, “chain migration” (legalization<br />
of one’s residence in the US<br />
through family connections), the<br />
future of the visa lottery and the<br />
“dreamers” (migrants who entered the<br />
US illegally as children).<br />
According to Reuters, Trump has<br />
said he would sign a bill that would<br />
provide a legal status to hundreds of<br />
thousands of unregistered “dreamers”<br />
if the document would contain<br />
provisions on border security, including<br />
the financing for a Mexico<br />
border wall. “Now, that doesn’t<br />
mean 2,000 miles of wall because you<br />
just don’t need that... because<br />
of mountains and rivers and lots of<br />
other things,” said Trump and<br />
added: “But we need a certain portion<br />
of that border to have the wall.<br />
If we don’t have it, you can never<br />
have security.”<br />
● “THE PRESIDENT IS<br />
SHIFTING FROM A RADICAL<br />
TO A PALLIATIVE STANCE”<br />
The Day began a conversation<br />
with Professor Oleksandr TSVIET-<br />
KOV, an Americanist from Hrynchenko<br />
University of Kyiv, by asking<br />
how important and timely this reform<br />
was for the US.<br />
Expert: “The US government is looking for<br />
new solutions to domestic policy issues”<br />
“This is a difficult time, especially<br />
for the White House and the political<br />
establishment in Washington. All<br />
recent events took place against the<br />
background of the release of Michael<br />
Wolff’s book offering an inside view<br />
of the White House and a critical picture<br />
of the formation of the political<br />
course of the country through the<br />
White House. In addition, no one has<br />
ever stirred up the audience during<br />
the Golden Globes award ceremony as<br />
much as Oprah Winfrey did this time,<br />
who, with her passionate speech, disturbed<br />
the entire political milieu. She<br />
took a stand against sexual harassment<br />
and racial discrimination, which<br />
was picked up by the Time’s Up feminist<br />
movement. All this has become<br />
the background for a political debate<br />
on immigration.<br />
“The thing is, when Trump was<br />
still fighting for the presidency, he<br />
proposed a drastic, radical approach<br />
to immigration issues, in particular,<br />
by taking a harsh stance on the issue<br />
of the deportation of illegal immigrants,<br />
who number up to 11 million<br />
in the US.<br />
“As of now, the two major parties<br />
have agreed on a palliative measure, I<br />
mean postponing for some time the<br />
consideration of the so-called DACA<br />
(Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals),<br />
or in other words, delaying<br />
the resolution of the deportation issue<br />
regarding migrants who entered<br />
the US illegally as children. The presidential<br />
position on this issue has<br />
changed. There are now three poles<br />
emerging in the Washington political<br />
establishment: the Republican and<br />
Democratic parties in Congress and<br />
the position of the president, who is<br />
shifting somewhat away from his<br />
previous stance, from a radical to a<br />
palliative one.<br />
“All this is superimposed on a new<br />
issue – the forthcoming grand immigration<br />
bargain that will apply to all<br />
illegal immigrants, that is, more than<br />
11 million residents of the US. This is<br />
a very high-profile issue for that<br />
country, and a shift in the president’s<br />
position may well become that additional<br />
factor that will resolve the issue<br />
that the previous three presidents had<br />
failed to resolve.<br />
“Therefore, this kind of change of<br />
course and such an opportunity<br />
emerging against the background of<br />
obstruction in political life regarding<br />
the White House and the political establishment<br />
draws attention.”<br />
Trump insists that the bill should<br />
include a provision for a wall to be<br />
built along the border with Mexico. In<br />
your opinion, which aspects should<br />
this migration reform take into account?<br />
“The wall is a tribute to the president’s<br />
previous radical speeches,<br />
after all. The question of child illegal<br />
migrants will be of greatest importance,<br />
and it is likely to be resolved in<br />
accordance with the two parties’ approaches,<br />
as well as the forthcoming<br />
A “roof” over international journalism<br />
Den has been honored with an award for coverage of international topics<br />
Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day<br />
By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day<br />
On January 10, this newspaper<br />
received a certificate<br />
from the Ukrainian Prism<br />
Foreign Policy Council for<br />
covering the field of international<br />
relations and foreign policy in<br />
our publication. When presenting the<br />
award, chairman of the Ukrainian Prism<br />
Foreign Policy Council Hennadii<br />
MAKSAK said: “We sum up annually<br />
what happens in foreign policy. This<br />
year, since we marked the centennial of<br />
Ukrainian diplomacy in it, we decided<br />
to conduct an expert survey and ask not<br />
only which diplomats were doing better<br />
in their jobs, but also which journalists<br />
were more professional in the field of<br />
external relations. It is important to<br />
keep making such assessments, because<br />
we must understand who are doing<br />
their jobs professionally, and in which<br />
fields.”<br />
“It is obvious that the newspaper<br />
Den, and, in particular, our international<br />
affairs editor Mykola Siruk, is<br />
what holds the ‘roof’ over international<br />
journalism,” Den’s editor-in-chief<br />
Larysa Ivshyna said during the event.<br />
“I do not like when people say sometimes<br />
that there is no international<br />
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR OF THE NEWSPAPER DEN MYKOLA SIRUK<br />
DURING A TRIP TO ISRAEL IN OCTOBER 2009, SURROUNDED BY ISRAELI<br />
FEMALE SOLDIERS IN THE NEGEV VALLEY, NEAR THE GRAVE AND HOUSE<br />
MUSEUM OF THE FOUNDER OF THE ISRAELI STATE DAVID BEN-GURION
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
DAY AFTER DAY No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018 3<br />
agreement on 11 million migrants.<br />
This is the most powerful agreement<br />
that can be achieved. There<br />
is still no certainty that this will<br />
happen, but it is a realistic<br />
prospect now. And this is so serious<br />
that we are seeing changes in<br />
the positions of the conservatives,<br />
in their approaches to this issue,<br />
there are some disappointments.<br />
For example, most likely, Steve<br />
Bannon’s strong career is over, as<br />
he has been removed from an editorial<br />
position in his Breitbart<br />
News magazine. In general, all<br />
these events indicate that the US<br />
government is looking for new solutions<br />
to domestic policy issues;<br />
it now needs to achieve some positive<br />
results, and the situation is<br />
being used by both parties to address<br />
issues that have been pressing<br />
over recent years. It must be<br />
understood that this is happening<br />
in America, a nation of immigrants.<br />
That is, this issue is of<br />
great concern to many.”<br />
US media have started to discuss<br />
possible presidential ambitions<br />
of TV host Oprah Winfrey. In<br />
addition, the White House has<br />
confirmed that president Trump<br />
will take part in the 2020 presidential<br />
election. What does such<br />
news mean?<br />
“Of course, 2020 is still a long<br />
way off. However, Winfrey’s<br />
speeches touch upon the most<br />
pressing issues on America’s agenda,<br />
including sexual harassment,<br />
support for the feminist movement,<br />
and protests against racial<br />
discrimination, as she is African<br />
American. She embodies those political<br />
issues that are now the talk<br />
of the country.<br />
“Particular attention is also<br />
drawn to this issue due to the fact<br />
that, although the presidential<br />
election will take place in 2020, the<br />
midterm congressional election<br />
will occur in 2018. Both parties<br />
will compete to shape the political<br />
agenda for the midterm election.<br />
They are looking for leaders who<br />
will be able to help them achieve<br />
positive results. For the Democrats,<br />
this is a moment when they<br />
can reform and tune in for a new<br />
leader.”<br />
journalism in Ukraine. Perhaps it is<br />
not good enough for such a great<br />
country as ours. But it did and does<br />
exist. It comes with uneven quality<br />
and quantity, but it does exist due to<br />
the fact that there are true authorities<br />
who learn themselves and teach<br />
others,” she said. According to the<br />
editor-in-chief, the publication of<br />
Den’s Library books – Two Rus’es;<br />
Wars and Peace, or Ukrainians and<br />
Poles: Brothers/Enemies, Neighbors;<br />
The Power of the Soft Sign; Return<br />
to Tsarhorod; My Sister Sofia... – “all<br />
hold the perimeter of our international<br />
relations.” “Instead of the<br />
state and the ‘grant society,’ it is us<br />
who do something that then comes to<br />
define a new cultural policy in<br />
20 years,” Ivshyna emphasized.<br />
“Creative and professional atmosphere<br />
prevalent in the newspaper<br />
Den is an incentive for highquality<br />
international journalism,”<br />
Mykola Siruk noted in turn.<br />
The Ukrainian Prism Foreign<br />
Policy Council is a network of nongovernmental<br />
think-tanks whose<br />
purpose is to participate in the establishment<br />
of democratic foundations<br />
for the development and implementation<br />
of foreign and security<br />
policies by state authorities of<br />
Ukraine, implementation of international<br />
and national projects and<br />
programs aimed at improving foreign<br />
policy analysis and expertise,<br />
and strengthening the participation<br />
of the expert community in the decision-making<br />
process in the fields<br />
of foreign policy, international relations,<br />
and public diplomacy.<br />
By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day<br />
The Polish government saw a<br />
sweeping reshuffle recently.<br />
As Prime Minister Beata<br />
Szydlo resigned on December<br />
7, Mateusz Morawiecki<br />
was appointed to this office. He has<br />
decided only now to make changes in<br />
the Polish Cabinet of Ministers.<br />
Gazeta Wyborcza has published<br />
the new Cabinet lineup. In particular,<br />
Poland’s Ministry of Foreign<br />
Affairs is now headed by Jacek Czaputowicz,<br />
until recently a deputy<br />
minister. He replaced Witold<br />
Waszczykowski who went on record<br />
as making many harsh statements<br />
about Ukraine. Mariusz Blaszczak<br />
and Joachim Brudzinski became<br />
ministers of defense (instead of Antoni<br />
Macierewicz) and of the interior<br />
(instead of Mariusz Blaszczak),<br />
respectively. The ministers of the<br />
environment, public health, and finance<br />
were also replaced.<br />
The Day requested some Polish<br />
and Ukrainian experts to explain<br />
what the reshuffle will lead to and<br />
what it means for Poland, the EU,<br />
and Ukraine.<br />
● “THE CURRENT CHANGES IN<br />
THE GOVERNMENT MAINLY<br />
FOCUS ON THE DOMESTIC<br />
MARKET AND RELATIONS<br />
WITH THE EU AND NATO”<br />
Michal KOBOSKO, director, Poland<br />
office, US Atlantic Council:<br />
“What has occurred in Warsaw<br />
is a really serious and sweeping governmental<br />
reshuffle. We did not<br />
expect so many changes. Only yesterday<br />
we expected three or four<br />
misters to be replaced.<br />
“Some important offices, such<br />
as foreign and defense ministers,<br />
will be held by other people. I think<br />
these changes are the most important<br />
because, from the international<br />
viewpoint, these officials are responsible<br />
for foreign policy and national<br />
defense. It is really important.<br />
Antoni Macierewicz was a very<br />
controversial minister of national<br />
defense. Many people thought that<br />
Mr. Kaczynski would not be strong<br />
enough to dismiss Mr. Macierewicz.<br />
In all probability, Polish President<br />
Andrzej Duda demanded that the<br />
defense minister be dismissed because<br />
there was a never-ending conflict<br />
between the president and<br />
Mr. Macierewicz. So it is a very positive<br />
signal for President Duda who<br />
is commander-in-chief of the Polish<br />
armed forces.<br />
“But this reshuffle leaves a lot of<br />
questions unanswered. Antoni<br />
Macierewicz is a strong personality<br />
The Day’s experts comment<br />
on Polish government reshuffle<br />
REUTERS photo<br />
Positive steps<br />
who holds strong positions inside the<br />
ruling PiS [Law and Justice. – Ed.]<br />
party. I don’t know what offer was<br />
made to Mr. Macierewicz. I think<br />
they will offer him something in parliament<br />
or some other official position<br />
because he may come into a new<br />
conflict with Jaroslaw Kaczynski.<br />
He was dismissed today, and it is<br />
important information for the ministry<br />
of national defense and the<br />
Polish army, where there are a lot of<br />
internal conflicts. Minister Macierewicz<br />
fired a lot of generals – a<br />
third of general’s positions have<br />
been vacant in the Polish army in the<br />
past few months. The new defense<br />
minister is to fill these vacancies.<br />
“Another major replacement is<br />
the minister of foreign affairs. Minister<br />
Waszczykowski was in conflict<br />
with many other ministers, countries,<br />
and especially with the EU. He<br />
was very controversial and provocative<br />
in his interviews. And although<br />
he is an experienced Polish diplomat,<br />
he failed to shape his own policy<br />
instead of pursuing the foreign<br />
policy of Mr. Jaroslaw Kaczynski.<br />
“So I think it is good news that<br />
Minister Waszczykowski has left office.<br />
We don’t know so far how the<br />
new foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz<br />
will fare, whether he will<br />
be different in his first steps, decisions,<br />
and statements because, after<br />
all, it is Jaroslaw Kaczynski who<br />
makes final foreign-policy decisions.<br />
“As for the Polish-Ukrainian<br />
relations, President Duda recently<br />
paid a successful visit to Kharkiv<br />
and had a good meeting with President<br />
Poroshenko. We hope this is a<br />
chance to turn over a new leaf. I’d<br />
like the new foreign minister Czaputowicz<br />
to make a statement that<br />
will normalize our relations. I cannot<br />
be sure that this will happen.<br />
We don’t know yet what kind of<br />
foreign policy this new government<br />
will pursue and whether it will differ<br />
considerably from that of the<br />
previous cabinet. So far, I can hear<br />
no angry reports that signalize that<br />
Poland is going to speak with<br />
Ukraine in a new manner and there<br />
will be some breakthrough again.<br />
“In its foreign policy, the previous<br />
government did not seem to<br />
show much interest in Ukraine.<br />
Now I think that Prime Minister<br />
Morawiecki is aware of how important<br />
it is for Poland to maintain<br />
good working relations with Kyiv<br />
and that he will pay a visit to Kyiv<br />
in the near future.<br />
“The current changes in the government<br />
mainly focus on the domestic<br />
market and Poland’s relations<br />
with the EU and NATO. This explains<br />
the replacement of the ministers<br />
of foreign affairs and the environment<br />
– Minister Szyszko lost his<br />
office because the EU criticized him<br />
openly and harshly. The minister of<br />
defense, whom NATO criticized for<br />
being problematic, was also dismissed.<br />
“As for a likely change in the<br />
Poland-EU relations, the first<br />
step will be taken this evening<br />
[January 9. – Ed.] – Prime Minister<br />
Morawiecki is leaving for Brussels<br />
to meet Jean-Claude Juncker and<br />
Frans Timmermans in the European<br />
Commission. They will be discussing<br />
the debates on Article 7 the<br />
EC initiated before Christmas.<br />
Mr. Morawiecki will be discussing<br />
with EU officials whether Poland<br />
will obey EU regulations and meet<br />
its expectations, observe the rule of<br />
law – the things that stirred up biting<br />
EU criticism. It will be difficult<br />
for Prime Minister Morawiecki to<br />
change anything in Brussels. I am<br />
sure he will use the cabinet reshuffle<br />
to convince our European<br />
friends that Poland is doing the<br />
needful and making important<br />
changes in the government. It is a<br />
signal to Brussels that Poland<br />
wants to cooperate more closely<br />
with European institutions. It is<br />
common knowledge in Brussels<br />
that, unfortunately, Premier<br />
Morawiecki is not the one who<br />
makes final decisions. He is not<br />
flexible enough, but he is free to<br />
deal with any matters, including<br />
Poland’s relations with the EU.<br />
“The old government had<br />
two years to closely cooperate with<br />
European institutions, but this<br />
time was wasted. It is important<br />
that there have been some<br />
changes. At the same time, it is<br />
difficult to believe that the new<br />
government will radically change<br />
its policy in the relations with<br />
Brussels. I don’t expect many<br />
great changes. I can expect that<br />
the tone of discussions will be<br />
slightly different. But we cannot<br />
expect any major changes until<br />
Mr. Kaczynski changes his opinion<br />
about the EU.”<br />
● “WE CAN EXPECT SOBER<br />
AND BALANCED<br />
DECISIONS”<br />
Oksana YURYNETS, co-chairperson,<br />
Group for Inter-Parliamentary Ties<br />
with the Republic of Poland; Member<br />
of the Ukrainian Parliament:<br />
“This reshuffle is a very positive<br />
thing. Mr. Waszczykowski<br />
used to make all kinds of statements<br />
and things that were unclear<br />
to and unacceptable for<br />
Ukraine. The situation is different<br />
now, and changes have been made.<br />
We can surely forecast that there<br />
will be a new positive demand for<br />
international relations, particularly<br />
in the context of Ukraine and<br />
Poland.<br />
“The newly-appointed foreign<br />
minister is a career diplomat who is<br />
not too much politicized and is taking<br />
a pacifist attitude. He carved<br />
out his career gradually. It seems to<br />
me that now we can expect to see<br />
very sound diplomatic steps, sober<br />
and balanced decisions – the things<br />
that we need today.<br />
“As for expectations, we should<br />
take into account that Poland is a<br />
parliamentary-presidential republic,<br />
where people can be MPs and<br />
deputy ministers at the same time.<br />
Therefore, it may be easier for our<br />
group to pay visits of friendship<br />
and hold an assembly. This foreign<br />
policy should be pursued in the<br />
shape of correct and well-balanced<br />
diplomatic steps, which both the<br />
Polish and the Ukrainian sides<br />
need.<br />
“Of course, we expect to make a<br />
fresh positive start. For the Polish-<br />
Ukrainian Assembly, scheduled for<br />
December 11-12, was canceled because<br />
there was a government<br />
reshuffle and some MPs were also<br />
busy as cabinet members. I hope<br />
the group will resume work this<br />
year. The group is chaired by the<br />
parliament vice-speaker on our<br />
part and the Sejm deputy speaker<br />
on their part. Incidentally, Mykola<br />
Kniazhytskyi, the co-chairman,<br />
and I sent an inquiry of our friendship<br />
group to Warsaw almost two<br />
months ago, and we are still waiting<br />
for an answer. Maybe, some direction<br />
of strategic communication<br />
with Ukraine will be found right<br />
now. I am convinced that we will<br />
never fall apart, and we need communication,<br />
a dialog, today in order<br />
to fill the vacuum, which has<br />
formed in the past few months,<br />
with information. Besides, it is<br />
good that the presidents of Poland<br />
and Ukraine made a constructive<br />
visit to Kharkiv. They drew up a<br />
certain road map, and parliament<br />
and the Cabinet should now set<br />
such new and extremely important<br />
directions of work as cooperation<br />
within the limits of Euro-regions<br />
and cross-border cooperation.<br />
Poland is a strategic EU country,<br />
in fact our gate to Europe, so there<br />
are very many things to do. For<br />
this reason, changes in other ministries<br />
are equally crucial, for this<br />
will help find out what is to be done<br />
if a proper international policy is<br />
pursued. There is very much work<br />
to do, and the guidelines for the<br />
next year were in fact drawn up at<br />
the end of the last one.”
4<br />
No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018<br />
TOPIC OF THE DAY<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Ivan KAPSAMUN,<br />
Valentyn TORBA, The Day<br />
Russia’s hybrid war against<br />
Ukraine has several dimensions.<br />
The aggressor is<br />
making use of not only weapons,<br />
but also humanitarian<br />
issues, such as, mainly, political and<br />
historical memory. Accordingly, a<br />
timely reaction and right accents are<br />
of great importance. Den/The Day<br />
has been writing about this for many<br />
years, in fact substituting the<br />
government in pursuing this<br />
humanitarian policy. We have always<br />
emphasized that Ukrainian statehood<br />
has ancient roots. Kyivan Rus’, the<br />
Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, the<br />
Lithuanian-Ruthenian State, the<br />
Cossack Hetmanate, the 18th-19thcentury<br />
national liberation movement,<br />
the 1917-21 Ukrainian Revolution,<br />
and the dissident movement in the<br />
USSR were milestones in the making<br />
of and the struggle for an independent<br />
Ukrainian state.<br />
Volodymyr Viatrovych, director<br />
of the Ukrainian Institute of National<br />
Remembrance, highlighted<br />
some key points the other day. The<br />
historian emphasized in a 5th Channel<br />
program: “It is important for us<br />
to say that the Ukrainian state is not<br />
something that happened accidentally<br />
in 1991. The Ukrainian state is<br />
the result of quite a long struggle of<br />
the Ukrainians for their independence.<br />
It is a major informational effort,<br />
and it needs to be reinforced.<br />
This will make it clear that presentday<br />
Ukraine is the UNR’s successor<br />
and explain what the Soviet period<br />
was really about. Politicians are<br />
more and more often making the<br />
statements that have long been<br />
heard from historians. I mean Soviet<br />
occupation, the establishment of a<br />
Bolshevik and then a communist occupation<br />
regime…” Viatrovych also<br />
pointed out that the 1991 Act of Declaration<br />
of Ukraine’s Independence<br />
does not need to be revised, but it<br />
would be better to speak of the<br />
restoration, not declaration, of<br />
Ukrainian independence.<br />
Moscow reacted immediately.<br />
“Speaking of this seriously, not only<br />
Crimea but a half of Ukraine should be<br />
returned to Russia because Kharkiv,<br />
Dnipropetrovsk, and the Donbas were<br />
not part of Ukraine before the establishment<br />
of the Soviet Union,” said<br />
Leonid Kalashnikov, Chairman of the<br />
State Duma Committee for the CIS,<br />
Eurasian Integration, and Links with<br />
Compatriots (ria.ru).<br />
The Russian leadership always interprets<br />
history in its own, warped,<br />
way. Indeed, a number of territories,<br />
including Western Ukraine, Bessarabia,<br />
and Crimea, were made part of<br />
the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet era,<br />
but Russian politicians forget, for<br />
some reason, that all these territories<br />
used to be part of the Ukrainian National<br />
Republic, the Western Ukrainian<br />
People’s Republic, Carpathian<br />
Ukraine, and Skoropadsky’s Ukrainian<br />
State, not to mention the earlier<br />
periods. Moreover, Ukraine once included<br />
some territories of today’s<br />
Russia, such as Kuban and western<br />
parts of Belgorod and Voronezh<br />
oblasts. Therefore, these Russian<br />
claims, particularly about Kharkiv,<br />
Dnipro or the Donbas, a part of which<br />
Russia occupied in the present day,<br />
are groundless.<br />
Who was the occupier,<br />
pational in respect of our primordial<br />
Russian lands,” Aleksey Shiropaev<br />
wrote on his FB page.<br />
What do some well-known historians,<br />
lawyers, and politicians think<br />
of this?<br />
● “I THINK THERE REALLY<br />
WERE SOME ELEMENTS<br />
OF OCCUPATION<br />
IN SOVIET UKRAINE”<br />
Leonid KRAVCHUK, first President<br />
of Ukraine:<br />
“It is a very difficult question<br />
whose successor Ukraine is. But in<br />
purely legal terms, there are signs of<br />
Ukraine’s occupation. We searched –<br />
painstakingly but in vain – for a document<br />
on the establishment of the<br />
USSR in 1922. No one knows who<br />
adopted and signed it. This means<br />
that no legal procedures were observed<br />
when the USSR was being<br />
formed. Secondly, no announced and<br />
signed documents were available in<br />
international organizations, including<br />
the League of Nations. In other<br />
words, the norms of international<br />
law were not observed either. So we<br />
But all the Russians are not the<br />
same. “Recognizing the whole period<br />
of Ukraine’s stay in the USSR as occupation<br />
is a very important, crucial<br />
step on the road of present-day<br />
Ukrainian nation formation. We,<br />
Russians proper, must accept and welcome<br />
this attitude unless, of course,<br />
we want to identify ourselves with the<br />
imperial Bolshevik power – all the<br />
more so that Red power was also occucannot<br />
say that the world community<br />
recognized the formation of the<br />
USSR to any extent. Putting all this<br />
together, we will arrive at the conclusion<br />
that there are no juridical<br />
grounds to claim that Ukraine, as a<br />
state that had existed for a long<br />
time, legitimately and voluntarily<br />
joined the USSR. As for the current<br />
independence of Ukraine, there are<br />
all the relevant documents that provide<br />
a legal basis for considering<br />
Ukraine a state. I think there really<br />
were some elements of occupation in<br />
the Soviet-era Ukraine.<br />
“Let me turn to my own life experience.<br />
When still a child, I saw several<br />
occupations. The first occupation<br />
was carried out by Poland, when Pilsudski<br />
gave some Ukrainian lands to<br />
his favorites. We called them ‘osadniks’<br />
(‘settlers’). Then there was a Soviet<br />
occupation. The third occupation<br />
was German. The fourth occupation is<br />
what we can see now – the occupation<br />
of Crimea and a part of the Donbas.<br />
Let us be frank: if foreign troops come<br />
to our land and set up their order, this<br />
is called occupation.<br />
“As for whose legal successor<br />
Ukraine is, it is rather a difficult<br />
question to me. The independent<br />
Ukrainian state was established in<br />
1991. We sometimes hear some historians<br />
speak of the restoration of<br />
or On our political legacy again<br />
Ukrainian statehood. This immediately<br />
raises a question – restoration<br />
of which state? Which period should<br />
we refer to? If we ‘dig deep,’ we will<br />
see that our political subjectness<br />
spans for much more than 25 or 100<br />
years. Then we should begin from the<br />
period of Kyivan Rus’. It would be a<br />
good idea to find this truth. But<br />
when we speak of the restoration of<br />
statehood, we should be clearly<br />
aware of what is to be restored. Even<br />
if this state was not within the present<br />
limits, it was a subject.”<br />
● “WHENEVER WE SPEAK OF<br />
RESTORING STATEHOOD,<br />
WE MUST REFER TO<br />
THE UKRAINIAN<br />
NATIONAL REPUBLIC”<br />
Stanislav KULCHYTSKYI, Doctor<br />
of Sciences (History); professor;<br />
department head, Institute of<br />
the History of Ukraine, National<br />
Academy of Sciences, Ukraine:<br />
“Whenever we speak of restoring<br />
statehood, we must refer to the<br />
Ukrainian National Republic. Soviet<br />
quasi-statehood was not genuine<br />
statehood, although we seemed to<br />
have a constitution. But that constitution<br />
did not reflect [communist]<br />
party dictatorship. Soviet power was<br />
two-tiered – it was the rule of the<br />
party on the one hand and of the Soviets<br />
(councils) on the other. Dictatorship<br />
played the main role at the<br />
time. Gorbachev broke the link between<br />
the party committees and the<br />
Soviets. The Soviets thus gained sovereignty.<br />
Before that, party committees<br />
had been nominating candidates<br />
to the Soviets, although there<br />
was an outward imitation of free<br />
elections. The grassroots also gained<br />
sovereignty. Earlier, the grassroots<br />
had gained sovereignty after the<br />
downfall of autocracy, but they<br />
quickly lost it after the Bolshevik October<br />
1917 coup, only to regain it in<br />
1989, when the first free elections<br />
were held. The year 1990 saw the<br />
first free elections to the constituent<br />
republics’ Soviets. This triggered the<br />
collapse of the Soviet Union.<br />
❷ What about the borders? Suppose<br />
the UNR borders are an alternament<br />
thus legalized the occupation. I<br />
fully accept this term. Soviet power finally<br />
took root in the early 1930s during<br />
the Holodomor. The liberation<br />
movement ground to a halt, only to revive<br />
when dissidents emerged. Therefore,<br />
governmental structures were<br />
nationalized, and it would be wrong to<br />
speak of occupation in the pure sense of<br />
the word in this case. As for Western<br />
Ukraine, the occupied status existed<br />
there until 1991. Western Ukraine is<br />
particular in that it lived under Soviet<br />
power one generation less than the<br />
other regions of Ukraine. This also<br />
had an impact on the 1991elections,<br />
when western Ukrainians in fact<br />
formed an anticommunist government.”<br />
● “SEVENTY YEARS OF<br />
SOVIET UKRAINE WAS NOT<br />
AN EMPTY VACUUM”<br />
Viktor MUSIIAKA, Professor, Kyiv<br />
Mohyla Academy; Member of<br />
Parliament, 2nd and 4th convocations:<br />
“The question of referring our<br />
statehood to the UNR or any other historical<br />
period is important in a histo-<br />
“There is one more point here. In<br />
the first years, Soviet power was totally<br />
occupational. Then there came<br />
some complicated and interesting<br />
processes, such as Ukrainization,<br />
when the Kremlin was trying to instill<br />
its authority in Ukraine. Those<br />
processes began to strip Ukraine of<br />
the signs of occupation. The governrical<br />
and political context. But we<br />
should not consider the existence of<br />
the Ukrainian SSR as a historical hole<br />
that allegedly does not exist. Otherwise,<br />
we may in fact get lost in a maze<br />
without a way out. In 1991, when<br />
Ukrainians voted for their independence,<br />
they did not begin from scratch.<br />
There had been a long period of our<br />
formation. Seventy years of Soviet<br />
Ukraine was not an empty vacuum.<br />
The Constitution of the Ukrainian<br />
SSR was renamed as Constitution of<br />
Ukraine with a number of changes.<br />
Approaches to ownership were radically<br />
changed, but we must remember<br />
that the legal basis remained the<br />
same. When the current Constitution<br />
of Ukraine was being adopted in 1996,<br />
MPs were guided by the provisions of<br />
the previous constitution which says<br />
that a new constitution and amendments<br />
to it are to be passed by the<br />
Verkhovna Rada. In other words, we<br />
did not carry out a revolution but used<br />
what had been achieved before.<br />
“As for the UNR, we should take<br />
into account how long it existed and<br />
how it was being established. There<br />
were a lot of controversial points<br />
there. From the very beginning, the<br />
socialists who formed the UNR were<br />
not for the full independence of<br />
Ukraine. Its first decrees spoke of autonomy<br />
within the Russian Empire and<br />
then the Russian Federation. Independence<br />
was mentioned in the last decree.<br />
So, when we refer to that period,<br />
we should also take public opinion into<br />
account. I don’t think Ukrainian society<br />
is taking an unequivocal attitude<br />
to this question. Even the Venice Commission<br />
affirms that the Soviet period<br />
of our history should be taken into account<br />
in legal terms.”<br />
● “WE SHOULD FIRST ANSWER<br />
TO OURSELVES SOME<br />
FUNDAMENTAL, BASIC,<br />
QUESTIONS”<br />
Ihor SIUNDIUKOV, editor, “History and<br />
I” section, newspaper Den:<br />
“Before accepting or rejecting<br />
the statement that 1920-91 were<br />
years of occupation in the history of<br />
Ukraine and, accordingly, such a<br />
quasi-state as the Ukrainian SSR was<br />
‘occupational,’ we should answer to<br />
ourselves some fundamental, basic,<br />
questions:<br />
❶ Do we take into account all the<br />
states or quasi-state formations that<br />
existed on the territory of Ukraine<br />
(Kyivan Rus’, the Kingdom of Rus’,<br />
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the<br />
Cossack Hetmanate State, the UNR,<br />
Pavlo Skoropadsky’s Hetmanate, and<br />
the Ukrainian SSR (a crucial point!)),<br />
using and drawing the best of each of<br />
these institutions and learning their<br />
sometimes horrible experience, or do<br />
we let only politically ‘suitable’ pages<br />
into history?<br />
tive to the era of occupation – but<br />
they do not coincide at all with the<br />
borders of the current Ukrainian<br />
state. They are essentially more modest.<br />
Should we return this ‘difference’<br />
to Russia, the successor of the<br />
empire? In the long run, the borders<br />
of Skoropadsky’s Hetmanate are incomparably<br />
more legitimate. (Incidentally,<br />
the hetman used to take effective<br />
measures to make Crimea and<br />
Kuban part of Ukraine.) This is an<br />
extremely difficult, delicate, and<br />
ticklish issue which must in no case<br />
be ignored.<br />
❸<br />
If there was occupation,<br />
there inevitably were collaborationists<br />
(‘quislings’). Who was<br />
among them? Mykola Skrypnyk,<br />
Mykola Khvyliovy, Yurii Kotsiubynsky,<br />
or the ‘activists’ who<br />
would take the last food from their<br />
Ukrainian brothers in 1933, or<br />
Petro Shelest, Maksym Rylsky,<br />
Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Mykola<br />
Bazhan, who had to be loyal, at least<br />
outwardly, to the regime in certain<br />
(sometimes long) periods? And<br />
Mykola Amosov, Oleh Antonov, Viktor<br />
Nekrasov, and other prominent<br />
ethnic Russians – were they ‘occupiers’?<br />
And what is more, would the<br />
occupation have been possible without<br />
support from at least a part of<br />
Ukrainian society?”
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
TOPIC OF THE DAY No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018 5<br />
VALENTYN BADRAK<br />
By Ivan KAPSAMUN, The Day<br />
Having decided to provide<br />
arms to Ukraine, the US is<br />
worried about the possibility<br />
of US military technology<br />
falling into Russian soldiers’<br />
hands. This is stated in the article<br />
“U.S., Ukraine Try to Ensure Weapons<br />
Don’t Fall to Enemy,” which<br />
appeared in The Wall Street Journal.<br />
The publication notes that for that<br />
reason, the Javelin anti-tank missiles<br />
(ATMs) are supposed to be kept at the<br />
Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF)’s<br />
depots in permanent bases located far<br />
back from the frontlines. Also, American<br />
soldiers, who are now training<br />
Ukrainian servicemen at the Yavoriv<br />
Combat Training Center, could soon<br />
move to training centers in Central<br />
Ukraine as well, to regularly check<br />
and count these arms. So, how<br />
substantiated are the fears of Americans?<br />
Are there reasons for this? We<br />
discussed it with Valentyn Badrak,<br />
who serves as director of the Center<br />
for Army Research, Conversion and<br />
Disarmament.<br />
● “THE U.S. GOVERNMENT<br />
DOES NOT ACCEPT THE<br />
PUTINIST KREMLIN’S<br />
ATTEMPTS TO IMPOSE<br />
A REVISION OF<br />
THE SECURITY SYSTEM”<br />
“Yes, the reasons do exist. For the<br />
US, Ukraine remains a country that<br />
did not seize a historic opportunity,<br />
although it had every reason to become<br />
a political and economic regional<br />
leader after the collapse of the USSR.<br />
We did not seize it ‘because of the human<br />
factor.’ Leonid Kuchma’s multivector<br />
approach turned out to be a<br />
case of spinelessness that transformed<br />
into unstable foreign policy of his<br />
pupils and made the situation into a<br />
confirmation of Samuel Huntington’s<br />
conception of civilizational fault<br />
lines. As you know, Huntington drew<br />
one of them between Western and<br />
Eastern Ukraine. Therefore, the US<br />
leadership, by and large, does not<br />
trust our government and is not convinced<br />
that Ukraine has become an asset<br />
to it. Not in the sense of ‘distrusting<br />
Petro Poroshenko,’ but in the<br />
sense of being uncertain whether a<br />
significant disappointment among<br />
Ukrainians in the current government<br />
might not lead to a pro-Russian politician’s<br />
taking lead. Of course, with<br />
support from Russia, whose political<br />
representation in Ukraine remains<br />
strong.<br />
“The US is well aware of the position<br />
of the Ukrainian authorities<br />
and develops its own position accordingly.<br />
President Poroshenko<br />
opted for a strategy of palliative action<br />
in the struggle against the enemy,<br />
and the US is also implementing<br />
a half-hearted action strategy. The<br />
US, and maybe Canada, are the only<br />
Western nations who are really interested<br />
in making Ukraine into a<br />
strong buffer between the West and<br />
Russia. All other NATO countries,<br />
except Poland and the Baltic States,<br />
will do nothing for the real strengthening<br />
of Ukraine.<br />
Not just Javelins<br />
Valentyn BADRAK: “It is important for Ukraine to build on the<br />
American anti-tank missiles deliveries and become an ally of the US”<br />
“Therefore, deliveries of Javelin<br />
ATMs are a symbolic step. They offer<br />
psychological support to Ukraine and<br />
serve as a signal for Russia that the<br />
US government does not accept the<br />
Putinist Kremlin’s attempts to impose<br />
a revision of the security system.<br />
More so given that these weapon systems<br />
cannot strategically influence<br />
the course of the war, it is just that<br />
the word ‘Javelin’ has become a<br />
mantra that everyone repeats and<br />
everyone listens to. It is important for<br />
Ukraine to build on this situation and<br />
become an ally of the US, similar to,<br />
say, Israel or Poland.”<br />
● “THE U.S. IS WELL-<br />
INFORMED ABOUT<br />
NUANCES OF UKRAINE’S<br />
PERSONNEL POLICY<br />
IN THE FIELD OF SECURITY<br />
AND DEFENSE”<br />
Also, WSJ writes that American<br />
weapons falling into enemy hands “is<br />
not a theoretical problem.” It notes<br />
that, after the US delivered shortrange<br />
counter-battery radars to<br />
Ukrainian military in 2014, some<br />
components at least of one of these<br />
radars were captured by combined<br />
Russian and separatist forces during<br />
fierce fighting near Debaltseve. What<br />
do you know about this?<br />
“This is more a ‘technical’ issue,<br />
which depends on many factors. But it<br />
is also a legitimate question. Since the<br />
Ilovaisk debacle, the Ukrainian army has<br />
become stronger by an order of magnitude,<br />
and this is true. But it happened because<br />
our people ceased to be pacifists<br />
and learned to respond quickly to bombardments<br />
and sudden offensive actions<br />
of the enemy. At the same time, the<br />
US government is well-informed about<br />
the nuances of Ukraine’s personnel<br />
policy in the field of security and defense.<br />
Speaking of the UAF, experienced<br />
and talented fighters have been<br />
given brigade-level commands, and in individual<br />
cases combat arm-level commands.<br />
Under conditions where the<br />
automated command and control system<br />
has not been fully created, to say the<br />
least, and Russia has already completed<br />
its cycle of preparations for a largescale<br />
war, no one is immune from<br />
Vladimir Putin embarking on another<br />
military adventure after the presidential<br />
election. Of course, if he succeeds in<br />
maintaining control of the situation.<br />
Were Putin not in the Kremlin, but in<br />
Bankova Street, he would have ceased to<br />
be the head of state a long time ago, but<br />
unfortunately, Russians have an Asianlevel<br />
store of patience. So, we see that a<br />
‘technical’ scenario is possible as well.<br />
Meanwhile, the US government would<br />
justly regard Javelin systems falling into<br />
the hands of Russian terrorists as a defeat<br />
in its symbolic clash with the Krem-<br />
lin in a ‘disputed’ area. However, the US<br />
government needs to supply such<br />
weapons to Ukraine as much as Ukraine<br />
needs to obtain them. Financial expenditures<br />
are small, but they may have an<br />
oversized effect if they strengthen the<br />
anti-Russian sentiments of Ukrainian society,<br />
improve the morale of the military<br />
and eventually turn Ukraine into a powerful<br />
and well-protected player in the<br />
Western camp. In addition, the likely<br />
technological loss on the US’ part in the<br />
event of the FGM-148 Javelin falling into<br />
the hands of Russian troops in the<br />
Donbas is significantly exaggerated, as<br />
this is a late 1980s design, although a<br />
powerful one. US troops have been receiving<br />
these anti-tank systems since the<br />
late 1990s.”<br />
● “TALENTED DESIGNER<br />
OLEH KOROSTELIOV HAS<br />
CREATED A SCHOOL<br />
OF PRECISION WEAPONS<br />
DESIGN RIGHT BEFORE<br />
OUR EYES”<br />
It is known that this year, the<br />
Ukrainian army introduced the Korsar<br />
light man-portable missile system,<br />
which, according to experts, is little<br />
inferior to the American Javelin. I<br />
would like to hear your comparative<br />
assessment of these missiles. If the experts<br />
are right, were the Ukrainian<br />
military-political leadership’s steady<br />
requests for the American side to provide<br />
the aforementioned anti-tank<br />
weapons really justified?<br />
“Despite the fact that many consider<br />
Javelin ATMs to be more technologically<br />
advanced and even say that the<br />
Javelin and the Korsar ATM belong to<br />
different generations, I do not think so.<br />
Technologically, the Korsar is a highprecision<br />
weapon capable of killing any<br />
tank or self-propelled gun with one shot<br />
at a distance of 2.5 km (although it is really<br />
difficult to find such a long line of<br />
sight, and in most real combat cases, it<br />
is sufficient to hit the target from a distance<br />
of one and a half kilometers). By<br />
the way, the Javelin has the same range –<br />
up to 2.5 km. It should be understood<br />
that the key point of the modern battle<br />
REUTERS photo<br />
is the training of soldiers and the willingness<br />
of the government to saturate<br />
the combat zone with domestic ATMs,<br />
which are also not that cheap. In fact, the<br />
media should have started promoting<br />
and broadcasting cases of hostile weapon<br />
platforms being hit by these missiles long<br />
ago. The fact that Javelin systems are capable<br />
of hitting vehicles from the upper<br />
hemisphere is a clear technological advantage.<br />
For guiding and firing missiles,<br />
the Javelin uses an infrared fire-andforget<br />
homing system, while the Korsar<br />
uses semi-automatic laser beam guidance<br />
(that is, after the shot, the operator<br />
needs to keep the target in the crosshairs<br />
for 8 to 12 seconds). One of the technological<br />
advantages of the Javelin ATM<br />
is the availability of a ‘soft’ launch,<br />
which allows a shot to be made even from<br />
closed and confined premises. As an obvious<br />
disadvantage, experts list the fact<br />
that the missile’s homing system needs<br />
to be pre-cooled for not less than 25 to<br />
30 seconds. In addition, experts insist<br />
that the effective use of Javelin systems<br />
is possible only for personnel who have<br />
been through a training course for ATM<br />
operators. But in general, both ATM<br />
types can be seen as comparable, and<br />
looking at the price, the domestic design<br />
costs just a fraction of its counterpart.<br />
The cost of one American ATM can be as<br />
high as 50,000 dollars, and the export<br />
price of one launcher with missile complement<br />
can be as high as 170,000 dollars,<br />
while other sources cite ‘more than<br />
200,000 dollars,’ while the price of a<br />
complete Korsar is estimated at about<br />
130,000 dollars, and a missile costs just<br />
20,000 dollars. In addition, it is important<br />
to take into account a number<br />
of factors, of which the most important<br />
is domestic arms self-sufficiency. When<br />
we buy the Korsar, which was introduced<br />
in August 2017, we invest in the<br />
development of domestic precision<br />
weapons. In fact, talented designer<br />
Oleh Korosteliov has created this school<br />
of design before our eyes; he is the<br />
general designer and general director of<br />
the Luch State Design Bureau in Kyiv.<br />
The support for this school is directly<br />
related to the creation of a cruise missile,<br />
a new powerful multiple rocket<br />
launcher and even a domestic midrange<br />
surface-to-air missile system. It<br />
should be added that the Korsar ATM<br />
can be used as part of combat modules,<br />
that is to say, it can be installed on all<br />
types of armored vehicles operated by<br />
the UAF. So, the importance of the present<br />
moment is in combining American<br />
assistance, technology, support with<br />
Ukrainian consistency in the development<br />
of weapons. Therefore, in fact, the<br />
Javelin and the Korsar systems ideologically<br />
and technologically complement<br />
each other in the UAF.<br />
“I would like to raise another point<br />
to create a full panorama of shortrange<br />
precision weapons being developed<br />
in Ukraine. Besides the Korsar,<br />
Ukraine has other guided ATMs – the<br />
Skif and the Stuhna-P (they have essentially<br />
the same characteristics, but<br />
the Skif uses the PN-S control system<br />
which is produced by the Belarusian<br />
Peleng JSC). So, this ATM is capable<br />
of ‘killing’ enemy targets from a distance<br />
of five kilometers, and remote<br />
control is available as well. By the<br />
way, Skifs are used by a number of<br />
states (thanks to Ukraine’s strong exports),<br />
and in 2017, the Luch Design<br />
Bureau continued to supply Stuhna-<br />
P missile systems, delivering about<br />
300 RK-2 missiles ahead of schedule<br />
‘with the number of launchers specified<br />
by the customer,’ as noted in the<br />
media. Both the Korsar and the Skif<br />
can be used to defeat low-heat targets<br />
as well, that is, pillboxes and other engineering<br />
structures, while the<br />
Javelin cannot do it.”<br />
● “RUSSIA HAS NO ATMS<br />
OF THE JAVELIN’S<br />
TECHNOLOGICAL LEVEL,<br />
THEIR VERSIONS OF THE<br />
KORNET SYSTEM ARE<br />
EQUAL TO OUR SKIF”<br />
Speaking of the American<br />
Javelin or the Ukrainian Korsar, can<br />
Russia counteract them in any way?<br />
What weapons do they have now with<br />
regard to light man-portable missile<br />
systems?<br />
“Russia has no ATMs of the<br />
Javelin’s technological level, their<br />
versions of the Kornet system are<br />
equal to our Skif. The Kornet missile<br />
is also a laser beam rider and is more<br />
versatile, but it still belongs to the<br />
generation 2+, while the Javelin is a<br />
third-generation system. But I want<br />
to emphasize once again: in the current<br />
war, everything depends on the<br />
training of firing teams, the mobility,<br />
the ability of the state to provide<br />
troops with comprehensive logistics,<br />
rather than an individual element.”<br />
After it became known that the<br />
US would deliver lethal weapons to<br />
Ukraine, after all, the Kremlin offered<br />
predictably sharp criticism,<br />
threatening bloodshed in the Donbas.<br />
In your opinion, what can Russia do,<br />
after all, as we remember the Kremlin’s<br />
earlier statements on this issue?<br />
“All sides have long been accustomed<br />
to the Kremlin treating<br />
Ukraine as a battlefield in its rivalry<br />
with the West and a testing laboratory<br />
for its military machine. We know<br />
the limits of Putin’s actions. He has<br />
long crossed multiple ‘red lines’ and<br />
been working to destroy the independent<br />
state of Ukraine. Therefore,<br />
the only way left open for us is to be<br />
unafraid and get stronger, to be prepared<br />
as much as possible to repel the<br />
enemy. For any other approach<br />
amounts to surrender.”
6<br />
No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018<br />
CLOSE UP<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Roman GRYVINSKYI, The Day<br />
● “INDUCING PHILOSOPHICAL<br />
THINKING IS ONE OF<br />
THE FACTORS THAT CAN<br />
CHANGE A NATION”<br />
Mr. Sekundant, we have seen the<br />
development of public philosophy in<br />
Ukraine in the past few years.<br />
Philosophers deliver public lectures<br />
and debates in the media, including<br />
the newspaper Den/The Day. The<br />
journal Filosofska Dumka has even<br />
devoted one of its issues to this. What<br />
do you think is the mission of a public<br />
intellectual in Ukraine today? What<br />
prospects and perhaps risks does this<br />
trend open?<br />
“Public philosophy is rather a rare<br />
phenomenon. It is usually political<br />
scientists and sociologists who go public,<br />
whereas the philosopher is a more<br />
profound person and, therefore, the<br />
public finds it more difficult to apprehend<br />
him or her. But this trend really<br />
exists and is rather new for Ukraine.<br />
Andrii Baumeister, Oleh Khoma, Oleksii<br />
Panych, Mykhailo Minakov are just<br />
a few names that came to my mind. It<br />
is a very useful phenomenon, and I can<br />
only welcome it. But I don’t know if the<br />
audience will grasp what these people<br />
want to put across to it. The point is<br />
that audiences are accustomed to ‘nonphilosophical’<br />
communication. The<br />
philosopher is supposed to disclose the<br />
root causes of the phenomena we come<br />
across. And it is a great art to speak<br />
about profound things in simple terms.<br />
Luckily, people endowed with this talent<br />
do occur, albeit rarely.<br />
“There has always been a problem<br />
of failing to understand things, including<br />
philosophy. Sometimes it<br />
seems to me that many philosophers<br />
became great only because they did<br />
not manage or, maybe, did not want to<br />
understand their predecessors. For<br />
example, Kant seems to have read neither<br />
Wolf nor Leibniz in detail.<br />
“It is a question of an important<br />
historical factor, not of risks. But for<br />
an extensive popularization of philosophy<br />
among the masses, the formation<br />
of such philosophy-minded nations as<br />
India, Greece, and – in the Enlightenment<br />
era – Germany would have been<br />
impossible. In the 18th-century Germany,<br />
almost every provincial newspaper<br />
had a huge philosophical section.<br />
German burghers were thus discussing<br />
philosophical problems and<br />
gradually got accustomed to philosophical<br />
thinking.<br />
“Some Kyiv philosophers complain<br />
that too many philosophy departments<br />
have come up in Ukraine<br />
today, which is a profanation of philosophical<br />
education. It is partly true,<br />
but, on the other hand, the more people<br />
are involved in the philosophical<br />
process and thinking, the better. It is<br />
one of the factors that help change the<br />
nation.<br />
“For the totalitarian past is still<br />
weighing upon our society – people<br />
are afraid to think independently. We<br />
are very dependent and have a lot of<br />
complexes. This is illustrated, in particular,<br />
by the quality of dissertations,<br />
most of which are rather superficial<br />
and distracted from real problems.<br />
At the same time, the interest of<br />
the broad masses in philosophy is supposed<br />
to promote transformation of<br />
academic philosophy which customarily<br />
popularized the postulates of<br />
Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet era<br />
and is still eschewing the pressing<br />
problems of man and society.”<br />
● “WE HAD A CHANCE TO GO<br />
A DIFFERENT WAY IN THE<br />
1990S, BUT WE MISSED IT”<br />
Do you think philosophy has had<br />
a strong impact on the identity of a<br />
contemporary human being? Is it true<br />
that the formation of certain philosophical<br />
ideas can become an important<br />
historical and cultural factor for<br />
not only intellectuals, but also society<br />
as a whole?<br />
The ways of the “philosophy<br />
of common sense”<br />
Serhii SEKUNDANT on how to learn<br />
to distinguish the truth from lies<br />
and drop the stereotypes<br />
of totalitarian mentality<br />
Societal interest in philosophy and its more a more noticeable presence in public space raises the<br />
following questions: can philosophy become if not the motive force then at least a factor of social<br />
transformations in a country? What efforts should the professional community make to this<br />
end? Does the philosophical perspective really offer a more comprehensive and unbiased<br />
assessment of the ongoing processes? In search of answers to these questions, Den/The Day<br />
continues a series of philosophical dialogs with a well-known Ukrainian researcher Serhii<br />
SEKUNDANT, Associate Professor, Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy), head of the Department of<br />
Philosophy and Common Humanitarian Knowledge at Odesa National Illia Mechnikov University.<br />
“German philosophy was very<br />
academic, scholastic, and, in general,<br />
distracted from real practice. But in<br />
the era of Enlightenment, philosophers<br />
deliberately turned to rather<br />
broad masses of the population. In the<br />
17th century, German thinker Christian<br />
Thomasius developed the ideas of<br />
‘court philosophy.’ The new philosophy<br />
was to be of practical use in life.<br />
Incidentally, this occurred well before<br />
the French Revolution. The thinkers<br />
of that epoch knew that the grassroots<br />
needed some ‘simple truths.’ This philosophy<br />
appeals to common sense. Unlike<br />
to, say, Leibniz, Thomasius was<br />
known to the general public. It was<br />
later Christian Wolf who began to<br />
popularize his philosophy that comprised<br />
a mathematical method and the<br />
ideal of strict thinking. Philosophy<br />
was being simplified – abstract speculations<br />
were giving way to a simplified<br />
logic, a simplified, albeit based on<br />
common sense, theory.<br />
“Today, too, Germans always appeal<br />
to common sense in conversations.<br />
Soviet people, on their part,<br />
lived in ideocracy, in an ideologicallyoverburdened<br />
spiritual atmosphere.<br />
We still continue to think in these categories<br />
and cannot see where there is<br />
or there is no common sense. Our society<br />
is bereft of normal legal awareness.<br />
The right to a fair trial is a natural<br />
human right. If this right is not<br />
exercised, there is in fact no state. If<br />
courts pass judgments ‘by a phone<br />
call,’ no reforms will be possible. It is<br />
absurd and unclear to Europeans why<br />
Ukraine has been unable to establish<br />
an anticorruption court in the past<br />
four years. I’ve spoken a lot with Germans<br />
– they find it difficult to understand<br />
why we are not fighting for our<br />
rights, why this is not a top-priority<br />
problem for society.<br />
“As our awareness is overburdened<br />
with false stereotypes, such a<br />
simple ‘philosophy of common sense’<br />
is badly needed today. It would be a<br />
very good idea to include the postulate<br />
on natural human rights, drawn up by<br />
European philosophers in the 17th-<br />
18th centuries, into the school curriculum.<br />
In this connection, society<br />
should have a demand for academics<br />
who study the modern history philosophy.<br />
Among them is also Andrii<br />
Baumeister who focuses on medieval<br />
philosophy, for Thomas Aquinas was<br />
a very systematically- and adequatelythinking<br />
person. If a philosopher adheres<br />
to these principles of common<br />
sense, if he is a religious and ethical<br />
person, his teaching has rather a<br />
sobering impact on society. We are so<br />
much used to fearing, deceiving, and<br />
lying that we have stopped distinguishing<br />
between the truth and the<br />
lies, between real and fake reforms.<br />
This is the result of the absence of<br />
common sense.<br />
“Profound truths are very simple.<br />
But, to understand them, one must often<br />
have a certain insight. An individual<br />
should understand that he or she<br />
cannot be an instrument in someone<br />
else’s hands. The Kantian imperative<br />
says: it is your life, and you must not<br />
waste it to satisfy someone else’s ambitions.<br />
And our politicians are usually<br />
oligarchs for whom a party is just<br />
part of the business empire. They control<br />
the media, courts, police, and the<br />
prosecution service. It is Kuchma who<br />
created this system. We had a chance<br />
in the 1990s to go a way other than<br />
that of Russia, but we missed it. The<br />
Czechs invented voucher privatization,<br />
but Kuchma, the premier at the<br />
time, carried it out according to the<br />
Russian not the Czech, scenario.<br />
When he came to power, he introduced<br />
‘manual control’ of the Prosecutor<br />
General’s Office. Serhii Horbatiuk<br />
says this has never occurred before.<br />
And now Kuchma represents<br />
Ukraine at international negotiations.<br />
Sometimes the impression is that we<br />
are living in a totally absurd country.”<br />
A few primitive translations of<br />
philosophic classics appeared recently<br />
on our book market, and still more<br />
new books are expected soon. At the<br />
same time, a lot of utterly weak translations<br />
still remain on library shelves.<br />
When do you think we will be able to<br />
see high-quality publications of basic<br />
philosophical texts in the Ukrainian<br />
language? Will the newly-established<br />
Ukrainian Institute of the Book be<br />
able to help speed up this process?<br />
“Low-quality translations are a<br />
problem indeed. Incidentally, this also<br />
concerns Russian-language texts.<br />
“Undoubtedly, there should be a<br />
certain culture of translation. The<br />
translator must convey the inner<br />
sense of the text. To do so, he or she<br />
needs to understand the context very<br />
well. He or she must know very well<br />
not only the grammar rules of the language,<br />
but also the philosophy and the<br />
terminology of a certain period.<br />
Therefore, to become a good translator,<br />
one must work in a certain narrow<br />
field for many years.<br />
“The philosophers who call for external<br />
control over the work of translators<br />
may be right to some extent.<br />
But this facility’s prerogatives should<br />
be confined to reviewing only. If one<br />
has decided to translate a book, we<br />
must not forbid them to do so. At the<br />
same time, no one can forbid other experts<br />
to criticize a superficial or weak<br />
translation. It is also up to everybody<br />
to agree or disagree with this criticism.<br />
“Translation is always a creative<br />
process. All the well-known thinkers<br />
were guided by their personal vision<br />
and interpretation of their predecessors’<br />
philosophy. Should we reproach<br />
them for this? I don’t think so. Maybe,<br />
if Kant had read Leibniz and Wolf attentively,<br />
he wouldn’t have been the<br />
one we know – there would have been<br />
neither Critique of Pure Reason nor<br />
any other works.”<br />
● “MOST OF THE UKRAINIAN<br />
INTELLECTUALS ARE<br />
REACTIONARY”<br />
Do you think Ukraine and<br />
Ukrainian society are today an organic<br />
part of Europe (Europe as a cultural<br />
and historical phenomenon, not<br />
a set of bureaucratic structures)?<br />
“The mentality of Ukrainian society<br />
is quite dissimilar. In contrast to<br />
us, residents of the country’s south<br />
and east, Western Ukrainians have a<br />
European mentality. Kyivans and residents<br />
of Central Ukraine have a mentality<br />
and culture of their own, also<br />
close to European. It is totalitarian<br />
mentality that prevails in the south<br />
and east – so it is very difficult to drop<br />
the stereotypes of totalitarian awareness.<br />
And the point is not in the absence<br />
of a wish but in historical determinism<br />
– this is handed down from<br />
generation to generation. As for<br />
me, the possibility of traveling to<br />
the West played a crucial role: I have<br />
visited Germany many times.<br />
“Today, the situation is particularly<br />
sad in the provinces – people are<br />
very fearful there. Incidentally, there<br />
is in fact no such thing as provinces in<br />
Germany. But in Ukraine, like in Russia,<br />
this difference is very essential.<br />
Nevertheless, I think the Ukrainians<br />
are a European nation. In Odesa, too,<br />
there are European-minded people,<br />
but they are in the minority – most of<br />
them are intellectuals.<br />
“We must go to Europe. But when<br />
the president begins to create a police<br />
state and allocates money not for the<br />
army but for the police and other institutions<br />
that are supposed to protect<br />
the ruling clan, this brings us closer to<br />
Russia than to Europe. One can unconsciously<br />
act in favor of his enemies<br />
against whom he is ostensibly fighting.<br />
In my view, the leadership that is<br />
killing education and research is a<br />
more formidable enemy than Putin.<br />
Instead of ensuring national security,<br />
the SBU defends the interests of oligarchs,<br />
particularly the local and regional<br />
ones. Saakashvili did not exaggerate<br />
when he said that Odesa is today<br />
controlled by bandits, interclan rivalry<br />
is rife, and corruption is all-embracing.<br />
Unfortunately, in Odesa<br />
Poroshenko has sided with local oligarchs<br />
Kivalov, Trukhanov, and<br />
others who were taking overtly pro-<br />
Kremlin attitudes on the eve of the<br />
second Maidan. Patriots are being imprisoned<br />
today, while wrongdoers are<br />
being freed.<br />
“All these facts make me think<br />
that the FSB [Russia’s Federal Security<br />
Service. – Ed.] is controlling<br />
Ukraine as before – and it is not an exaggeration.<br />
The leadership is trying<br />
not only to keep the criminal oligarchic<br />
system intact, but also to restore<br />
the Russian model in Ukraine.<br />
And this model is an authoritarian<br />
dictatorship of criminal oligarchy,<br />
when one person, Putin, has created<br />
and controls all the criminal oligarchic<br />
groupings by way of the FSB.<br />
Putin would like to see the same system<br />
in Ukraine because it is much easier<br />
to influence a country from the<br />
outside if it is run by an authoritarian<br />
leader. An attempt to pull off this<br />
kind of deal in the US failed – American<br />
civil society did not allow doing<br />
this. Once it became known about<br />
Trump’s ties with Russia, he had two<br />
options left – either an impeachment<br />
or renunciation of all his commitments<br />
to Putin.<br />
“One of the functions of philosophy<br />
is to promote a normal civil society<br />
in Ukraine. But, unfortunately,<br />
most of Ukrainian, as well as Russian,<br />
intellectuals are reactionary.<br />
It’s beyond my comprehension that a<br />
philosopher, if he is an honest person,<br />
can support outright corruptionists.<br />
Intellectuals must think independently.<br />
This kind of people can<br />
be counted on the fingers of one hand<br />
today, while the rest are afraid. They<br />
are afraid to lose the job, they fear<br />
that somebody will gain a ‘wrong’ impression<br />
and an official will punish<br />
them. It is philosophers, rather than<br />
artists and musicians of the<br />
Vakarchuk type, who should determine<br />
the society’s way of thinking.<br />
But, to be able to do so, they should<br />
be taken out of ‘serfdom.’<br />
“Yes, reforms are really being carried<br />
out: the current parliament has<br />
passed more laws on this country’s democratization<br />
than all the previous<br />
ones combined. But this is not enough,<br />
for the reforms do not work. We need<br />
an anticorruption court, and there<br />
must be an inescapable punishment<br />
for corruption-based crimes. Even in<br />
Russia a former economy minister was<br />
imprisoned, whereas in Ukraine corruption<br />
is ostensibly being fought, but<br />
nobody was put behind bars. It’s just<br />
a simulation.”<br />
● “I BELIEVE WE WILL NEVER<br />
RETURN TO THE RUSSIAN<br />
EMPIRE”<br />
What was the year 2017 like for<br />
you personally?<br />
“The best news for me and our department<br />
is that the philosophy and<br />
history faculties have been merged in<br />
one. Every cloud has a silver lining,<br />
you know. Merging history and philosophy<br />
opens up vast prospects to us.<br />
The history of philosophy in Europe<br />
has long been the basis of philosophical<br />
education. You can’t possibly understand<br />
philosophical problems,<br />
think creatively, and offer rational arguments<br />
unless you know the history<br />
of philosophy. Our former dean, a<br />
chemist by education, was unable to<br />
understand why specialization was<br />
needed at the philosophy faculty, and<br />
the majority of our faculty’s academic<br />
board members backed him in this. I
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
CLOSE UP No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018 7<br />
hope historians are aware of why<br />
students need to know history in<br />
general and the history of philosophy<br />
in particular. Whenever people<br />
gain independence, they always<br />
find new opportunities.<br />
“I am an optimist by nature –<br />
like Leibniz, I am sure that we are<br />
living in ‘the best of all possible<br />
worlds.’ At the unification ceremony,<br />
our rector, Ihor Koval, quoted<br />
Winston Churchill quite to the<br />
point: ‘an optimist sees the opportunity<br />
in every difficulty.’ It is in<br />
this key that one should interpret<br />
critical remarks in our conversation.<br />
“Undoubtedly, the current<br />
leadership has done what all the<br />
previous ones failed to do. There is<br />
certain progress, and it would be<br />
wrong to slow it down – I believe<br />
we will never return to the Russian<br />
Empire. In spite of all the<br />
alarms, I don’t think Russia will<br />
try to continue its advance and<br />
seize Ukraine. If people knit together<br />
on the basis of the rejection<br />
of and hatred for others, they are<br />
sick people in a sick society. Unfortunately,<br />
today’s Russia is predominantly<br />
a sick society. Ukraine<br />
must not become a similar one. As<br />
a separate nation and state,<br />
Ukraine needs its own values –<br />
more exalted than those of imperial<br />
awareness.”<br />
■ The Day’s REFERENCE<br />
Serhii SEKUNDANT graduated<br />
from the Philosophy Faculty<br />
and the Candidate and Doctor of<br />
Sciences School of Moscow Mikhail<br />
Lomonosov State University. He<br />
began to work at Odesa Illia Mechnikov<br />
State University in 1982.<br />
Successfully defended the Candidate<br />
of Sciences dissertation “The<br />
Problem of Proving Scholarly<br />
Knowledge in the Methodical Philosophy<br />
of Hugo Dingler” in 1983<br />
and the Doctor of Sciences dissertation<br />
“The Normative and Critical<br />
Foundations of Leibniz’s Epistemology”<br />
in 2015. Teaches the<br />
courses “Philosophy of the East,”<br />
“German Classical Philosophy,”<br />
“The Problems of Indian Philosophy,”<br />
“The Philosophical and<br />
Methodological Problems of Historical<br />
and Philosophical Research,”<br />
“Phenomenology of<br />
Husserl,” “Contemporary Concepts<br />
of the History of Philosophy,”<br />
and “The Theory and Practice<br />
of Argumentation.” The<br />
sphere of academic interests: the<br />
history of philosophical methodology,<br />
logic and epistemology; the<br />
theory of argumentation; philosophical<br />
and methodological problems<br />
of the history of philosophy;<br />
researching the nature of philosophical<br />
and religious knowledge;<br />
the making and the specifics of ancient<br />
Indian philosophy and religion;<br />
a comparative analysis of the<br />
philosophical and religious tradition<br />
in the East and the West.<br />
Author of over 100 scholarly publications.<br />
Author of two individual<br />
monographs: Critique and Method.<br />
The Problem of a Critical Method<br />
in 17th-18th-Century German Philosophy<br />
(Kyiv, Dukh i Litera,<br />
2012) and Leibniz’s Epistemology<br />
in its Normative and Critical Foundations<br />
(Odesa, Pechatny Dom,<br />
2013). Member of the Philosophy<br />
Faculty’s Academic Board, co-organizer<br />
of the international school<br />
of religious studies “Vaishnavism<br />
Across the Centuries,” director of<br />
the German Philosophy Research<br />
Center at the Philosophy Faculty<br />
of Odesa National Illia Mechnikov<br />
University. Winner of the National<br />
Philosophy Prize 2016 (established<br />
by the Hryhorii Skovoroda<br />
Institute of Philosophy, the<br />
Ukrainian Philosophical Foundation,<br />
and the N.V. Panina Sociological<br />
Center) in the Maria Zlotina<br />
nomination “For Best Philosophical<br />
Monograph.”<br />
(To be continued)<br />
By Valentyn TORBA, The Day<br />
This Tuesday, the Verkhovna Rada is<br />
to consider the bill No. 7163,<br />
dealing with the restoration of<br />
Ukraine’s sovereignty. This document<br />
is sometimes referred to as<br />
the “reintegration” bill, although its very<br />
title clearly points to the fact of occupation.<br />
This draft law has seen many changes<br />
over the long time it has been in preparation.<br />
However, are the Ukrainian<br />
government and public really aware of all<br />
the subtle and painful nuances associated<br />
with the very process of restoring the<br />
territorial integrity of our nation?<br />
Let us recall that the Verkhovna Rada<br />
passed the bill, initiated by President of<br />
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, in the first<br />
reading on October 6, 2017. This document,<br />
in particular, regulates the legal basis<br />
for the use of the Ukrainian Armed<br />
Forces in the east of the country and officially<br />
labels the Russian Federation as<br />
the aggressor.<br />
In turn, the Verkhovna Rada Committee<br />
on National Security and Defense inserted<br />
238 amendments into the bill back<br />
on November 15, 2017. Importantly, the<br />
MPs stressed the need to emphasize not only<br />
the issue of the occupied Donbas, but that<br />
of Crimea as well. Thus, the committee decided<br />
to insert into the document the mention<br />
of Russian-annexed Crimea and to add<br />
to the preamble a reference to the date of<br />
occupation, which is considered to start on<br />
February 20, 2014. Also, a mention of the<br />
Minsk Agreements has been erased from<br />
the bill, since, according to experts, it<br />
could have come to be treated as a legal<br />
recognition of their legitimacy.<br />
On January 10, President Poroshenko<br />
met with representatives of Ukraine in the<br />
Trilateral Contact Group on the Peaceful<br />
Settlement of the Donbas Crisis. It is indicative<br />
that such a meeting took place just<br />
before the vote on the draft law on de-occupation.<br />
Leonid Kuchma, Iryna Herashchenko,<br />
Yevhen Marchuk, Volodymyr<br />
Horbulin, and other figures took part in the<br />
event.<br />
Herashchenko stresses that for the humanitarian<br />
group, the second wave of<br />
hostage release is a key priority for the near<br />
future. Let us recall that former Prime<br />
Minister of Ukraine, Head of the SBU,<br />
Minister of Defense and Secretary of the<br />
National Security and Defense Council<br />
Yevhen MARCHUK, currently serving<br />
as a representative of Ukraine in the Tripartite<br />
Contact Group in Minsk, noted at<br />
the International Conference on Maritime<br />
Security last December that Ukraine and<br />
the rest of the world needed to seize every<br />
opportunity for maintaining dialog with<br />
the Russian Federation. Marchuk then<br />
compared a totally isolated Russia to a<br />
black hole. Such a state of affairs, in his<br />
opinion, may have much too negative consequences.<br />
● “WE HAVE NO PRESCRIBED<br />
MECHANISM FOR THE<br />
RETURN OF OUR LAND”<br />
“I can clearly say that the draft law on<br />
de-occupation must be adopted, no ifs or<br />
buts about it,” The Day heard from member<br />
of the coordination council of The<br />
Power of Law NGO, former head of the<br />
Luhansk Oblast State Administration Iryna<br />
VERYHINA. “We need it, if only to finally<br />
call the war a war. From this term,<br />
everything else is derived, including in the<br />
legal field. I emphasize, we are not conducting<br />
some anti-terrorist operation<br />
(ATO), but waging a real war. And we also<br />
have to determine in the legal field<br />
that a part of our territory is occupied. I<br />
emphasize that it is occupation of Ukrainian<br />
territory by the Russian Federation,<br />
which should carry the corresponding legal<br />
consequences. The only thing that<br />
worries me is that we have no prescribed<br />
mechanism for the return of our land. That<br />
is why we in the Power of Law NGO have<br />
created an appropriate public platform<br />
for de-occupation and reintegration of<br />
our territories. Together with the public,<br />
we have to find the appropriate ways of<br />
restoring our sovereignty. As we have<br />
seen, the public is often more active than<br />
state institutions. Perhaps the process of<br />
returning the territories will not happen as<br />
quickly as we would like. But this will surely<br />
happen. And here it is important not to<br />
We need clear guidelines<br />
The Verkhovna Rada is to consider a bill on the<br />
restoration of sovereignty of Ukraine on January 16<br />
forget that the occupiers must compensate<br />
for damages suffered by Ukrainians. After<br />
all, it is Russia that is to blame for material<br />
and moral losses suffered by millions<br />
of Ukrainians. And that is why Russia<br />
should compensate them in full. I would<br />
like to emphasize that Crimea and the<br />
Donbas cannot be treated separately. The<br />
sovereignty of our state is held sacred by<br />
Ukrainians. It affects not only certain<br />
territories, but also the integrity of the<br />
state as a whole. Therefore, this bill should<br />
have been passed a long time ago. Unfortunately,<br />
there are certain political speculations<br />
around it. It should have been enacted<br />
as early as last year, but we see that<br />
political horse-trading is continuing.<br />
Everything depends on the will of the<br />
president. If he makes a decision, then the<br />
bill will be passed into law. It turns out that<br />
we can trade with the occupier nation, but<br />
cannot call the war a war. And it is internally<br />
displaced persons (IDPs), once again,<br />
who become hostages of such a policy. I<br />
would like to emphasize separately that I<br />
want to see IDPs getting back their voting<br />
rights at the legislative level. This is a big<br />
problem, because we have a lot of Ukrainian<br />
citizens who are effectively barred from influencing<br />
the nation’s politics.”<br />
● “THE GOVERNMENT IS JUST<br />
FAKING ATTEMPTS TO<br />
RESTORE THE TERRITORIAL<br />
INTEGRITY OF OUR STATE”<br />
In his turn, Candidate of Law, senior<br />
research fellow of the Koretsky Institute<br />
of State and Law of the National<br />
Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Mykola<br />
SIRYI emphasized in his comments for<br />
The Day the basic conceptual tasks associated<br />
with the restoration of state sovereignty:<br />
“Even if we are talking about a<br />
purely legal aspect of the issue, we still<br />
have to proceed from the objective of<br />
restoring the territorial integrity of this<br />
country,” Siryi said. “This is the basic<br />
question from which all other means of its<br />
implementation should derive. So far, I do<br />
not see an answer to this question being offered.<br />
We often talk about the international<br />
community now, which seems to be<br />
the guarantor of this objective being<br />
reached. Of course, this is an important<br />
tool, but it cannot be, so to speak, the principal<br />
one. The real basis is our desire to restore<br />
sovereignty. Therefore, any talk of<br />
reintegration without a clear strategy<br />
for the restoration of sovereignty is somewhat<br />
meaningless. The only goal that<br />
this bill can achieve is the recognition of<br />
the fact of occupation of our territory. The<br />
Ukrainian state should establish the nature<br />
of relations with Ukrainians who<br />
have found themselves in the occupied territory,<br />
which would bring us closer to<br />
restoring the territorial integrity of our<br />
state. This is the crux of the matter, and<br />
it is in this context that legislative and executive<br />
decisions should be made. So far,<br />
it seems that the government is just faking<br />
attempts to restore the territorial<br />
integrity of our state. They are making<br />
waves in the media space, but it does<br />
nothing to restore the abovementioned integrity.<br />
We must clearly understand that<br />
we have now two levels of relations – with<br />
the aggressor and with the people who live<br />
under occupation. This requires a clear<br />
strategy at the national level and principles<br />
that need to be unfailingly respected.<br />
The aggressor will abandon our territories<br />
when it really feels our strength. And we<br />
must demonstrate our ability to protect<br />
ourselves in every possible way. Ukrainians<br />
who find themselves in the occupied<br />
territory, in turn, should feel that the<br />
greater Ukraine has not forgotten about<br />
them. Their connections with the greater<br />
Ukraine should not weaken, but, on the<br />
contrary, grow stronger. For example, the<br />
question arises: where will children who<br />
remain in the occupied territory go to<br />
study? We must also give a thought to the<br />
situation where people are forced to go to<br />
the occupied territory because of family<br />
circumstances. In which hospitals should<br />
they be treated, Ukrainian or Russian<br />
ones? All these questions should be answered<br />
by the Ukrainian state. And the<br />
context for these answers, I emphasize,<br />
should be making Russia to perceive<br />
Ukraine as a serious military adversary.”<br />
● “WHILE PERFECTING<br />
THE DRAFT LAW ‘ON<br />
DE-OCCUPATION,’<br />
NOBODY HAS CROSSED<br />
THE RED LINE”<br />
International lawyer Volodymyr VA-<br />
SYLENKO, who has been directly involved<br />
with drafting the bill “On the Peculiarities<br />
of State Policy on the Restoration of the<br />
State Sovereignty of Ukraine over the<br />
Temporarily Occupied Territory of the<br />
Donetsk and Luhansk Regions of Ukraine,”<br />
has noted that, despite attempts to radically<br />
remake the bill, it has not undergone<br />
any major changes.<br />
THE DAY AFTER ANOTHER SHELLING. AVDIIVKA, FEBRUARY 2, 2017<br />
“Talking about the draft law on de-occupation,<br />
which has been published on the<br />
website of the Verkhovna Rada, I should<br />
say that it is acceptable in principle,” Vasylenko<br />
commented for The Day. “However,<br />
it needs some cosmetic clarifications<br />
that should improve the legal technique<br />
on the issue. The fact that this bill has<br />
been met with unconstructive noise means<br />
that Russian agents in Ukraine are working<br />
at full capacity. For them, the adoption<br />
of this bill is a thorn in their side, because<br />
it is this bill that, if adopted, will<br />
effectively protect the interests of<br />
Ukraine. After all, this bill clearly defines<br />
the real state of affairs, namely the reality<br />
of the war and the occupation of<br />
Ukrainian territories. Prior to this, there<br />
was a fog of definitions in which it was<br />
unknown who fought whom, and the<br />
Russian Federation in general seemed to<br />
have nothing to do with it. Worse still, the<br />
Russian Federation is artificially positioning<br />
itself as a peacekeeper who only<br />
seeks to help Ukraine. This is wrong, and<br />
we have to make it clear on all levels, including<br />
in the legal dimension. As for the<br />
draft law itself, in fact, there have been<br />
many amendments proposed to it. Those<br />
passing the common sense test have been<br />
inserted into it. A lot of compromise<br />
proposals have made it to the text as well.<br />
There is nothing strange about this, and<br />
this work does not contradict the essence<br />
of the law. I hope that the draft law will<br />
be adopted on January 16. It should be<br />
noted separately that the just-mentioned<br />
bill makes no mention of the Minsk Agreements.<br />
But this does not mean that<br />
Ukraine refuses to comply with its obligations.<br />
At the same time, we must understand<br />
that the security issue must be<br />
resolved first and foremost in the framework<br />
of the Minsk Agreements. The second<br />
point is that all political issues should<br />
be dealt with on the basis of universally<br />
accepted principles of international law.<br />
In the process of drafting the bill, I have<br />
really had to persuade some politicians of<br />
the need for appropriate wording. I have<br />
also had to make certain compromises, but<br />
nobody has crossed the ‘red line.’”<br />
Thus, this week, the Verkhovna Rada<br />
will have an opportunity to put an end to<br />
the abstract definitions that have plagued<br />
Ukraine since 2014. The ATO will then be<br />
officially called a war, and the de facto occupation<br />
will be de jure recognized as<br />
such. This, in turn, should also affect the<br />
legal aspect of the matter, since the wording<br />
and definitions used determine the consequences<br />
in terms of bringing claims of<br />
damage against the aggressor. As practice<br />
shows, NGOs take initiative and come<br />
ahead of government representatives in<br />
this field.<br />
Photo by Yevhen MALOLIETKA<br />
XIX INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION<br />
PHOTO — - 2017
8<br />
No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018<br />
TIMEO U T<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
Malevich: the second death<br />
Photo from the website WIKIART.ORG<br />
KAZIMIR MALEVICH, SELF-PORTRAIT (1933)<br />
By Dmytro DESIATERYK, The Day<br />
Ukraine rightly counts the genius of avantgarde<br />
Kazimir Malevich (Malevych)<br />
among our own artists. He was born in<br />
Kyiv in 1878, and spent his childhood in<br />
Podillia (Yampil), Kharkiv (Parkhomivka,<br />
Bilopillia), and Chernihiv (Vovchok, Konotop)<br />
governorates. The artist began to paint in Kootop,<br />
inspired by folk embroidery and decorative<br />
paintings. He studied under Mykola Pymonenko at<br />
Kyiv Art School (1895-97). In 1927-30, he taught<br />
at Kyiv Art Institute, where the faculty then<br />
included Mykhailo Boichuk, Viktor Palmov, Fedir<br />
Krychevsky, Vadym Meller, Oleksandr Bohomazov,<br />
and Vasyl Kasiian.<br />
At the same time, Russia, too, is entitled to<br />
consider him as one of its own, as it was there that<br />
he created most of his paintings, including the famous<br />
Black Square, and his exhibitions took place<br />
there. Malevich died there as well in 1935. The urn<br />
with his ashes was buried in the village of Nemchinovka,<br />
Odintsovo District of the Moscow Region,<br />
near the oak where the artist liked to rest. A<br />
wooden cubic monument with a black square was<br />
erected above the grave.<br />
During the war, the grave was lost. Later, its location<br />
was identified by a group of enthusiasts in a<br />
collective farm arable field, so<br />
the commemorative sign, erected<br />
in 1988, had to be placed on<br />
the edge of the forest, approximately<br />
two kilometers from the<br />
actual burial place. It is a white<br />
concrete cube with a red square<br />
on the front side.<br />
However, what the communists<br />
began, the Putin-era<br />
“capitalists” have successfully<br />
completed. The field, the forest,<br />
and Malevich’s burial place<br />
have all been repurposed for<br />
property development. Construction<br />
of the “elite” (of<br />
course) residential block Romashkovo-2<br />
is already close to<br />
completion. The developer denies<br />
all accusations, arguing<br />
that he did not know anything<br />
about the grave. Whether he<br />
knew or not, Malevich’s burial<br />
place was not a protected site at<br />
the time of him obtaining a<br />
building permit.<br />
So, we can state that Malevich<br />
died the second death in<br />
Russia – under road rollers and<br />
bulldozers, under cubic meters of concrete and<br />
bricks. In the end, Moscow’s parasitic bourgeoisie<br />
needs somewhere to live. Why should a grave be out<br />
of bounds?<br />
It brings to mind another scandal that happened<br />
in the beginning of 2015 and had to do with the famous<br />
philosopher Immanuel Kant. A photo then appeared<br />
online of the ruins of a house in Kaliningrad,<br />
Russia (formerly Konigsberg), where the author of<br />
Critique of Pure Reason once lived, carrying an inscription:<br />
“Kant is a loser.”<br />
Is not he? Well, really? For the Putinist regime,<br />
which thinks nothing of human individuality, value<br />
of personality and equality of rights, both Malevich<br />
and Kant are losers, that is, stupid, unnecessary<br />
people. One can pour a layer of concrete over<br />
their graves, why not?<br />
Coming back to Ukraine: in fact, we do not<br />
have much to boast about either. Yes, Kyiv does<br />
already have Malevycha Street (renamed as late as<br />
2012), and a non-descript commemorative sign was<br />
erected in Volodymyro-Lybidska Street of the<br />
capital in 2008, which is collapsing little by little,<br />
and that is all. We have neither a museum nor special<br />
tours, nothing.<br />
And now the former imperial center offers us an<br />
opportunity to look decent, even if only by contrast.<br />
All that is needed is a bit of money and desire.<br />
Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day<br />
KYIV DOES ALREADY HAVE MALEVYCHA STREET (RENAMED AS LATE AS 2012), AND A NON-<br />
DESCRIPT COMMEMORATIVE SIGN WAS ERECTED IN VOLODYMYRO-LYBIDSKA STREET OF THE<br />
CAPITAL IN 2008, WHICH IS COLLAPSING LITTLE BY LITTLE<br />
The magic of kindness<br />
Emma Andijewska’s painting poses a real<br />
esthetic mystery to many spectators<br />
By Roman YATSIV<br />
Illustration courtesy of the author<br />
The uncanonical painting of Emma Andijewska<br />
(Andiievska), invisibly tied up with the willful<br />
whirlpools of the author’s existence, poses a real<br />
esthetic mystery to many spectators. A<br />
commonplace person may find it totally<br />
impossible to interpret every subject or symbol of her<br />
pictures. Searching for a “grain of truth” in the<br />
outlandish and grotesque imagination world of a<br />
unique painter and poetess, anyone may well get lost in<br />
the unusual surroundings and ask other wayfarers to<br />
help trace the sources of this metaphorical road.<br />
Emma Andijewska, one of the most brilliant artistic<br />
individualities of today, is really “merciless” as well<br />
as candid. The mistress has been nominated for the<br />
Shevchenko Prize for the books Cities-Jacks, Clockless<br />
Time, Landscapes in the Drawers, Marathon, and<br />
Everyday Life: Periscopes.<br />
Andijewska is undivided in her passions and categorical<br />
in her judgments; she is a bold pioneer on the paths<br />
of verbal and visual forms that shape her inimitable disposition;<br />
she continues to captivate and surprise, creating<br />
painting cycles with an unheard-of speed. For Emma, the<br />
very strategy of painting radically differs from the methods<br />
of the vast majority of artists who plan, sketch, and<br />
sometimes rack their brains over the choice of formal instruments<br />
to implement a pre-considered idea. This path<br />
would run counter to Andijewska’s inner nature. She has<br />
been painting since she began to write poems and short<br />
stories, stubbornly overcoming stereotypes and the<br />
slightest hesitations about any “academic rules” in art.<br />
She paints when the reactor of her existence generates<br />
a great deal of energy which is to be put into a structured<br />
poetic or painting form. Therefore, Andijewska has been<br />
revealing her own world-view for many decades in two<br />
concurrent dimensions, which shapes her integral poetic<br />
and philosophical image.<br />
It is rather difficult to systemize Andijewska’s artworks<br />
(thousands of pictures and drawings) in terms of<br />
genres and formal expressive means. It is a good idea<br />
to scrutinize her art in the dynamics of the author’s passion<br />
in general, when certain associations were being<br />
born, senses were forming, new ways of mental organization<br />
were being sought. From the first solo exhibit<br />
in Munich (1956) until the next one in New York<br />
(1989), poetry and prose books were outrunning paintings,<br />
but that period saw the birth of a large number of<br />
allegoric characters which filled the mystifying author’s<br />
subjective reality all over the space of her artistic experiences.<br />
By the late 1980s the ratio of painting had<br />
risen so much that Andijewska began to produce not only<br />
poetic books, but also what can be called “visual poetry<br />
albums,” with due account of the genres and<br />
themes of those publications.<br />
What are these books about, why are they important<br />
to the authoress, and how can we qualify Andijewska’s<br />
painting canvases? To answer these questions, one<br />
should abstract away again from customary approaches<br />
to other artists’ painting practices. The motivational factor<br />
for the artist is not setting a certain professional goal<br />
but expressing something that is immanent, specific, and<br />
typical of the author’s existence, of a certain emotional<br />
condition, or irrational in the metaphysics of time or<br />
place. Undoubtedly, the world order in Andijewska’s<br />
artistic space derives from her mythological thinking and<br />
is kept afloat by a specific poetic world-view and a sharp<br />
visualization of the invisible.<br />
Whenever you want to systemize the themes and<br />
genres of Andijewska’s paintings, you face the following<br />
problem: where, when, and how did the basic form<br />
emerge – the form that gave birth to characters, objects,<br />
and some quaint creatures with which the authoress<br />
models certain mythological plots? Naturally, fictional<br />
images are neither concretely emotional, nor decorative,<br />
nor provocative. And their symbolism is also entirely<br />
different from the classical interpretation of this<br />
historical art term. The “population” of Andijewska’s<br />
imaginary world is, above all, kindhearted (the mirror<br />
reflection of the authoress’ value-oriented imperative).<br />
The artist “describes” with a shade of humor her<br />
daily routine and hyperbolizes secondary (by the hierarchy<br />
of meanings) details. In the 2001 issue of the Munich-based<br />
publication In Bild, prepared together with<br />
German photo artist Lisa Pfahler-Scharf, Emma shows<br />
self-portrait-style paraphrases with her own pictures,<br />
which proves organicity of the cherished poetic world<br />
with her personal lifestyle, character, self-irony, and<br />
burlesque. It is not necessary to call all the elements of<br />
this plastique syntax skillfully designed in both light<br />
and color. Round shapes developed into the formless<br />
masses of figures and heads that featured “wrongly” set<br />
kind and sorrowful eyes. Hermetic dynamic structures,<br />
reinforced with an expressive color, became the<br />
“banquet” of the painting temperament of Andijewska<br />
as a self-sufficient poetess and artist who is frank in her<br />
judgments and creative manifestations.<br />
At the same time, Andijewska changes the structure<br />
of a metaphysical environment in another group<br />
of pictures, expressing more complicated philosophical<br />
senses. It is particularly noticeable in the “Crucifix” cycle<br />
of drawings (2014-15), where a New Testament subject<br />
is treated in a rather unexpected way, and in “The<br />
1,001st Night” (2008-10). Yet, regardless of the thematic<br />
factor in painting, graphic artistry, and carpetmaking,<br />
which the artist also turns to, one can always<br />
see the sign of magic which combines the various<br />
states of her existence, the different levels of reacting<br />
to life, the different intonations of joy and sadness that<br />
accompany the life path of a great Ukrainian lady. By<br />
conceptual indications, the art of Emma Andijewska<br />
draws remote formal parallels with abstract expressionism,<br />
lyrical abstraction, and informalism (art informel),<br />
but none of these art trends in the second half<br />
of the 20th century comprises a concentrated poetic component<br />
which is the quintessence of the phenomenon of<br />
Andijewska – an inimitable and unsurpassable person<br />
on the all too complex platform of world perception.<br />
Roman Yatsiv is a pro-rector of the Lviv<br />
Academy of Arts<br />
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