Part 3 - Q&A with Professor of Russian Victoria Somoff

JS: Is there a strong resentment from Ukrainians towards Russians? Do you think Ukrainians perceive Russia’s actions as trying to reassert its former dominance from when it was the Soviet Union?

VS: I would say yes to your second question, but I think it is important, and I believe speaking in English makes it harder to differentiate, but when you’re asking Ukrainians versus Russians, it seems the conflict is framed in ethnic, linguistic or cultural terms, as if it’s ethnic Russians against ethnic Ukrainians, but it’s not what the conflict is about, and in Russian, you can say Russian meaning ‘related to the state’ by saying rossiskii or you can say russkii meaning the ethnic group and that would be something different. And the Ukrainian protest is anti-rossiskii, anti-Russia as a state. It’s not against ethnic Russians.

I think it’s important to see this difference, and even though there’s an overlap between the two, and yes, large support from Yanukovych comes from ethnic Russians in the east and opposition from ethnic Ukrainians in the west, but the origins of the protest itself isn’t against ethnic Russians, it’s against Putin’s regime. 

It’s against Russia as a state. It’s against Russia’s attempt, as you said, to assert control over Ukraine, to view Ukraine within its sphere of influence as a satellite state that is now trying to pull away. That’s where the protest comes in – to oppose that political direction of Russia rather than ethnic Russians. 

And it’s framing the conflict in ethnic terms that is precisely what Putin is trying to do when he claims that an intervention in the Crimea is to protect ethnic Russians. It works for him to see this conflict as a conflict between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians, but it is not. 

And now Maidon has declared independence. Now Maidon is a word for independence. It is a word that is used to indicate a protest. Maidon means ‘square’ in Ukrainian but now it’s a common word because maidons were opened everywhere. They are spaces where people can protest the government.

JS: Similar to how people might use “Waterloo” to indicate a person’s downfall?

VS: Exactly. On Facebook, the page that was providing all the updates is called EuroMaidon, or European Maidon, and an opposing movement was called anti-maidon. Or when people used cars or transportation in various ways to help set up the protest where called auto-maidon. Maidons have had people of all ethnic groups – Russians, Ukrainians, Russian speakers and more. It’s not an ethnic conflict and I think that’s crucial to understand. 

And to your second question, yes, absolutely. I think that’s what Putin’s government is trying to do. It’s a real threat to Russia’s geopolitical standing. It doesn’t want Ukraine to pull away from its sphere of influence and I would say yeah, he’s trying to exert his influence with what he has. And I guess he didn’t expect the protest to go that far and to be that powerful, and for people to really stand for what they were fighting for and not to leave the streets for months. 

It’s one of the most long-lasting protests in European history. They’ve been there since November. Right through the winter, sub-zero temperatures, police attacks and sniper attacks at the end. I think Putin did not expect that was going to happen. He can’t stand Ukraine going away.