I have good news and bad news. The bad news is as follows: we are in a new and so far very shitty period of history. Russians are bombing Ukraine, my native homeland, and making threats about deploying nukes. It’s important to accept this situation for what it is — while nuclear war is unlikely, the mask is fully off the government of the Russian Federation. There is no going back from this.
The good news is: this is a clarifying moment. Smart, decent people can have no illusions about Putin’s unprovoked war against a sovereign, democratic neighbor. Co-opting Russian history for years, he has finally managed to establish a kind of Russian Reich. His blood-and-soil rhetoric against Ukraine, a country he thinks shouldn’t exist, is straight fascism. It is impossible to have a dialogue or a “reset” with fascism. We don’t have to worry our pretty heads over any of that nonsense. We can only defeat it lest it swallow us whole and spit out our bones.
Years ago, when Putin was just beginning to chomp away in Ukraine, I watched the new Russian Ministry of Defense building go up in Moscow. It sits on the Moskva River, opposite Gorky Park. Inside Gorky Park, hipsters could ride scooters and take classes on how to make a gluten-free pizza — picking up crumbs from Russia’s budget, bloated with oil money. Across the river, the MoD building now looms as the true face of Putin’s regime, grand and soulless.
At the time, most Muscovites could afford to ignore the contrast of what was happening on the Moskva’s opposing banks. Many saw it as a kind of equilibrium, and not what it really was — pockets of seeming normalcy designed to distract from the grim workings of Russian mechanisms of power.
The sunsets on that river are, of course, ironically beautiful. And when I was younger, and walked frequently along its banks, I was often tempted to recite poetry.
For example, in the final episode of Inspector Morse, shortly before his death, the titular character recites Housman: “Ensanguining the skies / How heavily it dies / Into the west away; / Past touch and sight and sound, / Not further to be found, / How hopeless underground / Falls the remorseful day.”
The poem has always made me think of transformations and, by extension, werewolves — and how, from a distance, you could almost hear the bones snapping in the Russian seat of power. It was the pretense at an ordinary life revealing itself as dark and monstrous.
Of course, that’s not all there is.
It’s not as if there isn’t truth and beauty in Moscow. It’s that it exists in spite of everything, like grass poking out in between concrete slabs. It’s going to be up to the Russian people to determine as to who will win, the grass or the slabs. No one else can do it for them, though. This means rising up against the fascist and risking all.
Any popular revolt could result in a civil war and the deaths of many Russians, though it must be pointed out that Russians are already dying in Ukraine. And if their so-called president doesn’t care about that, ordinary people won’t be able to have that luxury for long in spite of information blackouts. The fight between the Russian Reich and decent Russians will have to be an internal one, and it will be over whether both neighbors’ lives and Russian lives matter.
Thankfully, there is also plenty for everyone else to do. Time is speeding up and Ukraine and Ukrainians need help — with weapons, with humanitarian aid, with everything that holds off a rampaging Russia. Putin’s inner circle must be made to feel the weight of their boss’ wrongdoings, and to learn to prioritize accordingly.
Whether the sky is falling or not, there are many ways to get busy. Being busy means not having time for too much fear, justified or not.
Like I said, it’s not all bad news.
Image credit: Bartosz Brzezinski
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