Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, more than 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Friend: Thijs Berger, prosecutor in the MH17 trial
Hearings for four men accused of participating in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine began this week in the Netherlands. Prosecutors have spent years compiling evidence that they say provides clear proof that the Buk missile which downed the passenger airliner, killing all 292 people aboard, was fired by Russian forces from territory controlled by the Kremlin.
Prosecutors described a textbook disinformation campaign by Russia, with security services deployed to hack police databases and threaten witnesses, whose lives are genuinely at risk.
“The sum of all the facts casts a dark shadow over this investigation because there is strong indicative evidence the Russian government is keen to thwart the investigation,” prosecutor Thijs Berger said on the second day of hearings.
Since the crash, Russia has tried to blame Ukraine, forwarding successive and contradictory arguments. While initially Russia claimed that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian military aircraft, Russia pivoted to claims that the Buk missile system used had been in Ukrainian control since the 1980s.
When investigators released images of the missile’s route, proving it originated in territory controlled by Russia, their government claimed the evidence was plagiarized. “Precision expert analysis proving that the video clips supporting the JIT’s [Joint Investigation Teams] conclusions were fabricated,” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last year.
Compare that with Iran’s missile launch that downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in January – a comparable tragedy, with Ukraine bizarrely playing a central role in both events.
It took the closed society of Iran three days to admit responsibility. Russia has deployed the full force of its military and intelligence agencies for more than five years to do the opposite.
Without a strong investigation into the crash, Russia may have succeeded. And while the four individuals accused will likely escape responsibility by hiding out in Russia, prosecutors like Berger are presenting a case that thoroughly separates fact from fiction.
At least that will ensure the world is not duped by Russia’s attempts to blame Ukraine.
Foe: Denis Pushilin, Kremlin-backed separatist leader
As Russia’s war in Ukraine’s eastern regions continues, the Kremlin-backed proxies in charge of parts of the Donetsk Oblast are distancing themselves further from the Ukrainian state.
On March 6, the Russian-sponsored parliament in Donetsk, more than 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, voted to strip Ukrainian of its official language status. The bill introduced in December by Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin’s leader in the territory, is framed as an effort to protect Russian-speaking populations.
Pushilin has long been a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda. Its narrative is that the ongoing war in Ukraine is a domestic uprising against Western, fascist aggressors rather than an invasion.
During a speech at a February event marking Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day, Pushilin declared 2020 “the year of the great victory” for the Kremlin occupiers, harkening to a favorite concept of Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia’s war against Ukraine is a simply the latest front in the fight against the spread of 1940s fascism.
“One cannot but recall the nationwide feat that the Soviet people performed, liberating the world from German Nazism,” he said. “The people of the Donbas have actually proved their adherence to truth and sacred duty when, in 2014, they rose up against attempts to subvert our core values and life guidelines.”
Of course, the people of Donbas did not “rise up” but were invaded by a foreign power. The “attempts to subvert our core values” refers to the EuroMaidan Revolution, which in itself was an effort to protect Ukraine’s democracy from growing Russian influence.
While eliminating Ukrainian as an official language is a less violent incursion than the ongoing military conflict (just this week, Russian forces fired grenade fragmentation rounds at a Ukrainian medical vehicle bearing a visible symbol of the Red Cross), it sits squarely within Russia’s efforts to erase Ukraine’s national identity.
The Ukrainian language is a key factor in preserving a Ukrainian ethos that is distinct from Russia. For Pushilin’s campaign to erase it in the Donbas along with the memory of Ukraine’s sovereignty in the region, he is our foe of the week.
