The following is a translation of an op/ed column published by Mikhail Khodorkovsky in The New Times.

«Such Blindness Looks Silly and Pathetic»

About those brainwashed and on the ecstasy of getting away with things

The New Times. Михаил Ходорковский, 2.06.2014

The Presidential election in Ukraine has shown something that eyewitnesses have been talking about for a while, namely, that Ukrainian national-chauvinists account for a fringe minority (2%). Voters in Ukraine’s east, west, and south want a normal, calm life and, hence, vote for those who, in their opinion, can deliver just that. Nor are they generally negative towards Russia. That Petr Poroshenko has significant business interests in Russia did not prevent voters, including in western Ukraine from helping to install him as President.

These days I know quite a few people in Donetsk and in Kyiv. They are ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians, in various age brackets. Many of them have lived and gone to school in Russia. They could have moved to better-off places or countries. Yet they love Ukraine, want to build a normal life there and won’t let anyone stand in their way.

My friends and I have spent time in cafes in Kyiv, spoke Russian, just like many other patrons. We shared risky, politically incorrect, the kind we are used to, and laughed at them along with local folks from Kyiv.

I have been to Kharkov and Donetsk, spoke to people in the streets and at official functions. Everywhere I went I met regular, normal people who absolutely don’t want to secede from Ukraine, or join Russia, especially in its current, Putin’s incarnation.

It is true that Putin is very unpopular in Ukraine as someone who has brought war and trouble into people’s homes. However Ukrainians are sympathetic and understanding when it comes to those in Russia who have been brainwashed by propaganda and are blind to glaring similarities (political, social, military) between Donetsk and North Caucasus. Such blindness, forced as it is on people, appears silly and pathetic.

I have also seen those who have taken up arms. Those are your run-of-the-mill ‘international criminal element’. They deem it necessary to ‘take away and divvy it up’, not work and earn. However, as is often the case in such situations, they probably include some regular folks who have been misled. I feel sorry for them.

Do we want to support the criminal element? Haven’t we had enough of their smug winners’ grins in our cities? In Moscow, Rostov, Stavropol Territory? Do we want to kill our former classmates? What for?

Why are we being silent as forces whose provenance we are crystal clear about are supplying weapons to gangsters? Why are we letting Yanukovich pay for mercenaries, while hiding from international justice in our country? Why are we letting our gangsters hone their killing skills on our neighbors? The gangsters will come home to roost, you know, and then we’ll pay with our own blood for today’s delight of impunity.

I hope that our gangsters will be forced out of Ukraine, promptly and cruelly. Ukrainian homegrown gangsters will be forced to stand down or will be thrown behind bars. And then Ukraine will build a normal life. For our part, we will visit and be jealous. They’ll feel sorry for us, treat us to some wonderful Ukrainian borsch and, with a sad look in their eyes, hear us out as we talk about our troubles.

We are family after all…