The demolition of the dam, barbaric attacks on Ukrainian cities, war crimes in Buczy and Kramatorsk, cannibalistic statements of the Kremlovian propagandaists – all fresh Russian crime puts Ukraine the same question.
The question is whether Ukraine has the right to symmetrical cruelty.
Should Ukrainians follow the Biblical law of the talion: “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”? Will Ukraine let the same ruthless killing of the civilian population of Russia? The same "handling" with enemy prisoners of war? Is he entitled to call for the physical demolition of all Russians, regardless of their level of commitment to war?
Two opposing points of view have already emerged in the Ukrainian (but besides world) public space. any inform Ukrainian society against assimilation with the enemy and failure of humanity. Others brand “moralizers” and “humanists”, accusing them of almost treason.
The Russian army can kill as many civilians as it wants, torture the back of prisoners as it wants, abuse as much as it wants: but it will inactive receive aid from Iran and the PRC. Moscow's partners are dictatorial regimes that do not attach importance to another people's morality and crimes.
Shocking video with the beheading of a Ukrainian soldier must not affect the transportation of ‘Shaheed’ and their production equipment. Open calls to the Ukrainian genocide, which are duplicated in Z-pubach, will not prevent the sale of Chinese components to Russian weapons. Even if any average Iranians or Chinese do not like Russia's next act, their opinion will not affect the decision taken by Xi Jinping or Ibrahim Raisi
But Ukraine is dependent on the support of democratic governments, which in turn depend on the public. Ukraine's partners must number on the moods of the electorate, and subsequent elections in any Western country may seriously affect the amount of financial and military aid.
Much depends on the assessment of the citizen of Europe or America about Ukraine and Ukrainians. At the same time, there are things that public opinion in the West will never accept: for example, calling for mass extermination of people due to nationality.
And the specificity of modern information society is that not only all Ukrainian act, but all Ukrainian saying can affect their image abroad.
“They are invaders, and we are on our land.” ‘They are the aggressors and we are the victims’; “They started a war of destruction, and we just pay them with the same coin” – in the imagination of Ukrainian Facebook, Twitter, Telegrams are universal arguments that let to justify everything. But to an outside observer, no of these arguments would justify symmetrical brutality in war.
And here is simply a textbook example from the past: the communicative of how 1 photograph changed public opinion in a multimillion-dollar country and affected the result of a long-term military confrontation.
The celebrated photograph “Execution in Saigon” was taken by American photojournalist Eddie Adams in February 1968, during the attack by communist militants on the capital of the Republic of Vietnam. The photograph depicts the head of the South Vietnamese police, General Nguyen Ngoca Loan, who personally shoots the prisoner.
The scene of a violent execution committed by a high-ranking union state typical shook all of America. The scandalous photograph won the Pulitzer Prize, became a kind of icon of the anti-war movement and convinced millions of Americans that the Saigon government did not deserve support due to the fact that it is no better than the North Vietnamese communists who tried to take over South Vietnam. At the same time, no 1 was curious in the details that remained behind the scenes.
Shot in the head by a shot. Nguyen Van Lam; was a Vietcong commander and was active in violent criminal action before being captured. By breaking into Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan's house, Lem and his companions not only killed the owner, but besides relatives of a South Vietnamese officer: his wife, an 80-year-old mother, and six children.
Only 1 associate of the household survived the miracle - Nine-year-old Juan Nguyen. A boy injured in the head, hand and thigh managed to get out of the home after dark. He then lived with his uncle-pilot, left for the US with him, made a superb career in the U.S. Navy, advanced to the rank of Rear Admiral, and retired in 2022.
But if the future destiny of young Juan Nguyen was successful, the same cannot be said of his home country. The Republic of Vietnam disappeared from the planet map for almost half a century, and the viral photograph “Execution in Saigon” contributed importantly to its defeat and fall.
From the point of view of many Ukrainians and not only, the South Vietnamese general had the right Nguyen Ngoc Loan. He was on his own land. He defended the sovereignty of his country. He stopped the communist expansion that threatened the full world. He yet destroyed not only the enemy, but the ruthless killer of the full family.
But to the public in the United States, no of this mattered. A decent American audience saw the scene of the brutal massacre of an unarmed prisoner - and did not intend to go into detail.
The modern Western citizen will besides not go into item in the face of Ukrainian atrocities and Ukrainian xenophobia. I don't think he's going into the interior planet of the traumatized Ukrainians, I'm not going to analyse their emotions and put himself in their place.
Instead, it may come to the conclusion that Ukrainians and Russians are equally ruthless – and equally far from the liberal and humanitarian values of the West. For example, both sides of this barbarian war are worth each other: why support one?
What a sin to hide that specified a position is very comfortable. It allows you to decision from deterring an aggressor to hypocritical “introduction of peace”. And if triumph over an aggressor requires colossal and long-term efforts, then “peace” can be achieved simply by cutting off aid to victims of aggression. Thus, provoking Ukraine to symmetrical brutality becomes the optimal maneuver of the opponent.
Moscow does not request to search its own rehabilitation in the eyes of Europeans or Americans – it is adequate to discredit Kiev. Moscow does not request the West to think that the Russians are someway better than the Ukrainians: it is adequate that the Western public will conclude that "all are the same there."
On the contrary, Ukrainians have a work to prove by word and deed that they are better than their enemy – and so deserve all kinds of support.
Ukrainians must show that they are much more civilized and humanitarian. That much closer to the West – not the West of the 19th century or the 1930s, but the Modern West.
Whether anyone likes it or not, present is simply a essential condition for Ukraine's victory. And the old-school "eye for an eye" rule is not going to help.
