Anna Danylchuk - Remember Ukraine at Christmas Holding back Ravaging Army of a Brutal Fascist Regime

an danuk has been creating a war diary since the early days of the fullscale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 Anna aims to tell the truth about Ukraine and Russia's war and cut through the noise and propaganda she's passionate about the beauty and Independence of her country and communicates this powerfully in her videos but of course you all know that because you'll have seen the previous six videos we've recorded I'm delighted that Anna has agreed to come on the channel again but before we dive into that do check out the list of Ukrainian Charities that we have got listed in the description of this video please consider supporting Anna by buying her a coffee do the same for me we'd be incredibly grateful and this episode is our special Christmas episode in a way this is the uh this is the Christmas uh message from the queen of Ukraine and that is Anna welcome so beautifully described thank you so much it's always an honor and pleasure to be on your friendly Channel and Community because I always see channels as communities of great people behind them especially the channel that speak about such important uh things and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate may it bring joy calmness and happiness and victory to the world and return us back to New normaly in Ukraine Merry Christmas is I'll I'll have to practice that actually let's let's let's try that what uh just yeah that that'll need some practice Yeah we also have a tradition to greet each other with a more authentic phrase which says that Christ is born let's um glorify him uh so that will sound I I will not make you repeat but that will sound I I'm I'm glad you didn't insist on that that's a little more complex that one yeah but that's the answer it is those trolls who say that you have to glorify only God not Ukraine or Heros we glorify something in Ukrainian language and Ukrainian communication is common and that's exactly what we say Christ is born and we say let's glorify him and I have to say to my my my listeners here those two phrases that you've just said there are completely different in pronunciation from your aggressive Imperial neighbor I mean they sound nothing like the equivalent phrases in Russian and to me that underlines the significant difference uh in language and then as an extension of that culture uh traditions because one of the big propaganda narratives that you and I have been battling these last two years is the so-called brotherly Nation it's all the same Ukrainian is just a sort of regional dialect of Russian blah blah blah blah blah blah blah the attempt to arise Ukrainian identity and uniqueness yeah and this is a very dangerous and at the same time illustrative thing whenever you see one nation totally denying the existence with hatred of another even a culture even an ethnic group is always a dangerous sign because why all of this hatred like you may not like something but you should not hate it or want to erase it uh you know I've been thinking recently uh a very popular theory that now circulates around is that Russia is the dying Empire and Ukraine is their former colony from one point of view it goes well with many of uh decommunization decolonization practices and they work when we apply them inside Ukraine but part of me always disagrees that Russia is a true Empire why many people speak about that uh Empires formerly were spreading like they were typically richer than the colonies but what is more important uh they uh were typical first to that colonies so like you first have a country that grows into Empire and then it starts swallowing uh of the less lucky cultures but Ukraine g r g was actually the mother of uh some of the moscovian lands that were later under huge influence of um ORS Tatar Mongol ORS and that's why why from this cultural perspective when Russia digs deep into its history it reaches this moment where it starts hating Ukraine because it looks like that was the center of everything and is and um now puin has returned back to this Narrative of ORS by the way for the very first time in a very long period because he was trying to always describe um Russia as uh the continuation of cave Ru not using cave but anyway and uh now in his recent speeches he started saying about Heritage of ORS perhaps understanding they will not take cave but what I was concentrating on uh this conclusion that for me perhaps I will avoid saying that that Russia is this classical Empire Russia is a classical or or is violent or very often is less socially and politically developed than the land it invades and it does it not by being smart technologically advanced but but simply by being brutal and violent something that is not common for more developed societies I'm not going to be afraid of this word I mean like the educa where human life is of some value and so for me their behavior and their attitude to culture to language is very of this or style once again not modern Mongolia because I do have some subscribers when I say Mongolian ORS and they tell me no we're good people in Mongolia yeah sure they got very upset on one of my recent videos when I did understand that's why I even avoid saying Mongolian or I say golden ORS and this is the essence of Moscow that 13 14 15 Century brutality and so it's not exactly I know Empire is evil but they work definit L than Russia does having said that I did have a commentator from Mongolia on one of recent videos claiming that genis K was actually an enlightened imperialist and and it was actually very sophisticated so I know that's not what was saying as well we're not saying genas K was a good bloke and all he did was lovely no he was a horrific killer mass murderer uh Jonathan and what I'm afraid of will you know I've shared with my uh friends subscribers that I love watching this discovery National Geographic style programs that's what I watch on TV and very often I see lots of series about um golden or in a very positive manner like describing how creative how talented how sophisticated was jenes Khan when we have to be like come on guys like people like even bad guys we have to speak about as a bad guy that's kind of obvious but they spend and I see that countries invest lots of money and that's very positive uh images and recently there was also a huge documentary about the history of uh China where it was very openly demonstrating the connection between this suppression subordination future communism and the production of Pap like just because we are of that type that that's only why we managed to um invent paper Dynam and other stuff like um not Dynamite but I mean fire like you know what I mean uh in the military and then you gunpowder that's it gunpowder is the sex it's not me being stupid it's my English at this moment and you know it's kind of frightening because they if you don't have this background historical political if you don't know know what communism in is you may get Charmed and they invest so much money and you very well know how people ask us do you get paid by zansky or someone he doesn't even know I exist and we provide this open citizen information and they invest millions of dollars in this very light narratives that distract your attention from uh I don't know uh genocide against some peoples and focusing on well super ordination is important for paper production and now all of you use paper this way or another paper would definitely appear on the planet so we got to be careful it's an interesting question this this this imperialism because I think people in a variety of countries still struggle you know whether they are ardently Anti-Imperialist and they try to say that everything that every Empire has has done is bad Etc and they completely wipe out some of the nuances of history at the same time there are those who are rather defensive about it I mean often I'm no to put a left right label on it but you also have people who will be very defensive uh you get that in Britain as well but it's a complex picture and of course sort of horde type Empires the the um the highly sort of mobile Empires without uh huge Urban infrastructure which which uh uh you know describes that uh Russia also when it's being perhaps a little more thoughtful harks back to the cians um who have almost no connection to Modern Russia whatsoever it's quite mythologized but it's quite possible isn't it for a uh a society to have in our terms far less sophisticated Urban culture perhaps not a hugely sophisticated um political culture culture but it perhaps works but they can produce incredibly uh Advanced and beautiful cultural items especially grave Goods swords um you get that uh in in in sort of you know uh Celtic civilizations and the extraordinar imaginative artworks that are produced um it's it's not to say there aren't things to admire there but we have to be realistic that the political culture of The Horde which I think you and I believe uh underpins the modern sort of psychology and practice of moscovia um we have to be able to divorce that from I think sometimes the more interesting aspects which are the cultural products of those Empires uh yes and you know this is a very big question about like great Russian culture because that's the weapon that they very actively use and uh we were conducting one experiment while working on the documentary and we were were trying to type in like Great British culture or great French culture and this uh phrases they do not collocate that often on Google you will find Great British novels or uh great French composers but um I believe that all cultures are great uh we may just not know enough about them so it may seem that okay I'm not going to be super like super super neutral of course there will be cultures that you're more interested in and countries that you're less interested in just like food this does not mean that apples are worse than oranges but from the perspective of greatness all cultures are great you can discover something very unexpected on a tiny Island that has never been visited by your parents but uh I think think that what we don't uh say is the way cultures like evolve to some extent and the way cultures learn on their own mistakes and uh the way um culture I don't know breed perhaps is the bad world but breeds its own people like what kind of nation it shapes uh I know that like it's difficult to talk about imperialism with uh the British people because history was like complicated but at the same time when you look at modern Britain of course there will be people quarreling about everything in every family but in general you don't say that Australians are English because they speak English you know they are very different or you don't say it if you don't want to be punched as well you know I mean that's and no one thinks that way no one thinks that way you're not going to save Australia from something from I don't know Japan because they speak speak English and that's the message that Russians were very successfully disseminating in the world and I still have people from Australia for example and from England who will ask me so what about those Russians who speak or ukrainians who speak Russian uh they may speak Russian but they may be very Ukrainian they may be uh killing Uh Russian Invaders in dozens uh using Russian of course many people to Ukrainian especially now it was a huge push but even if we look at it like that uh there were centuries of crucification of course there is a result and uh at the same time these people are not Russian just like Australians are not English Uh Russian culture denies that Russian culture and president say if you're speaking Russian we're coming for you you know there are lots of memes and they are not actually memes of people stand standing on the uh occupied territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied territories or somewhere in the Baltic saying don't save me I'm Russian speaking but please don't save I don't need that uh and there are lots of joke inside jokes in this uh ex Soviet countries this is one very big uh difference also uh I don't like and I will speak openly I don't like this cancel culture in history when um [Music] people try to rewrite books or people try to totally destroy all the monuments that are associated with the Imperial period for example Christopher Columbus I'm sorry but because this I'm not saying it was right but that was our reality and by mistakes we also learn by seeing how wrong it was because if we totally clean that part of history and no one will have access to it we may come back to this mistakes and what is important in history classes in books in scientific articles in conversations to speak about those mistakes to um demonstrate them and to never repeat uh but to some extent this is happening and people are not saying what's correct what happened for example to the Native Americans no one will say was right uh what Russia does it says like it does not work on any of its mistakes but it says it was okay and we will repeat it this is a huge difference uh when US citizens say we're sorry that we uh were doing it to um Native Americans Russians say no there are no ukrainians there are no Georgian there are no ch people we will repeat that and that is why actually when you encounter phrases like uh cancel Putin don't cancel Pushkin I'm sorry but if you look deep into the poems that they use they are super Imperial they deny the existence of for example Poland because Pushkin was a very favorite Imperial poet and he speaks about this uh Wars so Uprising and his poems that were written like weeks after the uprising because that was an instrument they did not have TV they did not have internet that was an instrument for tar and he speaks like uh this is our polish question we will solve it totally denying the existence of Poland as a nation so and what Russia does it does not analyze this poem saying it was a mistake from the um you point of the 19th century you see don't repeat this stuff uh they do the country they say that's what our great poet taught us and we have to repeat it bushkin denied the existence of Poland for example then we can do it and uh that's what people have to see because sometimes uh they equate uh the cult they equate historical problems and they say well we are also guilty no uh you are working on your mistakes you worked on your mistakes the results are visible and Russians use that for the next Bloodshed it's interesting isn't it because um Britain has been in a process of uh decolonizing and the cultural decolonization didn't necessarily happen at the same Pace as the political one uh the political the one wasn't necessarily uh bloodless I mean in fact we know that there was considerable chaos um that is uh I would say the inheritance of deconstructing the Empire but it was a formal process and it was a formal process partly imposed upon Britain but then once they realized it was inevitable it was a process that was more or less embraced as I say with with um uh variable success but as you say the literature is an interesting question because if you take someone like Kipling you know we will we will look at those texts as somebody who is steeped in a kind of imperialism which no longer aligns with the current times but you can also get lots of strong stories and ideas and Impressions from those books also you can look stylistically at some of the positives that are in there you know still an extraordinary writer with wisdom in there and you can critique the other stuff um and of course what happened I mean if you go back to the 19th century Britain almost certainly or many people would have had a fairly chauvinistic attitude to writers if they were of Indian origin that's not to say everyone would but you know the the voices of British writers would have almost certainly been elevated above those of people from the colonial subjects um but the process of decolonization actually enriches English culture and if you Embrace that process um you find that that life gets more interesting some of the best English literature of the last 50 years has been produced by people writing in English um but with Colonial Heritage from the former countries of the Empire it's actually enriching to start to embrace that process I wish Russians could not just as a government but you and I know that this this is also embedded in individuals very deeply this isn't just Putin's War this isn't just Putin's Empire sure this is something that is programmed in deeply but it could be so enriching if they'd seen eastern Ukraine as a bridge between Russia and Europe as opposed to a threat as opposed to looking at it with a paranoid greedy imperialism this could have enriched Russian culture but there's something that prevents them uh actually looking at the world as something that can be uh you know produce plenty produce variety to be productive they look at the world in a kind of greedy envious I would call it a scarcity mentality and it's extremely dangerous mindset H you are very right uh once again I would like to stress that for me still it's not the relation of Empire and Colony it for me me it's a nation and an or invading it and that's actually very well explained than the father behavior that is not to take the best out of the culture and use it but to destroy it to deny it to degrade it and uh I think that another important point that Leist now for me as a Ukrainian is pretty emotional it's really difficult to use eastern Ukraine as a breach taken into account what was done to Eastern Ukraine by uh Russia you know I've read recently one of my subscribers provided me with a link on one of South American newspapers top newspapers I'm not going to name I have some ideas in my head but I'm afraid to make a mistake but anyway that was an analysis of the Eastern and Southern Ukraine and just from a perspective that okay Russians are living there and they were living there historically so what do we do with that and bl la la you have to analyze the history of the region Dipper to be able to reason uh just at the beginning of the centuries all of these territories were identic people on these territories were all identifying themselves as ukrainians and even you know part of Ukraine which is like ROV Bel where sometime the fire that was still historical Ukraine we respect the borders so we do not relook them but if we look deeper it's definitely a big part of this uh Russia um on the border with Ukraine that was previously Ukrainian in Roo on the markets people are speaking Ukrainian even now I had a classmate whose Grandparents were from that region and she traveled to them and she said like more uh Ukrainian than in cave at that time time but they uh were brainwashed with this Imperial politics and they felt like this is our village uh language we don't speak it somewhere and the S the song The Traditions they are very of that kazak regions of Bia who traveled actually to that Dimension but anyway we respect the borders but what happened to this eastern and southern part of Ukraine in the 20th century is an example of a genocide to a great extent if you are afraid of uh this word then I don't know ethnic cleansing or something because uh this was a region uh extremely successful agricultural region where there were lots of successful farmers and as soon as surf was abolished even in times of Russian Empire lots of Rich families appeared there in like 50 years because ukrainians were all always like industrious you know that we like to organize communities we we like to work and uh this part of Ukraine with really black soils with fruitful uh territories and hardworking people uh it was rich and that was the basis of this good middle class that I often mention when we talk and uh it was difficult to invite them to Collective fund because they had what to lose contrary to many poor Russian regions these people had horses these people had cows these people had Fields they had what to lose and they did not want to give it to like nobody that's why they opposed uh communism and uh that's why many of them were sent to Siberia then hore that led to the deaths of four minimum four seven million people that is huge that is a lot if you think about the region 600,000 unborn children in that period death rate was five times higher than in Russia at that moment so no it's not that Harvest and after this people died what they did they brought families from Russia and bellus to um use this beautiful land they brought them to this freshly empty houses of people who starved to death these people were Russia they came from Russia also they started building uh industrializing this part even though he was still in times of Russian Empire many people from Russia came to work there on the mines elsewhere and a huge number of people started identifying as Russians after genocide you know and demort was definitely in genocide people are traumatized and they make choices for that children it's better to be Russian to survive that's why there is a very um Vivid uh research that demonstrates at the beginning of 30s like we have like 80% of people identifying as ukrainians in some regions and in 50s you have like 80% of Russians and any sociologist will tell you such shifts are impossible in population within 20 years uh and now what they do they say but Southern and Eastern Ukraine is Russia was always no guys no no and even the industrialism I mean even the Industrial Development which was completely claimed by Russia that it was the Russian Empire that built industrial dbas um that built the factories the infrastructure um we know that later in the century Uh Russian industrialization did get going uh but it had significant help and support from Western experts um but industrialization in the dbass that actually uh took place earlier than it did in big parts of Mainland Russia I mean I was talking to Maxim eristavi who is the you know one of the strong voices on decolonizing uh aspects of the Russian narrative um he points out that uh many of the cities and towns in Dom bass had pretty much westernized names they were named after the entrepreneurs who founded the factories and built the towns from scratch they were Welsh they were Dutch they were American um there was an extraordinary exchange of ideas and techniques and then what Russia did is it raised that history it killed the people destroyed the archives renamed the cities and turned the clock back to zero to say right history doesn't begin until we were here that is the psychology of The Horde I mean that that is exactly it you're very right because um you know um this denial and hatred to everything we even have uh uh this joke that when you look back at in times of your great grandparents they had more diversity even in the small town that were foreigners from Austria from Italy from the US they were free to travel and some of our great grandparents had more opportunities to study abroad for example than our parents did and when you look back in the arai for example of my own city um we will encounter lots of Italian names that were architect that was it was a normal process when people traveled free and Russia you raised that and were close behind the iron K and it's a problem uh for example recently a small like um Ukrainian town was renamed in to region which is also in the east of Ukraine bahmut bahmut region donk uh New York like it was an industrial it had its name and I'm just looking like in Google at the moment he had the name um in 1860 like that and there was some history behind that and we know that donet was built not by Russians usuk right and um there are lots of such traces and uh in uh Ukrainian culture we never ER that we treat it as interesting as good and like one of the very uh viid things I'd say about uh Ukraine uh is that like they were trying to describe Ukraine as Nazi but Ukraine is always very open to something different to foreigners to people who travel to people who want something and they treat it as a really good thing not something bad and very contrary to Russia uh you cannot imagine someone happily launching a business in Russia were lots of foreign businesses that were in Ukraine before the start of war and hopefully there will be more after where you will not encounter that in Russia unless this is a half business with a Russian oligarch or something and if you do build one I mean this is the key point I think that people really fail to understand um If you experience the 90s you kind of understand how this works if you are a dynamic individual uh in Russia and there are some Dynamic individuals who uh uh I don't know where it comes from but but but have a reasonable word ethic um you build something up you build something good it could be a bakery Network a baker is it could be you know any any sort of business it will be taken from you somebody who is embedded in the mentality of parasitism stealing theft the vertical more traditional vertical in it's almost inevitable that someone will come along and still part or all of your business that's how operated in the '90s uh theft on on a phenomenal scale which was labeled as privatization um but theft of individual businesses usually at the barrel of a gun um you know I remember uh in St Petersburg someone had created a franchise with Subway uh the sandwich shop and uh then they had what was called a a hostile takeover Russian Style and what that basic Bally means is 20 armed security guards in paramilitary uniforms turn up one morning and say hey we own this now and here's the document sign it or or die and that's uh and that was repeated thousands upon thousands of times to people who who who might in a different rule of law system have actually thrived um yes and that what we rarely talk about when we describe the period before uh the revolution of dignity yanukovich uh the totally created artificially created for Ukrainian political Society person was definitely supported from Russia he was created in Russia and he was meant to be Ukrainian lukashenko uh because what Russia planned is the silent annexation but uh for a during a very short period of his presid presidency uh what he started doing because he was in this connections and networks with Russian oars uh yanukovich family started taking over lots of businesses in Ukraine and that was very unusual like even in the 90s this like of course when a huge Empire collapses something in nationalized something in but even in Ukraine in the 90s we did not have this time of bandism that was during yanukovich period and there were lots of stories even in my city in the western part of Ukraine where businesses would be approached by people from Russia people from yanukovich Circle saying like Okay you have your Dentistry Clinic we want to buy it for like $25,000 and you say whoa but it's $250,000 worth and you say no I can buy it for 25 or I will take it for free and uh actually that is one of the reasons why Ukrainian business especially middle level business stood together during the revolution of dignity because of this very worrisome tendency that just started appearing why because Russia was coming here and it always comes with this approach and as one of my subscribers at the very beginning of the channel beautifully described in Russia you can only become rich by taking it away from some yes and that is that is unfortunate side effect there and anybody as I say who may thrive in a different rule of law Society um you can only imagine the limiting effect that has on Innovation and I think this is one of the reasons I think and people will detect this through the interviews because you know I come from a business background I'm fascinated about how Innovation takes place I'm fascinated about um differences in culture whether whether it's sort of startups technology companies big corporations big corporations uh can have some features that actually resemble I would say more stalinist bureaucratic edifices you know um in a capitalist system you you you will have companies of different sizes different scales different cultures competing um not all of them are good but you pit them against each other to see who's successful um ironically some of the large and you see what works I mean sometimes sometimes companies Thrive with the most awful awful cultures um but then you also have other companies uh as a comparison that develop rather wonderful cultures and are extraordinarily Innovative the kind of good thing is that as an employee you're able to leave that company and go somewhere else and say no this is toxic I don't want to be part of this way of doing things the problem with with Russia is there's no going away it seeks to impose its value system on everybody internally as you say the internal Empire if it can even be called that and then it seeks to propagate those values onto states that border it that process is not just imperialistic it also strangles Innovation it strangles diversity creativity the creation and distribution of wealth uh it seeks to create extremely simplistic uh economic and political relations um I would say not even medieval because the medieval period is rather sophisticated uh you have to go far far further back in history to find an analy for the functioning of of Russia you're right that's what uh those people who know little about Russia should learn because it may seem some people get fascinated with this authoritarian regime strong hands when everything you don't have a choice everything is very um Vivid H you don't have this Pains of whether I should go there should I start everything is decided for you but then if you experience that for a month for a year you will definitely start um loving your democracy uh recently we've um Within Aspen project and I worked in uh we had a meeting with an ambassador of Germany in um Czech Republic and he said one phrase that I loved he said like what uh there are lots of countries that leave good life but they constantly have bad mood and everything is okay in their societies but they feel like are not well satisfied something is just like and uh it's very very easy for Russia to make this country's doubt their political social organization and Russia does it uh and they start thinking oh maybe that's good oh my God guys if you had experience if you only had experience to live in Russia you would definitely rush back to your nonideal democracies and you will love your nonideal politicians who are still can be thrown away for example you can quarrel with them or you can joke at them you cannot even imagine so don't let your the bad mood which is just like seasonal I don't know or something interfere in some important political decision and this is this is it's amazing you should say that I mean this is something that sits at the back of my mind no matter how bad anything gets in Britain and Britain can be dysfunctional on many levels half the country were in despair in 2016 half the country were triumphant what they saw as this incredible opportunity brexit half of us saw it as an absolute disaster uh and and a grotesque simplification of politics even in these very worst moments there little voice at the back of my head saying yeah nothing will compare to the chaos and misery I saw in in in 1998 I was living in a konala a classic and Petersburg common ala um person yeah where my neighbor was deeply semit anti-semitic uh woman-hating freak uh he was thrown out of the ldpr which is janowski's party for extremism I bet you didn't think that was possible but yeah apparently apparently it is apparently you can be too extreme even for janowski's party um but just experiencing the undiluted hatred and filth and Venom from someone like that living in filth and and relatively degraded uh you know circumstances um and in 1998 if people aren't aware that's the point at which the hyperinflation really kicked in terribly and we' been going on for a number of years but it was just accelerated hyperinflation um the markets the shops ran out of goods because hyperinflation was so rampant that if you actually sold your Goods at say 10:00 a.m. in the morning you wouldn't have enough money to restock because the currency deflated so much just in a couple of hours so of course all the warehouses simply they had the goods but they shut the warehouses otherwise everyone would have gone bankrupt and then you had panic buying everyone going around shops buying stuff I went into a shop and all the pastor had gone all the rice had gone there was almost nothing left on the shelves except a big jar of caviar and a giant sausage and champagne so I just I bought a whole carrier bag full of that stuff and and lived on that for a week or two terrible terrible times no I'm kind of joking slightly um is pretty scary but also there's this voice at the back of my head thinking you know nothing can ever be as bad as that and then you you dig beneath the sort of systematic theft that underpin it um and that for me is is the kind of rock bottom the reason why I think it's so important to have these conversations is Ukraine uh uh and Russia were in a terrible state in the 90s Ukraine seems to me to have moved far beyond that and to be innovating sophisticated political cultures much more sophisticated and dynamic economic cultures and of course the extraordinary dynamism behind uh Ukrainian literature uh dress music uh it's a dynamism that takes from the past but then runs with it innovates it does something new with it I saw very little evidence of that happening in Russia because of the not just the corruption but also perhaps even worse the kind of culture killer is nepotism that is giving talentless people all the top jobs uh through through a sort of network of Association that to me kills everything that could be good good and Innovative in a society but I'd love to hear what you think let's be optimistic in this magical time of the year when everything is possible and let's think that on some intuitive level Russia feels it doesn't have future um as it is I don't mean like we will not nuke Russia it will continue living with its people but in this modern shape it does not have future uh Ukraine has future other countries that surround Russia have future because they've chosen to develop to evolve to change and our narrative when we look at the election campaigns for example it goes in line with all the typical narratives future Orient because old people they want to hear some future promises from that politicians that your children will live better life or in five years or something because we see that future it's possible and what Russia does even during election campaigns president I wanted to say president but there are no presidents in Russia it's just singular uh president uh speaks about the past the past Glory Be Russian Empire be times of the second World War uh but they don't speak about future what what kind of future Russia wants like okay even with occupying Ukraine that's obvious but what what what poor what's the plan is it going to be what nothing they don't have this plan and they return back to the past that's a form of I don't know National depression or something and at the same time a very Vivid symptom that the deep down inside on This Global Collective understanding they see they don't have future they are not competible uh they lack some qualities or perhaps it's impossible to travel into future being such a big Empire in the 21st century that's very logical they have to collapse they have to dissolve and this is not not going to be a tragedy for the world it's a natural process we cannot like to those politicians who believe they can preserve Russia no I think it's a natural Decay process that we witness it's deadly for many unfortunately for many ukrainians but that's a natural dissolution process because countries like that do not travel to Future you will tell me China China is a complicated thing but I also believe many nations many ethnic groups are suffering there and it's a problem that we can help it's not okay and here's what because I know um I should I should be clear with the audience you've only had a couple of hours sleep because you've been traveling so I should let you go soon but I think what you've hit on here is the absolute center of the problem and I I I will ask a question in a second um this fear of one what would happen if Russia collapses secondly Russia has conditioned us to fear it over the decades since 1917 Russia has gone out of its way to try and create a pkin facade to make itself out to be far more Dynamic and effective and powerful than it actually is and this goes right back to you know the 1920s when the entire Revolution was was uh at serious risk of of collapse um and they really wanted to to to make us understand that they weren't fragile about to topple and somehow this has worked somehow what Russia is good at is these extraordinary lies um rather than uh you know action in the real world you know yes s you didn't achieve quite a lot but that's when it was Allied with with Ukraine and it's doing the same now it is projecting an extremely forceful image uh which actually covers up extreme fragility and I think you and I know uh quite clearly that the one thing that does genuinely keep the Russian Elite awake at night is the idea that it could collapse at any point they know how fragile uh this construct is especially in the modern world and especially when it's exhausting itself in a huge pointless War like this this fear of Russian collapse this idea that Russia is eternal and must be part of the world GE itical structure this genuinely seems to be preventing America from simply giving uh Ukraine everything it needs to win and I think the narrative we're going to really go with over the next couple of weeks is don't just Supply what Ukraine needs for the moment to survive oversupply in order to win and completely smash Russia on the territory of Ukraine this to me is the only one way and we need to stop worrying about what happens with Russia because we cannot control it and in fact Russian collapse would benefit the Russian people far more than continuing these historic uh delusions there's a title from a a uh Stanley cubric film The subtitle of doctor strangel I think is how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb well we need to stop worrying and learn to love Russian collapse and defeat uh yes I think you're very right in everything that you've mentioned thank you for this message uh well first of all I even advise us to start to stop using the word collapse because people have negative associations with that so maybe that's a dissolution or some I don't know Revelation you you're a native speaker you you select the word that it is the wrong word because Russia won't collapse chaotically it will uh you know Russians are are inert politically they're not going to suddenly you know stop fighting each other uh problems that I see on this way uh first uh my first question if you're afraid of the collapse of Russia aren't you afraid of Russia right now because there's arguments like who will get the access to nuclear weapons it seems to me right now the worst guy on the planet has access to nuclear weapons do you feel safe knowing that Putin can do it and he can do it and he threatens the world and somehow all away agreements and organizations do not keep him in uh strains so our task is in future when we deal with another Russia with another leader to make it work because after each big war all of these agreements they work for 10 20 years and then what happens all of these huge organizations they turn into bubbles with thousand of stuff and nothing uh so first of all my question is why aren't you afraid of Russia now I had people asking me but kadero will become a president of CHA but kadero is a president of CH plus he is only possible because Putin supports him and backs him up he's definitely not the representative of all to 10 people another thing is that people do not know much about Russia and they imagine all this big Russian as Moscow or something they lack knowledge about the history of this Russian Empire and that for example Co cosian Nations like chichin like dagistan like many many of them joined a Russian Empire in 1860s which is not that long ago and they had centuries of their history without and there are lots of Nations that are different in language in religion in Tradition they are not Russian at all they do not identify as Russian being a part of Russian Federation that's why more and more often I use Russian Federation because we're talking not about the collapse of Russia but the collapse of this very artificial Russian Federation Moscow does not care about Saka which is yakutia which is far east of uh Russian Federation and is larger than Argentina uh so when all of these nations collapse why do you think and they create their own National States why do you saying they will all hate West and they will all want to Nuke you why they have a different history they were also colonized by mosc they may not be evil Empires plus we have to control this process to some extent we have to Aid their democracy uh we have to cooperate with them and many will choose trade in the um Investments instead of they are very tired of Russia and then Russia will remain or be Moscow or something it will be Moscow St Petersburg and and it will be a country smaller than Ukraine perhaps and um all the people in Europe are very worried about the gas prices and other stuff you will negotiate that with a better leader with a more healthy country someone told me maybe it was even you that you can not control such a big country as Russian Federation in a democratic way that's right it's almost it's an Empire because it's an Empire I think is the phrase yeah um yeah so it's just so big it's not natural it's something that already happened to your countries guys when they lost uh colonies and that's the natural that's the way the world evolves it's just like not wanting to accept that you're growing when you're 12 that's natural thing and uh how of course this process it has to be uh very carefully observed but it will not be more dangerous than now this is the example it is it's it's it's the most dangerous Incarnation we could imagine at this point and uh they use the idea that it could be more dangerous that is simply a propagandist tool that is a psychological technique to try to control our actions and I use this mental example with people I say can you imagine if Africa the continent was a single country and people are like oh my goodness no but it's so diverse you know it's so diverse and there's so many different things going on there um from you know chaos and Civil Wars to extremely Dynamic uh countries and cultures so okay well imagine if Africa was a single country ruled by a single man for 30 years and imagine and they're like oh my God and imagine it was held together by the SS imagine the German SS was running the show and they're like that is a horrific idea hello this is Russia have Russia is what it is it's what it is yeah yeah so all of this ideas like would much like first of all I've uh been taught as it like my Ukrainian recent Ukrainian experience taught me that if a country is not acting well inside like if you have a president for decades one president for decades or if you know about the suppression of some ethnic groups or nations within a country don't treat this country as okay and that's why many people who talk about like China who talk about turkey when you see signs of authoritarianism I speak about I don't say it's but that's okay but the people seems that it no it's not okay it's not okay it's just like about toxic people when you have this suspicions and you have some Pro so accept that and treat the person respectively the same about countries it may not be that they have a president for say years and he's okay no it's not okay every normal Nation would change even if it is the godsent uh ruler he is the best but time to change go to EU go to Nato go to un there are other career choices but it's useful even for that individual and that points towards uh ethics and foreign policy which I think is is increasingly become a theme of of the channel I think it's a fascinating topic and there are those who are speaking up for more ethical foreign policy and I think as Ukraine takes its place in the world as a leading voice in international Politics as a leading technological and Military innovator I think the Ukrainian people are impatient stubborn they say what they mean they're creative and they don't put up with the sort of BS that you've just described there which is willing to we have to work with dictatorships and we have to be friendly with them I think Ukraine is going to bring a refreshing Clarity to the way uh business is done in the world and politics is done well before we before we sign off and you get some well-deserved sleep ahead of Christmas doesn't red lips say red lipstick saves the situation no I don't see any signs of tiredness there or in the passion and energy of what you're saying but I know that it's unfair to keep you back story okay let's let's sort of end with i mean we we we know there are challenges we'll talk about those challenges uh next year but let's focus on something fun which is Christmas and Ukraine I think for the first time is moving to uh away from the more Soviet holiday of new year and it's moving towards having Christmas on the 25th of of December I believe um aligning itself with with sort of European dates and traditions so what do you feel about that and what are you going to be doing to celebrate I think it's so logical that we finally celebrate Christmas with the majority of Christians uh Ukraine once again as a democratic country made this transition process really smooth before the start of war even the times of presidency of poreno the 25th of December was also a holiday like a free day so we have the 25ths and the 7th of January old style and people could switch the way they like so personally my family we've celebrated Christmas on the 25th of December for a couple of years already and um there was some informational work within Society because you know Russian Orthodox Church is working really hard to demonstrate no you cannot switch and all these small details like the uh time of the amount of years that you study at school when do you celebrate Christmas they are extremely important and the fact that we switched to the 25th of December which is actually logical because we live according to a new calendar and we were celebrating according to the outdated one what is also important there are lots of messages from great grandparents people who look at the newspapers the research was made and made public in media people celebrated it always on the 25th it's just like the state switch so it's very good and it's very important and I'd say that to a great extent Ukraine is a religious country when I see people coming from different countries on my channel they treat it differently but here in Ukraine there are lots of tradition that are strong and um for me it's a difficult Christmas because that's the first Christmas I will celebrate without my and um that is true that you feel this loss very strongly in this past period uh we have a tradition of 12 dishes on the table that uh to have a prosperous year and uh there are lots of things like Kya which is a national Port by the way on my channel in discover Ukraine I have some information about that so you can check uh also okay Carol sing and for example Carol of the Bells for those who don't know was inspired by Ukrainian national me and um the uh composer also fell the uh victim of the Communist regim and there's many beautiful Ukrainian people also it's very important that now we finally have this logical thing we have Christmas and then New Year for many people who kept the land and other stuff it was a tragedy that first you have this drunken Soviet New Year and then you have Christmas so now everything is logical and once again this is about Ukraine we don't try to rewrite history we simply look find the Logics and if we've had a mistake in something we accept and we change that and our society accept that and that's logical to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December with the rest of the world looking back and this calendar re for but Russia denies that and that's that's just like another illustration that that's wonderful and uh I do advise people to watch some of your videos you've got some lovely videos on food and traditions as well as propaganda and all the nasty stuff you've got lots of lovely stuff lots of wholesome stuff on your channel as well um I hope in this video to get people on Christmas day you know when they're with their families uh thinking about positiv stuff I also hope people spare a thought for Ukraine and I hope people really start thinking about how we can support Ukraine for victory next year whether it's getting the 4x4 vehicles from London over to Ukraine which hopefully will'll get good news on that whether it's in supplying all the arment that Ukraine needs to be successful and whether it's people at this time of year get over their fears get over their fears of Russia its terroristic threats I think people should spend this time in contemplating how we can create a better world and reduce the role of imperialism within that reduce the role of the Russian Empire and its aggression within that I hope next year brings positivity I I I feel it will but it's going to require determination willpower strength courage on the part of our leaders and our people uh to do that I have hopes that we will rise to that challenge though thank you so much these are really beautiful and important words and wishes and I would like to thank people of Britain people of the world who stand together with Ukraine it was one of the greatest discoveries of this war that we are not alone and you cannot imagine how important that is for a country for its government and for each individual inside the country ukrainians are very grateful and uh you beautifully describe this courage that we need in Ukraine we don't have a choice for us it's an existential fight but I'm not trying to frighten the world but definitely this evil has to be stopped because unpunished evil grows and uh we cannot get tired we cannot think that maybe somehow it will res no there are some crimes that have to be punished there are some action that have to be stopped Russia has to be stopped it will not stop and not just stopped serious work has to take place inside Russian Society after we win because they produced such evil and uh we have to understand that there is no Escape you cannot close your eyes you cannot live in your country far from Ukraine and think it will not reach you because if Russia wins there will be lots of troubles and believe me lots of problems more like it will not solve gas prices or other stuff it will continue toise in the world so we have to be strong we have to be United and um we have to stand together because that's what makes us stronger and I'm very grateful for the support that we feel from the people of the United Kingdom thank you so much to the people of the world uh and let our leaders have enough courage and wisdom uh to just equate with the people thank you Hannah that was a wonderfully powerful message very Regal as well I think I'm going to fotoshop a little Crown onto your picture here when we create the thumbnail of this oh I like it thank you so much it'll be going out Traditions are important we learn from each other we en reach each other that's just the way it should be and this will be going out at 3 o'cl on Christmas Day in the UK um when everyone is sitting there absolutely bloated from Christmas pudding and turkey and wanting to have a snooze don't go to sleep yet listen to this listen to the end to what Anna has to say because it's incredibly important oh that's an honor that's an honor thank you thank you so much good luck for next year and yeah I look forward to our next conversation yes thank you

Channel: Silicon Curtain

Views: 11,956

Keywords: Anna from Ukraine, Anna Danylchuk, ukraine, christmas war, trenches at christmas, russia, russian imperialism, rusian aggression, propaganda, disinformation

Id: XQJoTAAfxt4

Length: 66min 5sec (3965 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2023