Spanish journalist tells about the situation in Ukraine

Could I present initially that my quite ordinary business trip to Ukraine will pour out in something stunning according to journalistic measures. Could I think that preparation of the reporting on combined football team of Ukraine with which our combined team will battle within a qualifying tournament to Euro-2016, is absolutely unexpected for me will turn into the reporting on a behind the scenes of big-time politics.

So, my edition waits for materials from me about where the Ukrainian combined football team prepares today, what tactical schemes is going to apply and what football is ready to show in the field. I certainly will provide this material to the chief editor. But now for me as for the person, as the writing journalist, absolutely other subject comes out on top because of what I saw and heard from simple people in Ukraine. And personally I can’t pass by this subject indifferently.

Present Ukraine is exactly not up to football! I will tell honestly: all those shots about this country which I observed on TV screens of Europe and which were shown to me and other same naive audience as I, pictures of national fight against the corrupted power and pictures of national performance for freedom from dictatorship, after seen and heard in Ukraine cause in me, at least, the feeling of bewilderment. And even it is more — the feeling that Europe is simply information inflated and continue to feed with lie still.

We were told that the Ukrainian people gathered in united rush with the purpose to inform the expectations to the power. Yes — «to inform» and — «expectations». I was ready to believe. But whether the Ukrainian people? Is it possible to call the Ukrainian people of people who will reanimate the images of helpers of the chief Nazi executioners of the XX century. People from the acts of whom Ukraine took burning.

I saw as huge portraits of two people were hung out on office buildings in the Ukrainian capital.

Who are on these portraits?, I asked one Ukrainian guy who was on the square. These are the main fighters for freedom of all Ukrainians — Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevich, the interlocutor answered me.

When I returned to the hotel, decided to look for information on these people. It became elementary interesting to me to learn about the one who as idols is seen by those Ukrainians who captivated the areas, declaring the freedom and equality. My friends, I had no such feeling long ago: it seemed to me that the ice water was poured over me from head to the feet. These misters are the followers of the Nazi ideology who have actually got up under one banners with the Third Reich at the time of the Second World War. Now these persons forever were engraved in my memory. Now these persons until the end of my days will associate with that it is accepted to call turn of Ukraine towards Europe.

Do you want that the state the new authorities of which without hiding declare slogans of Nazi criminals was knocked at your door? If it is wanted by Brussels or Berlin, let accept in the embraces. I am against. I think, the overwhelming number of ordinary Europeans is against too.

And the people standing against these portraits looking in lenses of television cameras of the European, American, Australian information TV channels, declare that they are going to build the European Ukraine?

It is terrible. It is terrible when you see that the eyes are poured by blood of the people who march under flags of radical nationalism. It is terrible when you understand that their leaders won’t stop before something. But if it became terrible to me, can you imagine that how terrible to people who aren’t belonging to the Ukrainian nation in today’s Ukraine. How terrible to Jews, Russians, Bulgarians and Ukrainians who don’t accept the nationalist revolution. And after all there are those much among them who else remember the horrors of the 40th. They protected the earth then but who will protect them in Ukraine today?

It is terrible also that people who understand where the new Ukrainian power can bring them, have no leader. I visited the large Ukrainian city Kharkov. The citizens are lost. They have nobody to lean. The administration tries to keep in power in every way and for this purpose they are ready to accept that I personally safely call as nationalist revolution. Even the Kharkov militia can’t be the guarantor of safety. Militiamen are afraid to support those who against new Kiev because don’t want to be again betrayed by the power.

I talked to one of the Kharkov militiamen. Do you know what he told me? He told: if you are from Europe then take away your puppets from here. At first I didn’t understand whom he means. And so — the radicals start gathering in Kharkov already now by small groups from the western Ukrainian areas. They don’t use the buses. Arrive generally by rail, in advance reserving apartments and hotels, that then to gather on command and arrange nationalist revolution here. The militiaman called these people the puppets. Let’s ponder together: «take away the puppets from here» means that many Ukrainians well understand that revolution goes from the outside that we, the Europeans, at least don’t oppose to such expansion of events. And if we don’t oppose, so we indulge!

I didn’t begin to do attempts to explain to him that I am the simple sports journalist from Spain as understood that all explanations will look silly in this situation. I turned back and went, without understanding where I go. I saw the monument to Lenin which the citizens of Kharkov undertook to protect. I saw how the determination of these people can’t find a point of support — there is no person who could resist today to revival of ideas of Shukhevich in Ukraine.

Departing from Kharkov, I thought that if in Ukraine there will be no worthy force, capable to return a situation to the civilized course, will be no leader of this force, plague will extend across all Europe. Are we ready to it? I think that we aren’t ready. We aren’t ready because even our mass media persistently try to accompany those who brought into the power of radicals, trying not to notice their tattooed hands in derivatives of Hitlerite swastikas, not to notice calls from an era of Nazi blossoming in Europe.