Putin caused such damage to the ideological concept "Russian world" that he turned out to be the best "agent of the American imperialists". A journalist Timothy Garton Ash writes about this based on observations of changes in Ukrainian society in a column for The Guardian. While in Lviv, he communicated with internally displaced persons from various Ukrainian regions ― in particular, with those who communicated in Russian until February 24. Now most of them have switched to Ukrainian, and the rest ― even if they are ethnic Russians ― more and more cut ties with Russian culture. There is no turning back from this situation ― moreover, the current tactics of the Russian war, which is directed mainly against civilians, makes the rejection of Russia equally strong in all regions of Ukraine. And in most other countries of the continent. Ash quotes the inscription on the banner in Georgia ― a country in which the same Russia took 20% of the territory. In autumn, hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens fled there from mobilization. "Putin kills Ukrainians, and you eat khachapuri here," reads the poster. And in Kazakhstan, local TV presenter Arman Shuraev directly humiliated the Russian ambassador Oleksiy Borodavkin in pure Russian: "All that you have achieved with your stupid actions is Russophobia. If the Russian Federation invades Kazakhstan, the entire local steppe will be littered with the corpses of your soldiers. You are idiots. Cannibals that eat themselves," he publicly told him. And all the long-term investments in the so-called "Houses of the Russian world", which the Kremlin opened in various countries where it wanted to have influence, turned out to be meaningless. Ash explains what happened to the British, using a story close to them. What Putin is doing now is if Britain landed troops in India now and announced that it was now regaining control of the peninsula and the Indian state was essentially becoming its vassal. "Yes, of course, Britain is not Russia ― that is, it is not poor and not authoritarian. But it is unlikely that the British Council (an international network of institutions that teach English and promote British culture) would have a good attitude after that," he writes. As a result, Russiaʼs influence is rapidly decreasing, not to mention its reputation. So Putin, according to the columnist, will go down in history not only as the one who unsuccessfully tried to restore the Russian empire ― but also as the one who dealt a devastating blow to the "Russian world".
On the website of the American public broadcaster NPR, a lengthy article was published about the fact that Ukraineʼs struggle with Russia has been going on for at least a century. Journalists of the media spoke for the article with historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych and made a tour of Kyiv ― more precisely, those places of it that became iconic for the era of the Ukrainian Peopleʼs Republic. In particular, NPR visited the Teacherʼs House, where Ukraineʼs independence was proclaimed in 1918. Now the building is damaged ― as it was when the meeting place of the Tsentralna Rada ― predecessor of Verkhovna Rada ― was damaged by Russian shelling. As then, the employees of the Teacherʼs House are convinced that everything will be restored. The material also mentions the Holodomor and Stalinist repressions of the 1930s, the Russification campaigns and extermination of those who saw Ukraine as an independent state. "The way Russia treated Ukraine in the 20th century explains the tenacity with which Ukraine is fighting against the Kremlin now," the publication concludes, "Despite the fact that, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyi, Russia is pathologically unwilling to let go of Kyiv." This time the hostilities went differently than in 1918. And there are now more chances that the Ukrainians will win this confrontation. "We are more united, more mobilized and more ready to fight than in 1918," he explains.