by Ben Bartee
The Daily Bell
My Ukrainian wife is a nationalist. I greet her relatives in her farming village west of Kyiv with “slava Ukrainia” (“glory to Ukraine”). They reply with the standard second half: “hero emslava” (“glory to the heroes”).
All that to say: Ukrainian patriotism is a genuine, grassroots ideal of a people who have experienced unparalleled historical political oppression at the hands of various invaders for centuries. They don’t want to be dominated by the Russian state just like they don’t want to be subjugated by the Turks or the Huns or the DC Swamp.
But Ukrainian aspiration for independence is used as a pawn in a broader regional and even global struggle between the West and everything else.