RUSSIA | WAR | SOLUTION

From Russia With Love: Delusional Mothers And The Terrors Of The War

Can we end the war before it ends with us?

I recently met three mothers at separate events. These three mothers supported the war because it’s easy, romantic and delusional to love your aggressive motherland when you are safe.

These women didn’t know each other, but coincidentally the common denominator was that they were originally from Russia.

It all started well.

I admired the business acumen of these ladies. They were well-educated, travelled and successful. They had great stories and knew how to tell them — their somewhat snarky tone was hilarious.

It was fun until it all changed.

Olga

The first lady, I call her Olga, had been in New Zealand for over twenty years. She established a successful business here, raised her children as Kiwis and had a Kiwi husband.

All was great until I asked has it had been difficult to see how her country of origin was at war and what her relatives thought and felt.

– “We have all the rights to protect our motherland,” she exclaimed, and all the light and snarky humour disappeared, “those Ukrainians deserve not to live after what they have done to us,” she continued.

I was gobsmacked.

I tried to ask her if she had any facts supporting her claims. Instead, I heard a rambling and inconsistent story mixing fascists, nazis and NATO attacking mercilessly innocent Russia.

– “And guess what, Mr Know-it-all, I was attacked by the local Nazis right in front of my home, “they were shouting insults and threats at my family, and we were so afraid that we wanted to call the police”. She didn’t say how she knew those young guys who shouted at her were Nazis, but she knew for sure.

I asked if she had experienced any other attacks because she is Russian, and she said it always happens. When I asked how these abusers knew she was Russian, she told me they obviously share social media information.

I decided to leave it there and excused myself. Fortunately, somebody I knew saved me, and I could escape Olga.

Masha

Then on another occasion, I met Masha — an Australian businesswoman who left Vladivostok in 1999. She gave a brilliant keynote, and after her presentation, I thanked her.

She gave me a wonderful smile, and we started to chat. Her eccentric personality was everything great I have seen in Russians — a genuinely larger-than-life personality.

After a while, she asked about my accent because it reminded her of somebody. When I told her I was originally from Finland, a new ice age began.

The warm twinkle in her eyes turned into a glacial stare when she said with restrained anger, –”You Finns are the biggest opportunistic bunch of fascists, and when you joined NATO, you revealed your true colours”. And she turned and sailed away, leaving a thick plume of perfume and anger behind her in the air.

Well, what can you say to that?

Irina

At a breakfast seminar in Wellington, I met Irina — a Russian sales manager. After marrying a Kiwi, she had been with her adult son from her previous marriage in New Zealand for only a few years.

Because she was from St Petersburg, we had much to discuss. I have visited that stunningly beautiful city dozens of times, and the Winter Palace is one of the most excellent art museums I have ever seen. Irina also studied in Helsinki in the late 1990s, giving us even more common topics to discuss.

Then I made a mistake. I asked Irina what she thinks about Putin’s war on Ukraine. Again, the room’s temperature plummeted, and Irina’s response was blunt: –”Ukraine’s aggression and fascist puppet regime must end, and Putin has all rights to protect Russia”.

When I asked if she ever thinks about the young men sent to death because of this unprovoked attack, she answered, –”You don’t understand Russia, and you don’t know anything going on there. Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine; they don’t have a chance even if they have all the NATO and their fascists helping them. Russia is so big that you cannot imagine. We have so many men to send to the war that Ukraine will be wiped away like flies”.

Then I asked how she would feel if her son, 22 years old Andrei, should go to the war and gets killed. — “Andrei is too educated. Putin needs brilliant minds like him, so don’t lecture me about war because we defend ourselves, have the right to do so, and have more men to defend our country than anybody else”.

Is this a coincidence or a pattern?

I have many Russian friends, and none have been so vocal about Russia’s right to attack Ukraine. Mostly they have been embarrassed and sorry about the state of Russia and its aggressive expansion strategies.

I asked one of them what he thought about my three encounters before I started to write this article. He said with a sad tone: — “This is not uncommon because it is easier to lie to yourself than face the facts when the country you love does something like this, and you are away and in a safe place.”

Then he continued after a long pause, longer than the long black he had. — “Many of us have this romantic idea of Russia, the misunderstood superpower. Our history has made us blind because looking at it would hurt too much. Nobody wants to feel ashamed and hopelessly unable to change a thing. Over the centuries, the system has shackled people regardless of the political name of it; corruption became the name of the game and survival of the fittest rules.”

– “In this context, sending other young men to die is easy when your son is safe. You don’t pay the ultimate price; that price tag is reserved for the sons of less educated, less fortunate and less known mothers from the remote parts of the vast motherland.”

I felt sad, angry and confused.

I have been a pacifist my whole life, but in this case, I stand with Ukraine and support their right to defend themselves. When the USA tried to destroy Vietnam, I was a teenager and demonstrating at the US embassy in Helsinki.

Superpowers want to suppress and force their views on the rest of us. The USA, Russia, and China are the powers to be aware of — for the moment. But there are also other aspiring ones in waiting. The geopolitical, economic and communication gauge can suddenly indicate that a new conflict is brewing, paving the way for the new and ruthless to arrive.

Don’t judge the individual, but make every attempt for a dialogue.

After my brief interactions with the Russian ladies, I’ve been reflecting on how I could have approached the situation differently to encourage conversation instead of receiving defensive responses.

It was hurtful and made me sad to get their harsh comments. But there are always two to tango.

How can we understand better to be understood, as Stephen Covey suggests?

Each conflict is human-made, so we are also the solution to them. And as Eliyahu M. Goldratt so insightfully stated, “There is nothing wrong with people’s brainpower; there is something very wrong with people’s perception of reality.”

And this quote from the same genius gives me hope that we will eventually be all on the same side, the side of peace:

“We must ask why with the innocence of a child, otherwise the most vulnerable assumptions, those that we unquestionably accept as facts of life, will not surface.” — Eliyahu M. Goldratt.

Our false assumptions are the source of each conflict, and unless we surface and challenge them, we cannot end the conflict and find a peaceful solution, a win-win for all.

Meanwhile, let’s hope that Ukraine will unite the rest of the world to stop Russia’s unprovoked war. The longer it takes to make peace, the weaker Russia gets, the deeper the misery of Ukraine and Russia grows, and the world goes backwards every step.

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