The new guest of Souspilnist Foundation’s video project is Andriy Bondar, a translator, poet, and publicist. He is the author of “Cerebro” (2018), a BBC Ukraine award for the best Ukrainian essays.
Ivan Tsyperdiuk and Ira Mykhalchuk anchored the event.
We are highlighting key quotes from our conversation in the shelter.
“Nothing that russia now broadcasts to the world is intended for the world. It’s all for the domestic consumer. Russia is already isolated from the world. Right now, isolated. In principle, it should be of interest to the anatomic pathologists of this geopolitical reality and psychoanalysts, but it should not be perceived as a factor of concern to anyone.
We have goals in this war; our primary goal is to win, not just “survive” out there. We happen to live in a period when it’s not about development, not about modernization, but simply about survival. But it’s good that we’ll do it, and not, for example, our grandchildren. We must close this gestalt, close down this russian empire project.
When I am told, “Say something to comfort me,” I always say that we’re happy people, truly happy people, happy generations – we and our children – because we have seen their end.”
“Geography is an absolutely indisputable thing. Whatever is in the place of present-day russia, we need to understand a simple thing: we won’t be able to protect our borders alone, and therefore we need the EU. For us, the EU is synonymous with many things that we’ve not yet drastically modernized in all areas of our lives. We remain a post-Soviet country in many aspects.
In fact, our strength and resilience are there precisely because many things in Ukraine have happened despite the shortage of institutional capacity.”
“We need to be with the free world, and we need to throw ourselves into and learn from this world. We also need to teach this world. That’s another important thing because now Europe is getting exhausted because of us. Europe is once again self-aware as Europe. They’ve seen that we belong to them mentally, not even because we are like them, but because we have what they have long lost, namely the ability to resist, the ability to make categorical judgments.
All sorts of catering compromises permeate European politics. That’s very good, compromise is a beautiful invention of democracy, but they’ve brokered a compromise with the devil. And you mustn’t seek compromise with the devil.
Europeans are just starting to realize that they’ve been trying to come to terms with and play the same game as him (the devil), but it doesn’t work. Ukraine has shown them that the world can be black and white, and we must say in this historical period what evil is, where it sits, and how it is embodied.
We can say that the world uses Ukraine to fight against this evil, but Ukraine is also using the world to make up for its problem spots.”
“The world, powerless to protect people fighting for their freedom “on-air,” is a verdict on the world. I think the world will never be the same as before Mariupol. Apparently, the world needs to go through great tragedies from time to time.” Tiananmen (1989) or the Prague Spring, the Budapest Uprising of 1956 that was very brutally suppressed by Soviet tanks, the genocide in Rwanda (1994) – all tragedies have a certain cycle.”
“The war has stirred up a lot of things, and there’s a lot of video footage (how touching it is!). The older generation got pushed out of the political process. Older people were often associated with those nostalgic about Sovok.
We’ve seen these grannies in the Chernihiv region: how beautiful they are, how alive they are, what language they have, the way they speak! It’s as if we’ve rediscovered Ukraine, rediscovered our people, and seen our people through the prism of all this pain and tragedy. These grannies’ grandchildren need to build their own country, which will reliably protect their families and be a guarantee.
The first thing to organize is to secure, sorry for the pun, security. And it all brings us back to the need to join NATO. We were supposed to join NATO, but in effect, NATO joined us, and on an enormous scale. I think this scale will increase from May 20-25, and we’ll be kicking them out big time.”
You can watch the broadcast on Souspilnist Foundation’s Facebook page and our partner media platforms: KURS, Reporter, and TRC RAI.
