“I have some very close friends in Russia and some of them emigrated now and some of them are in Russia. Of course, I can speak with them very personally about my experience. I see how much guilt they feel and how much pressure they feel from both sides, from inside Russia and outside. For example, the first letter that our society received from one of the Russian psychoanalytic organizations was full of apologies. But after that Russian members asked us not to share this letter because they could be persecuted in Russia.”
“[re Russian atrocities] it’s absolutely a shocking experience that we were not able to expect. This absolutely wild hostility and cruelty from the Russian side. What you see on the internet is only part of it. Of course, if we speak with these people – raped women, injured children, tortured men – it is absolutely unbearable. We are shocked that the Russian army behaves in such a way – it is absolutely dehumanized behavior, bestial cruelty.”
“For our country, it’s very important to feel solidarity now. We are very grateful to the States and to Britain who expressed their solidarity. Because several countries fell under Russian propaganda and still in some way hesitated about who is right and who is wrong. They say ‘it is not war it is only an Ukrainian conflict’, ‘there are both sides and all sides have their truths’. It is very painful for us to hear such things. I think resistance to Putin’s propaganda is very important support for us. To say truth about the situation, to say truth about this absolutely inhuman cruelty about this war and to defend people here.”
“Unfortunately, I see in many Western intellectual people who are missing an understanding of the situation. It is an absolutely unprovoked war. It is a very long war, because it started 8 years ago. Now it is only an acute stage of this war. But again and again I hear from my European colleagues that probably it is something that the Americans did, probably it is something that NATO did, it’s some political trick, and so on and so on. But these people use a great deal of denial to not see the absolutely cruel aggression of the imperialistic mind and an imperialistic society. These European intellectuals are like Stalin called “useful idiots” who supported Stalinism.”
Despite the Russian denials, it seems to me that they have invaded because Putin needs a war to stay in power. Having a nearby convenient small state to invade is a bully’s way to look powerful. So your country has heroically proven that the Russian troops like the Russian people are too dispirited to commit to anything, even what looked like an easy war to win. Know that you have much support and admiration around the world. Arlene Kramer Richards
dear colegs my heart is all wuith you. my englisch is very pour bat my love ist very profaund. I SENDO WHISHES OF PEACE DR ANA KAPLAN
Igor, I’m writing from Sydney Australia. You, the Ukrainians are in the mind and hearts of many people across the world. Yes, many of the self styled post – modern intellectuals don’t know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. Not everyone is equal. Its soul crushing to see the meaningless malignancy, the sadism and torture enacted by Putin and his soldiers towards the Ukrainian people. The rest of the civilised world needs to emulate the courage and tenacity of your president and people and act together to stop this. Sending some weapons helps, it’s not enough. Too many Ukrainian people are suffering for no reason. We must do more.
I so appreciate these conversations with clinicians from Ukraine. It is very helpful to hear things more directly. When I heard about the new general in charge, who bombed hospitals in Syria as well, I wished that we could’ve heard more from someone in the Syrian Psychoanalytic Society – that would also have been very helpful.
Pam
Dear Igor
Thank you very much for the Episode 108. I am impressed how you manage to speak calmly about realities and in such a way I didn’t feel blamed or accused by you. I feel ashamed, because I realise only now that I denied the deep meaning of what happened in Syria and 2014 in Ukraine. I didn’t want to take Putin seriously he is a silly old freak – to be ignored. He is far away and none of my business. Best not provoke him. Only now I realise, that he is like Hitler or Stalin, only to be stopped by force.
Why is it so hard to acknowledge the facts? Is it like climate change, the people at the front are warning us and showing proof but even after floods and storms, we deny?
I had violent fantasies how to stop the war; kill Putin, blow up all the Russian tanks etc.! NATO coming and being strong and helping the civilians. I don’t like my hate, my rage and my revenge feelings and my childish hope for a happy end; it is only getting rid of beta-objects and no help.
It is such an effort to acknowledge that this war, the cruelty, the suffering is real and that it is very close by. It is a responsibility to fight the pull back into indifference.
Hearing Igor helps to make the news more real and to sense how close we are and how near the threat is and it may push us to express truth and do what is needed – also in real.
Thank you, Caroline. Your are right, the denial is elsewhere in human nature and I compared once the situation of Putin’s threat with climate change denial. And unfortunately Russia uses this weakness of our minds in very skillful propaganda. It is so easy to deny facts, to suspend all opinions and then – as Freud showed us – the primal process starts. We begin to believe in what we want to believe…
We are with you all, Ukrainians, we are full of respect and admiration for your courage, and we feel terribly ashamed to be able to help you only with our prayers, thoughts, and the money we send to the NGO that are the closest to your martyr country.
Igor, we know each other from the summer-schools some years ago. So I want to say: all our sympathies are with you and the terrorized Ukrainiyan peopel. We have contacts with Ukrainian refugees in Wiesbaden and try to help them. And yet: all our sympathies are with our Russian colleagues. Some of them meanwhile went abroad. None of them supports Putin. It is a catastrophy for all our friends in Eastern Europe. All the best to you, to your family and to all our colleagues in Ukraine. Yours Annelore and Hans-Volker Werthmann in Wiesbaden, Germany.
My heart is with you. I wish there was a way to get out to the West that the issue has never been NATO
or Russia’s security. Bulgaria is in NATO, as are the Baltics, It had not been a problem and did not result in an attack despite the fact that weapon systems could be stationed there (and now will be) and can reach Moscow very quickly. A regime that aims to be totalitarian, that has nothing to offer to its impoverished populace except freedom from decisions and pride in ability to kill, is profoundly threatened by a land that speaks a similar language, has a similar culture, which has been a mere colony for centuries, and has the audacity of electing a president not bought by FSB, of attempting to battle corruption, of bringing in gifted people who improve the state of the country. This is the same reason China has to fear and subdue Taiwan or Hong Kong. It has nothing to do with security or military threat..
I absolutely agree. NATO became nothing in the beginning of 2000th. It disappeared… But then Russia and other totalitarian regimes reminded us that the “end of history” was an illusion. We in Ukraine were very naive. But many intellectuals in the West are still very naive.
We are with Ukranians. We pray for you all!