Vilnius sky. Gambling from the future
Public debate in Lithuania is about everything except what is important. War is knocking at the door, and we are not talking about banning travel to aggressor countries, but about banning the advertising of gambling games. When it comes to closing the border crossing at Medininkai, we close the fur farms. Instead of finding quick ways to produce drones for our own and Ukraine's defence, we buy tanks that will be delivered in ten years' time. I am not against buying tanks, any more than I am against closing down fur farms or banning gambling advertising, but time is pressing for priority decisions.
We are talking about a general call-up in ten years' time, but by then there may not be anyone left to call up. What is needed now is not an outdated mobilisation model, but universal training of schoolchildren and students to build and operate FPV drones.
The list goes on and on, but when, two years after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we have, possibly, the first confiscation of a car with Russian plates, I understand that we do not appreciate the time we have been given and that we are wasting it carelessly.
As soon as a car with Russian licence plates is intercepted, we are drawn further into the Russian debate. This whirlpool has been further entangled by the attack by unknown persons on Aleksey Navalny's former associate, Leonid Volkov. For two days, the entire Lithuanian information space has been inundated with a discussion of little use about the sit-in opposition, which has done little, while in Ukraine, the real Russian opposition is conducting a military raid on Belgorod and Kursk oblasts.
The raid started on Tuesday morning and the whole of Ukraine watched it, while the Russian opposition, which is sitting on the fence, did not even notice. Or did it not want to notice?
The Ukrainians believe that the „good“ Russians have „overlooked“ this, because any opposition „leader's“ vociferous support for the Ukrainian armed struggle will wipe out any possible chance of winning democratic elections. It sounds strange, but these naive people believe it, even though it has long been clear to anyone fighting for Ukraine's freedom, to anyone supporting that struggle, that a peaceful change of power in Russia is impossible. In a country that has never had democracy and free elections, despite the short reign of Boris Yeltsin, it is impossible, not because of a lack of information, but because that society has not seen any other kind of system for centuries.
We loudly support the „good Russians“, but we are still afraid to ask them why they do not support the ZSU and their compatriots fighting in Ukraine. Why the initiatives of Ilya Ponamariov, who was the only Russian Duma deputy to vote against the annexation of Crimea, are being blocked at EU level, and why the main initiators of this process are the Lithuanian MEPs, Rasa Juknevičienė and Andrius Kubilius. The aforementioned MEPs have written texts and deleted comments, just so that they are not reminded of what Mr Volkov „tweeted“ about Crimea. „Crimea is ours“, Volkov said in 2014, endorsing Navalny's statements that the peninsula was not a sandwich.
I have written and said many times that in Lithuania we can criticise even the Pope of Rome, but the opposition in Russia or Belarus is like a sacred cow that cannot be touched. Critics are routinely called „haters“ by people who have opened the way for tens of thousands of Belarusians and „good Russians“ to settle here.
We are at war with Russia and Belarus, but at the same time our borders are open to allow citizens of the aggressor countries to travel back and forth. Our cultural space is being drowned in Russian chestnuts, and people are flocking to the biggest arenas to listen to Russian artists, thus showing Putin that we are still under the influence of the empire, under the influence of Russian culture.
At the same time, the Seimas is hosting a photography exhibition by Milda Matulaitytė-Feldhausen, featuring the heroes of her photographs, who have come straight from the Ukrainian front. For the first time, I saw the Seimas hall full for press conferences. Short and fluent speeches by the soldiers, no stupid questions. No unnecessary emotions, all those present were involved in the war and in providing support to those fighting.
We don't need to be told what's going on, we know that the only Russians really worth supporting are those fighting on the frontline on the Ukrainian side and those who support them. They are few and far between and will probably never become the face of the Russian opposition because they do not have time to drink champagne with Western politicians.
All the efforts of our MEPs and Western politicians, which are not aimed at destroying Russia but at reform, are a road to nowhere. I will say even more, it is a threat not only to our national security, but also to Ukraine.
