Author: Blazingcatfur

Walking around Kyiv in his new Ukrainian military attire, Igor Volobuyev felt as if he finally fulfilled his purpose.

For weeks after leaving Russia for Ukraine, the former vice-president of Gazprombank spent his days trying to convince officials to provide him with Ukrainian documents and allow him to sign up for military service to fight against a country where he had spent most of his adult life.

“The moment war broke out, I knew right away I wanted to go and defend Ukraine,” Volobuyev said in an interview in the Ukrainian capital.

The indecision of its allies could doom the country to a long war of attrition that’s to Russia’s advantage.

Asked recently why international powers that lined up on the side of the White Army in Russia’s barbaric civil war failed to affect the outcome, military historian Antony Beevor noted the West “couldn’t make up their minds” — the international backers of the Bolsheviks’ opponents were divided and hesitant.

Another key factor in the defeat of the Cossacks and the White Armies in the south of Russia was the difficulty in resupplying them. “The Reds had a huge advantage with internal lines [of supply],” Beevor told the BBC’s History magazine.

That’s what saved the Bolsheviks in late 1919 — to the frustration of Britain’s then Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill. “I can’t believe this. The Reds were in full retreat, and now suddenly they seem to be beating the Whites on every front. What’s happened?” an exasperated Churchill noted in a memo.

In Russia, critics of the war in Ukraine are increasingly being reported to the police. DW spoke with Russians who have been betrayed by their own relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors.

In the wake of Russia’s February 24 invasion of neighboring Ukraine, some citizens have taken a stance against what they call an unjust war of aggression. As a result, they have suffered the consequences in a society where state propaganda is ubiquitous, the use of the term “war” is forbidden, and those who dare to speak out against the Kremlin’s “special operation” face long jail terms. DW spoke to three individuals about their personal run-ins with authorities after being denounced by family, neighbors and colleagues.

‘At the moment, a lot of people are going crazy’