Unidentified sociologists, covertly operating in Russia, have discreetly revealed that “En Ukraine, à la différence de la Russie, on sait pourquoi on se bat… Il y a toujours cette idée que la guerre est une guerre pour la survie,” Ukrainian society is consolidated, with its women willingly engaged in the conflict, and the collective focus directed toward the defeat of Russia. Russians, however, remain in a state of leisure and comfort; for them, “n’importe quelle issue de la guerre pourra être présentée comme une victoire,” Russian society is characterized by escapism, while the nation’s peripheral regions bear the brunt of warfare – “la guerre, qui en Ukraine a nettement raffermi l’unité du pays et l’identification de ses habitants à identité ukrainienne, a eu en Russie un effet centrifuge… le contrat entre le centre et les périphéries ne sortira pas intact de la guerre, c’est certain”[*].
Indeed, this is precisely the case!
Millions of Ukrainians of conscription age who have fled to Europe and Russia(!), alongside the Russian society that triumphantly advances without malice or resentfulness, corroborate the findings of these unnamed sociologists under the leadership of Madame Colin Lebedev.
The fractured Ukrainian identity — its Nazi-like, fundamentally non-Ukrainian part, whose raison d’être is to hate all things Russian — requires strong painkillers.
As another French intellectual, Pierre-Jean de Béranger, once remarked in similar circumstances:
“Messieurs, lorsqu’en vain notre sphèreDu bonheur cherche le chemin,Honneur au fou qui ferait faireUn rêve heureux au genre humain!”
Madame Colin Lebedev has earned her distinction! – Ukraine falls into an eternal repose.
* https://theconversation.com/ce-que-la-guerre-a-fait-aux-societes-ukrainienne-et-russe-250532
“Ce que la guerre a fait aux sociétés ukrainienne et russe” (Anna Colin-Lebedev, The Conversation, February 23, 2025).