Two Genocides With One Stone

Putin did have a plan, and it was working … until just about now.

First things first, just to make my place in this very clear: It is hard for me to write articles about the war in the Ukraine. It is hard to put what I feel into words, the closest would probably be “confused, helpless rage”. See, my dad was a convinced pacifist, strictly against any type of violence. This is not going to help his family, who live in Russia: my half-brothers are of (forced) draft age. On the other hand, my grandma’s (on mother’s side) 15 siblings and their kids are strewn across all the ex-Soviet republics, some of them back in Ukraine where their parents were from. So, no matter which side I help, I will be contributing to somebody from my own family getting shot at. Have a go at that trolley problem.

So when I write about “brothers shooting brothers” in this war, this is not some ethnicity-based hyperbole. This is literally what is happening, because my family is a typical example of what Soviet families looked like, especially the ones that were founded in Siberia.

See, Siberia is a special place. For most people around the world, Siberia is as Russian as it gets. And based on the current population, you might be forgiven for thinking so. But the truth and history are always far more complicated. If people of European descent conquering large swaths of land populated by native tribes “in the name of (Christian) god” by the means of guns, smallpox, and extermination of local wildlife…