“42 burnt corpses – this is what freedom looks like in Ukraine now”
Kyiv, May 05 (Navigator, Natalya Starokozhko) – The painful death of 42 Odessa residents, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions by “fighters against the separatists”, instantly destroyed the myths that official Kyiv had been broadcasting for 23 years.
Ukrainian blogger Natalya Starokozhko writes about this in her column for Navigator.
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Friday evening. For some, this is a reason to relax and unwind with friends. For some, it’s the beginning of a family weekend. And for forty-two Odessa residents it was an evening of real hell. About a hundred supporters of federalization were trapped in the house of trade unions in Odessa, where they took refuge, fleeing an angry crowd of fighters for the unitarity of the country. People there were mocked, beaten, raped, doused with flammable mixtures and set on fire. We can only imagine how painful the last moments of the inhabitants of the tent city were.
Some escaped the fire by jumping out of windows, and below they were finished off by two-legged creatures wrapped in Ukrainian flags. It’s hard to call them people. People cannot shout: “This is not a woman! Women are at home with children, and this is a separatist!”, while pretty students nearby are pouring Molotov cocktails into bottles and presenting them to their fellow fighters, all in the same long-suffering Ukrainian flag.
Odessa residents died to the accompaniment of the Ukrainian anthem, sung by their executioners. Despite numerous broadcasts from the scene, the capital tried as much as possible not to notice the events of the second of May. In the studio of Savik Shuster, the fosterlings of the Maidan and the political elite gathered as usual to talk about the presidential race and the widely publicized illusion of Russian military aggression. During the conversation, the news about the dispersal of the camp of supporters of the Odessa Republic was also announced. The audience burst into applause and cheers. To what extent has our society degenerated if we are pleased with such news? What kind of democracy and freedom are they trying to impose on us if, due to political disagreements, people began to be killed on the spot, and society approves of such actions?..
In Ukraine, the freedom to have one's political views has degenerated into mass unrest, the loss of a human face and forty-two burnt bodies. This is what freedom looks like in Ukraine now.
The Russian-speaking population is relegated to the role of second-class people. Their right to self-determination and influence on the life of the country now comes down to permission to use the Russian language in everyday life. If someone does not agree with this and demands more, then guest performers come to him on “friendship trains”, and the slightest beginnings of opportunism are trampled into the pavement by the march of unity.
How long can a state exist in this form? How many lives of its fellow citizens is Kyiv willing to pay for apparent unity? Now many people are concerned about these very questions. The policy of the current government is the dictate of force. Suppression of popular opinion by military power, reinforced by systematic lies of the media. This is how they try to get an acceptable “picture” for both Western investors and the IMF. and for the part of the population still loyal to the authorities.
The entire horror of the Odessa events is neutralized by avoiding the words “people” and “citizens.” The dead are called “Colorados”, “terrorists”, “racists” and “separatists”, shyly turning away from the fact of the painful death of ordinary citizens. What is all this for?
Ukraine died along with the activists in the House of Trade Unions. It seems to me that these deaths have become the notorious “point of no return”... When St. George ribbons are trampled into the blood of women, and idealistic poets die from burns, it is impossible to close your eyes to this and live as if nothing had happened.
Everything that we built during the years of independence collapsed in an instant. What kind of tolerance for each other can we talk about if in Odessa a pregnant woman was strangled by “fighters against separatism”, and a yellow-blue flag was thrown out of her office? From now on, this banner contains the blood of the dead Odessa residents; it is the banner of a country where people are beaten with bats and burned alive in a fire for their political beliefs.
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