'Historically, Russians have longed for an "overarching idea" that distracts from their poverty and decline and makes them feel like part of something greater than themselves, Alexievich said. The search for such an overarching idea is driving Russia now, and that is dangerous.'<blockquote>'Now, however, she is particularly alarmed to see Russians cheering their government’s increasingly aggressive foreign policies.
"We have a militaristic culture," she said. "We are people of war. We don't have any other history. Either we were preparing for war or we were fighting one. And so all of this militarism has pushed all of our psychological buttons at once."
Russia’s 2014 forcible annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea and its open support of the separatist campaign in eastern Ukraine, Alexievich said, is understandable because "without Ukraine, Russia doesn’t exist in that imperial sense that it hasn’t cast off."
The author’s own view of "the war with Ukraine" is unambiguous: "I am on Ukraine’s side; it is occupation, pure and simple."
Syria, however, "is somewhere far off and people absolutely don’t understand it," she said.
..
She sees a sharp difference between Ukraine and Russia today. Ukraine, she says, "is looking toward the future." Russia, on the contrary, is floundering around in its past.
Historically, Russians have longed for an "overarching idea" that distracts from their poverty and decline and makes them feel like part of something greater than themselves, Alexievich said. The search for such an overarching idea is driving Russia now, and that is dangerous.
"It is very important that the entire world accepts the idea that you need to kill ideas and not people," she said. "I have hope and I always say that hatred will not save us. Only love. Only by talking with one another."
Love is very much on Alexievich's mind these days.'
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Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich: 'Kill Ideas, Not People' October 05, 2016</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
'..Putin and the siloviki, like the Bourbons, have learned nothing and forgotten nothing..''The Hybrid War: Russia's .. Campaign Against Germany .. an "information war." In fact, he says, this is the "primary form of warfare" today.'Vladimir Putin’s Outlaw State'..Ukraine's recent reform efforts have garnered little by way of attention in either the United States or Europe..'</blockqoute>