The current situation generated by the Russia-Ukraine war requires social unity, supporting of the refugees, making of a common cause with international opinion and with the states that adopted the March 2 Resolution of the UN General Assembly and necessitates efforts to show that all these actions launched by Vladimir Putin lead nowhere. The citizens should be protected from propaganda, while the political forces should be convinced that the approval of the war is rather noxious than useful for Moldova, the standing expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan stated in a public debate entitled “Who approves of the war and why?”.
According to Igor Boțan, before the war, polls in Moldova showed that there was a large category of people who were nostalgic for the Soviet Union. Twenty years ago, over 56% of the citizens regretted the dissolution of this, while now the figure reaches at most 40%. The basis of the opinion that justifies the Russian invasion of Ukraine is formed primarily in this category. There is a category of people who are not interested in politics and who easily become victims of propaganda. “These people should be convinced, but should not be condemned for their opinions. Instead, propaganda should be condemned as it plays a very noxious role. The ordinary people who are not used to have a critical attitude to information are actually victims of propaganda,” he stated.
Igor Boțan noted that if those who started the war in Russian say they want to “denazify” Ukraine, it is probably enough to tell the people that in 2019, when Volodymyr Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine, it was a special situation then as the President was of Jewish origin, the Prime Minister was of Jewish origin and the opposition leader was also of Jewish origin. “In this case, what kind of nazification can we talk about?” asked the expert. He said that the opinion of experts matters here. An Israeli center made public a statement whereby it “denounces the aberration” that there is a danger of nazification in Ukraine. Yes, there are more or less radical parties and political forces in Ukraine, but public power in Ukraine is in the hands of appropriate persons who are supported by the citizens.
Igor Boțan stated it is inadmissible for the church to have a neutral or even favorable attitude to a war and to justify it when everyone sees that there is no reason for aggression. “If we take all these factors together, we can see that there is a large segment of people who justify this war, sympathize with the attacker and this is a problem of society as it is a varied section of people, not of propagandists. The propagandists are those who should be fought, while the citizens should be educated to understand that what is going on is a crime and this crime should be punished.”
In another development, the expert said society’s attitude to the war has its roots in the policies pursued by political parties. “On the one hand, in the Republic of Moldova there are many parties that promote a kind of “social state”. If we attentively look at the policies pursued by these parties, we can see that no misunderstandings as to the social status that they want to build should exist. The division line between them is on the pro-European or pro-Eurasian line. The messages that the Russian Federation started this war to fight globalism or to restore its grandeur and remove the disproportionalities that appeared in the world derive from here.”
The public debate entitled “Who approves of the war and why?” was the 229th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
