Solene Delinger
modified to
09:56, March 09, 2022
Jean-François Colosimo was the guest of Europe 1 this Wednesday morning. At the microphone of Sonia Mabrouk, the historian and specialist in the Orthodox world considered that the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine was a “fratricidal war” because the Russians have always “considered the Ukrainians as their little brothers having no destiny own”.
As the Russian offensive intensifies in Ukraine and the noose tightens around Kiev, the capital, historian Jean-François Colosimo was Sonia Mabrouk’s guest this morning. At the microphone of Europe 1, the specialist in Russian history and Orthodoxy considered that the war unleashed by the Russian president in Ukraine was the culmination of a vision, that according to which the Ukrainians would be “little brothers which must be taken care of, which must be supervised”.
“You will take care of your brothers by killing them”
“It is a Russian constant to consider the Ukrainians as little brothers to whom life must be explained and who have no destiny of their own. But there, Putin pushed this vision to the point of fratricidal war”, affirms Jean -Francois Colosimo. “The big contradiction for the young Russians he sends to die in front of the Ukrainian soldiers is to tell them ‘you are going to take care of your brothers by killing them'”, he continues.
“It just doesn’t hold up”
The historian explains that the “meaningful Russians” experience this contradiction in a very “violent” way. “It just doesn’t hold up,” he says. According to him, Vladimir Putin was not attentive to the fact that “the other Europe, that of the East, Eastern Europe”, joined the European Union. “The Greeks did it, the Bulgarians too, the Romanians too, the Serbs and the Montenegrins want to join,” said the specialist. There is therefore no “clash of civilizations”, as Vladimir Putin hoped, who uses this pretext to invade Ukraine.