Imperialism is deeply rooted in so-called Russian “liberalism”, representatives of which are actively pushing the idea of “suffering ordinary Russians” due to “Putin’s war”, refusing to accept the collective guilt of the whole Russian nation for the genocidal aggression against Ukraine, and trying to appropriate Ukrainian traumas.
One example is former chief editor of the Echo of Moscow radio station Alexei Venediktov who has recently been awarded the Johann-Philipp-Palm-Award for Freedom of Speech and the Press. Ukrainian journalist and the Institute of Mass Information executive director Oksana Romaniuk, who was also nominated for the same award, refused to accept it as she couldn’t imagine herself physically standing on the same stage and sharing an award with Venediktov, a “Kremlin-authorized liberal”, she said in a Facebook post.
Ukrainians and Russians are different, and such a stance of Ukrainian journalists is aimed to “dispel the Russian imperial magic”, as Romaniuk puts it, even among seemingly “anti-war liberals”.