TO BE OR NOT TO BE WITH UKRAINE!

In my journalistic quest for information, from time to time I have been exposed to doses of Russian TV. After listening to reporting from ORT and RTR, I was shocked, terrified even, and rushed to the famous Maidan - just to check if everything was all right there. 
My colleagues from Russian TV channels said that the place was full of children and drunk adolescents-in reality Maidan was perfect! Smiling aged people with orange ribbons and flags stood beside young students with revolutionary passion in their eyes but no alcohol on their lips. Entrepreneurs in costly attire stood with pensioners in old coats, women in costly fur held thermoses in their hands. Old men with military orders pinned to their coats stood with sandwiches in their hands. They stood there united by this thought and this hope -we were many and we were not overcome. 
It's a pity that the "on demand" programs and coverage on pro-Kremlin TV channels could dismiss everything that the people of Ukraine and Russia have tried for so long to achieve. This ice cold indifference was even worse than the overbearing elder sister/younger sister relationships between our peoples. Months, if not years, will be needed to overcome this indifference. People in Moscow and Kyiv, in Lviv and St. Petersburg, will have to get used to the existence of independent Ukraine and pro-imperial Kremlin and vice versa. Ukrainians will again have to explain to their relatives and friends in Russia, that there will be no "Berlin walls" between the two neighboring states (except perhaps when Vice Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky gets the Russian State Duma pass a decree on this issue!). They will have to explain that even if it wanted to, Ukraine would never be able to escape its neighbor Russia. The will have to go on to say that if trade, economic ties, and political relations between Kyiv and rest of the world are based on Ukrainian national interests, this is not a betrayal of Russia.
So far, the information war waged by Russia against the newly elected regime in Ukraine is based on every possible kind of bias and lie. The situation resembles the one which characterized the Kremlin's relations with the Baltic states. However, since Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became EU and NATO member states, Moscow has been forced to lessen its attacks. The Kremlin's paid spin doctors are now happy to have something new to talk about in Ukraine. After all, Ukraine is filled with millions of ethnic Russian and all Ukrainians also speak Russian. They feel persecuted by the "Bandero-Yushchenkivtsy", and they are even more irritated by the "American" wife of Yushchenko and the "convicted" Tymoshenko! Russians, you have to aid your brothers and sisters in Ukraine! 
Listening to such slander does not remind me of the Soviet days of anti-capitalist propaganda, but my focus is on today's Maidan in today's Kyiv. Here stood thousands of ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking Ukrainians. They have been getting lots of practical Ukrainian lessons in lively discussions on Human Rights with the "banderovtsy" from Halychhyna (in West Ukraine) and villagers from Odessa. All have shared their views and impressions on the "Orange Revolution" and hopes about the new people coming to power. They were equally outspoken and critical of Russian interference in Ukraine's life and the unnecessary information war waged by the Kremlin. They expressed their regret that the average Russian TV audience does not have the chance to know the truth about Ukraine. 
A woman from the crowd happily said that she came from Russia to Kyiv in November and happened to be an accidental witness to the "Orange Revolution." Now she says she's thinking of giving up her Russian citizenship in favor of a Ukrainian one. Why? Because, as she says, "I am ashamed of the Russian leaders and the journalists! I am proud of Ukrainians! And I would like to be with Ukraine!" 
What a pity that the Russian powers-that-be and the media bosses disagree so markedly with her on the question: What is it to be with Ukraine? 

Bogdana Kostiuk