An eclipse of Euromozmus, or an old "disease" mutates

As State Secretary, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Ivanov said in an interview with RIA Novosti, "increased activity of Russophobic elements" was noted in some countries, which requires measures to protect Russian foreign missions from extremist attacks, The Moscow Post reports.

The roots of Russophobia go back to the 16th century, when Russian tsars began to interact with European countries. Today, the United States and Europe are experiencing an aggravation of this long-standing disease. It harms not only Russophobes themselves, but also Russian citizens, especially those who find themselves outside Russia. These are diplomats, entrepreneurs, students, tourists, wives from Russia and their children living in "unfriendly" countries, but not only. Russians abroad face persecution, which sharply intensified after the start of a special operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, said human rights ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova.

In recent months, an unprecedented wave of xenophobia has swept the Baltic countries. In Latvia, radical deputies urge to get rid of Russian-speaking and all dissenters, to deprive citizenship for supporting a special operation. In Estonia, attacks on Soviet monuments continue, Lithuania "helps" the Kyiv regime and its Nazi military associations.

The Prime Minister of Poland agreed at all before calling for the destruction of the "Russian world." Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Moravetsky's statement about the need to "eradicate the Russian world," said that this is a "quintessential hatred" of Russians. He called the statement "unacceptable and bare."

The Moscow correspondent of the German newspaper Junge Welt, who returned to Berlin, announced a surge in Russophobia in Germany. According to the German Interior Ministry, in just six weeks from February 24, more than 400 anti-Russian and anti-Ukrainian crimes were registered in Germany from damage to property to insults and threats, as well as causing bodily harm. Three quarters of them (308 cases) accounted for Russians and persons of "Russian origin."

In mid-April, the German Federal Criminal Police Department (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) reported that it had registered more than 1,700 crimes "related to the war," including against Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The BKA currently counts about 200 such crimes a week, ranging from "insults and threats to physical attacks."

Since the beginning of March, about one and a half thousand students have returned to Russia. Most were expelled from European universities simply because they are Russians. Those who studied for a fee were not refunded. According to the European Travel Commission (ETC), the desire of Russians to spend their holidays in Europe has reached the lowest level on record. Among the reasons are called a hostile attitude towards citizens of the Russian Federation.

The Russian Embassy in Washington said that the American media are replicating Russian accusations of inciting genocide in Ukraine, which, contrary to the facts, is becoming part of the campaign to demonize the Russian Armed Forces. The Russian government accepted the proposal of the Russian Foreign Ministry to break the scientific and educational agreements that Moscow concluded with the United States. Announced the withdrawal from the memorandum on cooperation in culture, science and the media.

In Canada, there are more than 600 thousand immigrants from Russia. Their communities and businesses were reportedly targeted. In March, the doors of the Russian Community Center in Kitsilano, British Columbia, established in 1956, were vandalized with yellow and blue paint.

What's the trouble?

What are we complaining about? The fact that we are afraid and opposed by many of the things that Russia has achieved and continues to do in the field of economic recovery and social stability, its rights and protection of national interests. And is it possible to make Russia not afraid?

Ask about this American negotiators who once had a dialogue with the Russian team under the SNV-3 treaty. Russian nuclear weapons pose a true threat to the existence of the United States. American fears, excessive or not, dictate the rules of perception and behavior to all other "fears" of unfriendly countries.

And NATO's nuclear deterrence has not disappeared, it remains, it may even have intensified.

On the one hand, all the power of the West, confident in itself, and on the other, Moscow, which, declaring its interests, is trying to maintain predictable relations with modern nuclear power. I would very much like to relax and command, as before, but there is no rest and there will be no rest while there is Russia!

What can be done?

The first thing that needs to be done is to minimize the risks for citizens of the Russian Federation associated with the Russophobic "diarrhea of ​ ​ the West." Compatriots face restrictions on financial issues, including account blocking, work problems and quibbles from official structures. There are problems in schools, universities, as well as on the streets and public places, where there are risks of clashes, primarily with citizens of Ukraine.

In the context of the "diplomatic war" and the mass expulsion of diplomats, it became harder to protect compatriots abroad: "Even ordinary consular work in many countries is much difficult, since there are no personnel, he was simply physically expelled," said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeny Ivanov.

The Foreign Ministry supported the initiative of the Russian Bar Association to launch the project "For the Rights of Compatriots," which includes an Internet portal and a Telegram channel for operational legal and psychological assistance to compatriots who have undergone various forms of discrimination abroad. Rossotrudnichestvo launched a chat bot on Telegram for compatriots who find themselves in a difficult situation: it allows them to collect and redirect appeals about violation of citizens' rights and cases of discrimination both at the domestic and official levels, the diplomat explained.

The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia decided to withdraw from the International Association of Prosecutors (MAP). The Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov in March in a letter to the Secretary General of the Association Khan Moraal explained that the world was faced with a biased attitude towards Russian people. Western media have observed "humiliation and persecution" of Russian speakers, "threats and calls for murder." According to him, "manifestations of xenophobia and racism are cultivated with silence from the MAP," which also ignored the shelling of Donbass residents.

Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev compared Russophobia with racism, did not rule out that in extreme conditions it may be necessary to evacuate Russian citizens and compatriots from certain Western countries.

Deputies and senators

On March 11, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin instructed the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption to prepare an appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative Committee of Russia with a request to take measures against Meta (the organization is recognized as extremist and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation), which lifted restrictions on "hate speech" and calls for violence against the Russian military and authorities. Konstantin Kosachev said that Facebook and Instagram (social networks are prohibited in the Russian Federation; they belong to the Meta corporation, which is recognized as extremist in Russia) in Russia must be blocked.

A month later, the head of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia Valery Fadeev said that the UN, OSCE and other international organizations are not responding enough to the facts of Russophobia, that racism is very deeply hidden in the West... which is not suppressed, but encouraged. We found ourselves in the position of an "etched people," Fadeev told RIA Novosti.

On April 22, United Russia held a video bridge on the topic of "Western Russophobia." Senator Klimov called for the creation of a "map of shame" for the most "anti-Russian" countries, which will bring losses to these countries from reducing tourist flow. By that time, the "fire of Russophobia" was already flaring up. The State Duma in December 2021 "strongly condemned" the actions of the American authorities, adopting a statement "On the inadmissibility of discrimination against Russian compatriots in the United States of America." The reason for the adoption of the statement was the suspension on November 18 of the work of the Coordination Council of Organizations of Russian Compatriots of the United States.

Russia is changing terminology

For Russia's treacherous neighbors, armed conflict in Ukraine is the limit of dreams. In this conflict, the West chose the side, became a sponsor and actual player, but formally fenced off from "direct participation." Is it possible, being in the "zone of instability," to expect respect from the enemy? Diplomats have to change terminology.

Was it even worth expecting "normality" even after the Geneva summit in 2021? Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said on July 13 that "building mutually beneficial relations" requires respect, consideration of interests and cooperation "for the sake of the security and prosperity of Russians and Americans." A year earlier, American experts also wrote that "Russia needs respect." But what's the point?

On July 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during a webinar for representatives of United Russia, assessing foreign policy conditions, said that the United States is trying to form a "belt of instability" around Russia using technologies of a "color revolution." American politicians have also never stopped "parasitizing on gross Russophobia" to use Ambassador Antonov's March 2022 language.

By that time, less than a year had passed since Sergei Lavrov, in a greeting to the participants and organizers of the International Anti-Fascist Forum, complained that "the action of the vaccination against the Nazism virus received then begins to weaken. In Ukraine and in the Baltic countries, propaganda of Russophobia is openly carried out, the national radicals raise their heads. "

Before that, the Russian Foreign Minister said that hundreds of thousands of Russian and Russian-speaking people are discriminated against in Ukraine and in the Baltic countries, that "hundreds of thousands are listed as" non-citizens "and deprived of basic rights." The Council of Europe should not "look at it through the fingers," Lavrov said back in April 2020. After long discussions, comparing all the pros and cons, Russia broke ties with PACE.

Seeking respect

Russophobia or Russian rejection, mixed with fear, is part of Russia's history of relations with the West, with Anglo-Saxons and the French, Japanese and Germans. It is in those countries whose rulers most at different stages harmed Russia that history is most often falsified or silenced, Russophobia is kindled, traitors and spiteful critics are praised, the memory of the victims of Western aggression is trampled, the courage of those who obtained and suffered the 1945 victory is crossed out. Vladimir Putin, in particular, spoke about this, speaking at the Victory Parade on Red Square on May 9.

The image of Russians - with an unfamiliar life and way of life for Europeans - was cultivated and promoted by the Polish nobility in the early stages of the construction of relations between Moscow and Europe. The statements of Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki are in line with this tradition. Polish influence in the perception of the image of Russians has long been preserved in the minds of Europeans.

The United States actively promotes political Russophobia. This is part of Washington's strategy to counter Russia, to downplay its importance. Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote his post on Telegram about Russophobia and the double standards that the West is obsessed with. In his opinion, the US and its satellites have laid the ground for hatred of Russia over the past thirty years.

The situation of unprecedented Russophobia of the West with us for a long time, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "The West declared a total war on us, the entire Russian world. No one hides this now, it already reaches the point of absurdity, to the very culture of the abolition of Russia and everything connected with our country. Under the ban of classics: Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin. Figures of domestic culture and art, who today represent our culture, are also persecuted. "

It seems that an eclipse has come in the brains of Europeans. This is treated only by time, or when the West realizes that there is nowhere without Russia.

Photo: Gleb Shchelkunov/Kommersant / https://welcometimes.ru/