More anti-war movement in Russia would help separate the Kremlin from the nation – Simon Shuster

“If there was more anti-war movement in Russia it would be easier to separate the Kremlin from the nation” – Simon Shuster, TIME magazine correspondent

Journalist Simon Shuster has been covering Ukraine for years and even has family connections here. He knows a lot of about Ukrainian politics and has interviewed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy many times. He knows that it’s not in the Ukrainian political tradition to bow before authority. But during the war people feel patriotic and happy to do what the state says. Ukrainians “are really rallying around the leader, the symbols of the state. They are not thinking so much about their particular city or community or region. But it’s really Ukraine as a whole taking shape as political entity in a way that we have not seen before,” Simon tells the Kyiv Post. 

The journalist did not believe Russia would invade on a large scale. “I saw here a Ukraine in its post-revolutionary phase when its military capacity started to be restored… and it was impressive. I visited bases in Mariupol in 2019; I went to Avdiivka in the east; I saw military preparations in 2021; and it was very clear to me that military morale was high – and they were much more professional. You cannot even compare 2014 to now. Ukrainians have prepared, have trained, have armed themselves.” 

Simon thinks if Russian people behaved differently during the invasion, if there was more anti-war movement, it would be easier for Ukrainians to separate the Russian state and the Kremlin from the nation, the Russian people.