The inane discussion of Russia in the west seems to be getting worse, not better

I thought for a long time that Russia would at some point invade a country to its west. I started thinking this in 2008, when Putin’s forces invaded Georgia, stating that the Georgian government was enacting a “genocide” of Russians within its borders. Just thinking back on this makes me realise how much Putin has shaped 21st politics and political language, which is both depressing and terrifying in equal measure.

I remain in the Baltic countries, shifting to Lithuania. I really, really like Lithuania. The Lithuanians are like Latvians if you gave them a Xanax and three beers. They are chilled out people, and that vibe is fun to ride while you’re in the country.

I visited one of the foremost tourist attractions in Lithuania, the Hill of Crosses, just outside the town of Šiauliai. It is very literally that, a hill that is covered in crosses from top to bottom, side to side, and around its edges. There were coach loads of people turning up from what was clearly a cornucopia of nationalities. The exact number of crosses upon the hill isn’t known, but is estimated at around 100,000.

Strangely for such a tourist destination, there was very little in the way of the trapping of international tourism as such. No people selling miniature crosses from stands, a total lack of vendors of any food and drink. It was sort of refreshing to witness on that account alone. But there was more to the place than just that.

The Hill of Crosses was started in 1831, after a Polish-Lithuanian uprising against increasing Russian imperialism inspired the place. The families of the rebels who had gone missing, presumed dead, would put up crosses in lieu of being able to bury their loved one. During the Soviet era, from the middle of WWII until Lithuania gained its independence once again in 1990, the USSR’s government hated the site and tried in many ways to destroy it, or at the very least, stop people from going there. Yet these efforts failed.

The place is now a site of pilgrimage for Christians, but it represents a whole lot more than that. It is reminder of Russian imperial aggression, something that has existed for centuries. It is also a potent symbol of why socialism never works as intended and always, always melts into an authoritarian nightmare.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I was briefly shocked by the number of people willing to go onto the airwaves across the west and declare the attempted annexation of an independent nation to be the fault of the Ukrainians themselves, or failing that, at the very least the fault of the west, who had “pushed” Putin into an impossible situation. This was analogous to saying that a man who had murdered his wife in cold blood was justified in doing so because his wife had given him a dirty look several minutes beforehand.

Then, I got used to this position. I figured if the war dragged on, people who put forward this ridiculous idea would start to feel stupid. It would be obvious to everyone in a short period of time that the war was and is 100% Russia’s fault. But that never happened. To this day, four and a half years after Russia invaded Ukraine for what amounts to no reason, there are still people across the west, some on the left and some on the right, who will churn out the “NATO made Putin invade Ukraine” line on cue.

One of the meanings that the Hill of Crosses has for Lithuanians is that it was and remains a potent symbol of anti-Russian imperialism. The country was part of the Russian Empire and after WWII, the Soviet Union, for centuries. In Soviet times, the Hill was seen by both Lithuanian nationalists and the Russian authorities as a potent symbol of Lithuanian independence and nationalism. That’s why the Soviets did what they could to stop people from going there. They even cleared the site a few times, thinking that would do the trick, but no, people just found a way to bring new crosses there.

I have long thought the “It’s all NATO’s fault” argument for the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was downright stupid, but coming to the Baltics really hammers home just how dumb an idea it is. Everywhere you go in the region, the anti-Russian feeling is ubiquitous. Below is a picture from outside the Russian Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia. Police have to guard the site 24/7 to keep it from being stormed.

It is a deep seated thing in the Baltics that these countries enjoy their independence from Moscow and experience patriotism in large part by celebrating their freedom from the Russian noose. Every country here has the equivalent of a “Museum of the Russian occupation”; this is something deeply embedded in the Baltic culture now. Even for Russian speakers here, they want no part of Putin’s demented empire.

I think we probably need to start teaching the horrors of the Soviet Union to schoolchildren in Britain as part of the cirriculum. Kids need to be taught about the devastating loss of life, the quest for power which led to empire building, and the environmental devastation wrought by successive leaders of the USSR. I think that may get us at least partly out of where we are now, where so many kids are being spoon fed Kremlin propaganda about how the Soviet Union was a happy, utopian place of smiles and teddy bears, while the right buy into Kremlin propaganda about modern day Russia being some sort of free, Christian, Chad-perfect environment.

Being reflexively anti-west is one of the modern left’s worst traits; being reflexively on the side of any government that seems unwoke on paper, at least so long as they aren’t Muslim, is one of the modern right’s worst mannerisms. Perhaps if we all agreed that liberal democracy is a good thing, we could find some common ground? Or at least stop worshipping the gangster who runs Russia with an iron grip, using the country as a kleptocracy that benefits a group of men who could all fit into a reasonably sized room? I will leave that thought with you all to digest.