Instead of making the creation of European security architecture a priority for every European, which is, of course, a prerequisite for Ukraine to liberate all its territories occupied by Russia, there are still some who are looking for excuses for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions, for why he went to war, and blame it all on the “ugly” West. A list of the latter undoubtedly includes Spomenka Hribar, who still cannot operate without spreading her Russophilia among the people. This time, she has written a new piece for the newspaper Delo, in which she has served up a bunch of clichés, and she, of course, remembered to also try and sell the myth of the promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev about NATO not spreading, which the Russophiles are so fond of using to accuse the West and the capitalist world of being to blame for the war.
Spomenka Hribar is considered one of the most prominent Russophiles in our country – along with Milan Kučan – who in the past has protested against arms aid to Ukraine. She was also one of the co-signatories of the readers’ letter, in which the authors wrote that “our country, as a member of the European Union and NATO, should distance itself from and oppose, to the best of its ability, the sending of more and more weapons to Ukraine in its war with Russia.” Hribar, together with her Aurelio Juri-type supporters, also advocated for Putin by writing a letter to the Prime Minister, asking him to present a concrete initiative for a ceasefire and for the start of negotiations on future coexistence and cohabitation between the EU and Russia. The authors of the letter called for a delegation to be sent to Moscow to check Russia’s readiness to negotiate. Their concerns in light of the atomic bomb threats were, of course, completely irrational because if threats are made, you cannot just agree to subjugate a nation of 44 million people to the perpetrator, in order to calm him down. This will not stop the Russian dictator – instead, it will only give him additional momentum. Additionally, this was perfectly illustrated by an example from history, which proved that the policy of appeasement does not bring peace.
Anyone who read Hribar’s most recent article entitled “Thirty Lost Years” could see how, in her opinion, it is all the West’s fault, and Vladimir Putin, who conjured up the war, apparently has a kind of angelic glow in the sense that he was essentially forced into the war and that he really had no other choice. Writing along these lines, of course, justifies the rattling of arms on the territory of the sovereign state of Ukraine, which has already led to a number of completely unnecessary civilian deaths. However, one cannot simply forget the crimes against humanity that were committed, for example, in Bucha and elsewhere.
Users of social media were also upset by Hribar’s writing
Hribar’s writing seems to have upset many people. In her article, she also wrote about the promise made to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand to the East if the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. “The promise that started a new relationship between the West and the East has been broken, preventing the historical possibility of building a peaceful, beneficial coexistence between the two poles and of “healing” the previously divided continent into a political and economic whole, the entity of Eurasia. And what is worse: external pressure has been internalised by Russian policy as a threat to the country, and the country has thus increasingly established and strengthened the authoritarianism of the political system – internally towards its own citizens and externally towards countries that might threaten it (Chechnya, Georgia),” she wrote for Delo, among other things.
A Twitter user that goes by the username Kiha Mosovel, for example, took issue with the famous promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev – namely, that NATO will not expand, which is, of course, known to be a myth. He described the content and style of Hribar’s writing as a kind of “blog for alternative geopolitics” and said of the promise to Gorbachev that even if it had really happened, “even if Bush or Kissinger or whoever had really promised that to Gorbachev, what does that have to do with anything? Are all nations and states who are or are not part of NATO, all nations and individuals and communities, mere extras in a game played – to use today’s diction – by two white, middle-aged, heterosexual men?”
He went on to point out that if there was no formal agreement between NATO and the Soviet Union or between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, then a promise between two people could not take precedence over a country’s desire to join an alliance. “And every time a country has been prevented from joining NATO because it was supposed to take Russia’s sensitivities into account and listen to its fears, that country has quickly been slapped in the face. First Georgia, now Ukraine. That is why the countries wanted to join NATO, regardless of whatever the two guys supposedly agreed on. Because their fear is a real fear, the fear of being killed, of having their country burnt down, as opposed to the Russian fear, which is the fear of no longer being a “superpower” or something”, he concluded.
In addition, journalist Nataša Briški also reacted critically to the article, describing Hribar’s article as having very bad timing, and she believes that there are several statements in her account that could have earned an exclamation mark. “Here is what Hirbar believes – in short:
– everything is the fault of the West, and I mean e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.,
– the angel in the form of Putin was forced into e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. and had absolutely no other choice,
– Ukraine is evil and a horror,
– we are peacemakers, you are apologists for war.”
It is impossible to ignore the fact that the Ukrainian resistance also protects Europe as a whole, including Slovenia. To make a pact with occupying Russia, as the intellectuals on the left are so gleefully inclined to do, would be to condone, or at least belittle, Russian war crimes against civilians, who are the open targets of this war, and as we have seen many times before, it is clearly not in line with our civilisational standards. But it seems that some people cannot, or do not want to, understand this at all because, for them, Russia is their ideological homeland. But the criticism, which this time is even coming from the ranks of left-wing influencers, already shows that this is a completely wrong way of thinking.
Ana Horvat
