War in Ukraine as clash of civilizations (general context of the 20th century)

Through all its history Ukraine has been fighting for its right to be. Different empires tried to absorb Ukrainian lands and people in their cultural, language and religious landscapes. And it always ended only in enriching Ukrainian multicultural self-representation — never giving up the backbone of the authentic Ukrainian way of life.
The 20th century became the prologue of the new page in the crystallization of Ukrainian identity and brought with it more suffering and struggle. For Ukraine the revolution and post-monarchical processes of 1917–1921 were accompanied by lots of initiatives and efforts to gain independence. First president of Ukraine Mykhailo Grushevskiy and his Forth Universal proclaimed Ukrainian independence, Western Ukrainian People’s Republic tried to find its way in 1918–1919, and these were not the only attempts of that time to build subjectivity that was later fully destroyed within bolshevics paradigm. Ukraine was always trying rather to find the opportunity to coexist and never to merge. But still it was occupied by a regime that became known as Soviet and has been paying a high price for not welcoming it — Holodomors, artificial famine, happened more than once to break the inner resistance of Ukrainians towards ‘collectivization’ and coming epoch of "friendship of peoples". The atrocities reached its apogee in the 1930s with the Executed Renaissance that aimed to leave Ukrainians without a generation of its poets, writers, theater and cultural actors. That was only the first decade of integrating Ukraine to the Soviet "family" that resulted in 4-8 million deaths of Ukrainians.
The Second world war cost Ukraine — putting it mildly — a lot (8 million people). Though its glory, subjectivity and voice of this sacrifice was tuned into the USSR narration of the history. Russia presents itself as an architect and main actor of the victory, expropriating Ukraine’s sacrifice and not acknowledging other contributors for the sake of its own “greatness”. Before, during and after the Second world war Ukraine was looking for its own path towards independence, however, it wind up in post-war USSR with terror, informational war and ongoing Russification. The history of that period is also better known in Russian interpretation which led to the hypocritical situations when Russia claimed the victory in the Second world war as its own. Is there a word for that? Colonialism, maybe?
With the USSR collapse, Ukraine gained its independence. It’s always been the dialectics of Ukrainian modernity — being non violent in its essence, and still being stubborn in its values and purposes, ready to become violent in self-defense — but never attecking. That’s why 3 Maidans throughout its history were mostly non violent. Revolution on Granite in 1990 prevented Ukraine from entering into a new type of the local geographical ‘union’ (resulted in parliament act). 2004 Orange revolution was against massive fabrication and scam of elections (resulted in decisions of Constitutional court). Euromaidan of 2013 was a fight for a dream that was being stolen — choosing the vector between Russia and Europe as two massively different systems of values, resulting in new elections and adding to the Constitution that Ukraine is aiming for EU and NATO.
That was the beginning of the war, the full scale of which the world saw on the 24th of February. It started right after Maidan in 2014 with Crimea annexation and was followed by Donetsk and Luhansk occupation. Russia was not ready to accept the choice made by Ukraine and was preparing to take actions and — quote — seek for the ‘solution of the Ukrainian question’.
The clash here is built on neocolonialist ambitions that are a continuation of the long term perspective of seeing Ukraine as a part of the Russian world. The USSR used to move people a lot within its lands and brought many Ukrainians to the outskirts of Russia (e.g. Syberia, Vladivostok) and many Russians to Ukraine and Crimea instead. All together it has later created in independent Ukraine quite mixed moods: some people have been for a long time in a fight for independence of Ukraine, some were beginning to distance from USSR’s past and finding new ways to be part of new Ukraine, while others have preserved their sentiment for Russia and voted from election to election for pro-Russian forces.
The slow shift of perspective was happening as time passed and Maidans were there in crucial moments to save Ukraine from drifting back to neocolonialist suffocating hugs of its neighbor. In the TV-series that became one of the technologies put in the win of Zelenskiy ‘Servant of the people’ there is an episode of a dialogue where he was asked ‘How do we unite the country?’ His reply was ‘We will live so good that the others would like to join’. Russian logic instead was always to force you to join, and this is the crucial difference between inviting and violating. It always looked like relations with ‘toxic abusive ex’ who would never let you go while you were basically coerced to be in the relationship from the start. The decolonization part of this war helps to realize and to reflect upon the narratives that have remained as a sentiment in some parts of Ukraine towards ‘brotherhood of countries’. Moreover, to finally recollect that the essence of that ‘brotherhood’ was a poisonous colonial motive and was built on denying the right of Ukraine to exist as an independent actor. And those post-soviet motives were still there before the 24th of February — that’s why a few days before the war Zelenskiy and big part of Ukraine could not believe that was going to escalate, whereas for some parts of Ukraine this was clearly inevitable especially after 2014.
One of my friends from Kyiv said: ‘Russia was like father to me, Ukraine is like mother; how can this be?’ One of my friends from Lutsk (which is at the west of Ukraine) said: ‘I always knew we would have to fight for our independence against Russia’. One of my friends from Bahmut (which is at the east of Ukraine) was visiting his relatives in Russia in the mid of February. Ukraine has been this polyphony of narratives and stories before the 24th, but since then everything has dramatically changed. United as never before in the face of the enemy able of unforgivable violence, Ukraine is forced to protect its right to be independent.