A great analysis over at Chicago Boys, the accuracy of which I can not vouch for, but which most definitely makes one see things from an interesting new perspective.
First, this video, which has gone viral in the Ukraine, called 100 Warriors, and which is replete with Viking and Cossack imagery, for those who know what to look for.
An example being the distinctive haircut of the Kievian warrior Prince Sviatoslav's haircut, circa 972 AD, and adopted by many modern Ukrainian soldiers.
How bad of a bad ass was Sviatoslav? Consider this:
John Cunningham Says: January 29th, 2015 at 10:30 pm
So what?
This is what may be the significance of the cultural awakening:
Ukraine is returning to its cultural roots from the Kievan Rus /Viking period, the Cossack period being an extension of that. Community is everything.
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These people are at heart Viking berserkers – and we have seen it over and over again on the battlefield over the last 9 months. Cornered Ukrainian officers, wounded, surrounded by Russian Spetsnaz, pulling the pins on a string of grenades, to take the enemy with them, which they did on multiple occasions. A Sergeant commanding a T-64B taking on three Russian T-72BV tanks, killing one, chasing off one, and capturing the third. A Mech Brigade NCO commanding a BTR-80 ambushing a Russian T-72BV tank, and like in the movie Fury, from close quarters hammering the tank with his 14.5mm KPVT until he jammed its turret ring, and the Russians ran. Or the seven heroic T-64B tank crews at Mariupol who took on thirty Russian T-72BVs approaching from Novoazovsk, and defeated them. In early July, the pilot of a supersonic Su-24M FENCER D bomber, who took a direct hit in the engine with a Russian MANPADS, extinguished the fire, turned his jet around, obliterated the Russian missile site and crew, and then flew 300 kilometers to safely land his crippled bomber. None of this is an accident, the Vikings were feared across Europe and the Byzantine Empire for good reason, and a great many of the Soviets’ best warriors were Ukrainians, including a number of fighter aces in WW2 and Korea, and the most lethal female sniper of all times, Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
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Strip away the Greek Orthodox religious facade and Slavic language – at heart they are all Varangians, and this oozes out under pressure. The Shield maiden obsession, the extreme group cohesion, the Veche popular gatherings, the “dumpster lustrations” of corrupt officials, the love of all things martial, the love of Viking Mohawk haircuts, the “traditional” embroidered ethnic dress, the love of cats, the Scandinavian style food, the Viking Trizub national symbol, the blue and yellow flag, the patronymics, the list goes on and on and on ….
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In many ways the Ukrainians are an anachronistic snapshot of the passionate, wild, and free Viking culture, which was wiped out by deeply conservative Lutheran Christianity in Scandinavia. 800 years of Russian harassment, territorial conquest, and 325 years of Russian colonial rule, simply entrenched and froze the original culture. Putin has released that genie, and nobody can put it back into to the bottle.”
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These people are at heart Viking berserkers – and we have seen it over and over again on the battlefield over the last 9 months. Cornered Ukrainian officers, wounded, surrounded by Russian Spetsnaz, pulling the pins on a string of grenades, to take the enemy with them, which they did on multiple occasions. A Sergeant commanding a T-64B taking on three Russian T-72BV tanks, killing one, chasing off one, and capturing the third. A Mech Brigade NCO commanding a BTR-80 ambushing a Russian T-72BV tank, and like in the movie Fury, from close quarters hammering the tank with his 14.5mm KPVT until he jammed its turret ring, and the Russians ran. Or the seven heroic T-64B tank crews at Mariupol who took on thirty Russian T-72BVs approaching from Novoazovsk, and defeated them. In early July, the pilot of a supersonic Su-24M FENCER D bomber, who took a direct hit in the engine with a Russian MANPADS, extinguished the fire, turned his jet around, obliterated the Russian missile site and crew, and then flew 300 kilometers to safely land his crippled bomber. None of this is an accident, the Vikings were feared across Europe and the Byzantine Empire for good reason, and a great many of the Soviets’ best warriors were Ukrainians, including a number of fighter aces in WW2 and Korea, and the most lethal female sniper of all times, Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
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Strip away the Greek Orthodox religious facade and Slavic language – at heart they are all Varangians, and this oozes out under pressure. The Shield maiden obsession, the extreme group cohesion, the Veche popular gatherings, the “dumpster lustrations” of corrupt officials, the love of all things martial, the love of Viking Mohawk haircuts, the “traditional” embroidered ethnic dress, the love of cats, the Scandinavian style food, the Viking Trizub national symbol, the blue and yellow flag, the patronymics, the list goes on and on and on ….
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In many ways the Ukrainians are an anachronistic snapshot of the passionate, wild, and free Viking culture, which was wiped out by deeply conservative Lutheran Christianity in Scandinavia. 800 years of Russian harassment, territorial conquest, and 325 years of Russian colonial rule, simply entrenched and froze the original culture. Putin has released that genie, and nobody can put it back into to the bottle.”
Whatever else happens, Putin will not be able to conquer the entire Ukraine and may not even get the Donbass. Putin has created a Ukrainian nationalist monster that will hate Russians for both the great famine of the 1930’s under Stalin and now the very raw territorial wound of detached Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Ukrainians will work for a 100 years to get all that back, minus anyone who is visibly, culturally, Russian.
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The Ukrainians are fighting as a national people.
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The Russians are fighting as a classic Oriental despotism whose chief objective is to keep Putin in power, whatever effect this has on Russia’s long term interests.
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The Ukrainians are fighting as a national people.
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The Russians are fighting as a classic Oriental despotism whose chief objective is to keep Putin in power, whatever effect this has on Russia’s long term interests.
Perhaps. We will certainly see.
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