Datsyuk: "The war of attrition with Russia is over - now it's a war to destroy Ukraine's cities"

Yuriy Romanenko: Friends, hello everyone! Surfers, slackers, our beloved deviants, honey badgers, elves - as Serhiy Arkadiyovych Datsyuk says - of all blood types. Today we have Serhiy Arkadiyovych Datsyuk. And we'll be talking about Ukraine's victory. Right? And why this topic at such a difficult time?

Serhiy Datsyuk: You know the thing is. We thought everyone already understood everything, and the word "victory" seemed to have stopped being heard. And suddenly, in recent weeks, I've noticed it's started sounding again. There are people again who are hoping for it. So I thought, well, since this idea is alive, we should talk about it after all. Because victory is a very serious thing. People who haven't lived through wars don't know how complicated a thing victory is. They're shown movies where everything rushes by quickly. Even if it's a series, it still rushes by quickly. Remember, at the beginning there were movies - well, Soviet ones, then came series, there's war, but it all still rushes by. There it starts - boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! And there's the victory. And the series, lined up in sequence, seem to lead you toward victory. Even those good historical films where victory isn't clearly shown - they're still linear as such. Since this linearity is what victory creates. Well, there's a line, it continues, and when victory comes - it's clear, the war is over. But the thing is, there are certain discursive elements that have invaded our daily life, our analysis, which don't presuppose victory. Well, for example, eternal war. If the war is eternal, what victory? Or a war of attrition. In a war of attrition, there's no victory. And people don't like to repeat this now, but even our president said this argument that's well-known to me, possibly unheard by many: it's important for us to hold out at least one day longer, right, so that Russia collapses first. But people don't think that this scenario - where Russia collapses and we collapse a day later - is victory. If you sit and think about it, this isn't about victory.

Yuriy Romanenko: Moreover, you can give a historical example. Germany in 1918 collapsed before France and Britain did, but France and Britain collapsed twenty years later as empires and ultimately lost their influence.

Serhiy Datsyuk: So I decided to reflect on the problem of victory after all, since as an idea it's alive. Well, let's start with which wars don't have victory. Here wars exist, but there's no victory. Sometimes our war is called existential. I want to explain. In an existential war, there's no victory. Or, let's say, in an existential war, victories are rare. In the sense that when it finally comes, the people who were in that war no longer remember that this is victory. It's simply an event that reflects some campaign, not the war itself. Well, the Punic Wars - the most famous ones - they lasted a very long time. Carthage against Rome, right? And only the Third Punic War - to be clear, we're talking decades - ended with the complete destruction of Carthage. The city was wiped off the face of the earth, and its inhabitants were killed or sold into slavery. And it became overgrown with myths, like supposedly the land was salted. None of that, of course, actually happened.

Yuriy Romanenko: They lasted essentially a hundred years.

Serhiy Datsyuk: I mean, just imagine what kind of war that is? And what did people live for those hundred years? They didn't live for victory - they lived with the idea that this was an eternal war. From this point of view, an existential, or eternal war - that's a war where victory may come sometime in the future, but it won't be at all what we planned. The Punic War entered history precisely because it was clear-cut. It was waged for a long time, and it ended exactly as the objective had been set at the very beginning.

Yuriy Romanenko: With total defeat.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes. But that's rare. Take, for example, the Arab-Israeli conflict. Also decades already. But both sides characterize this confrontation as existential. It's either us or them. And both speak of complete destruction. Nobody talks about returning to the borders of some year or anything else. No - complete destruction. This is an existential war. So the question arises: is the war between Ukraine and Russia existential? Well, let's start this way. This isn't the first time we've had such a confrontation. If you look at history, we've clashed on the battlefield more than once, and when this territory fought with that territory in various forms, calling themselves Rus and not Rus, or even before that. Ukraine started fighting Russia before it became Ukraine, and Russia - before it became Russia. Think about it - the war between these lands began long before Ukraine and Russia came into existence.

Yuriy Romanenko: Moreover, if we look at the territory of Europe - the same thing happened there. France and Britain fought, there was the Hundred Years' War and much more.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes. But that's not existential - it's geopolitical, yes, but not existential. Why? Because they arise periodically, and these territories with these peoples remain one way or another. So stop talking nonsense about an existential war. Especially since this war is clearly transexistential, as all previous ones were. How does existential differ from transexistential? Existential is like the Punic War: that's it, the city is wiped off the face of the earth. Or like Germany. Well, Germany wasn't destroyed - it's still alive and well. The only thing is that the regime was completely destroyed. But that's not the destruction of a people, you'd agree. Even the Trojan Wars weren't existential. Despite how we see all of this. No, they weren't. The peoples survived and live on to this day. So the thesis about an existential war is purely propagandistic. In reality, that's not the case. Between Russia and Ukraine, whatever they've been called or will be called, wars will periodically arise. This won't lead to the destruction of these peoples. States - yes, regimes - yes, peoples - no. That's why I said long ago that the nation will survive and nothing will happen to it. The state will end. Danil disagrees with me. "No," he says, "the state will remain." Why on earth? Well, why would it? It barely exists anymore.

Well, that's our own stuff. Yes, there's no victory in sacred wars. Or as it sounds in our discourse - sacred war, holy war, right? Well, in internet slang they call it a holywar, right? There's no victory in holywars. Which is better: Explorer or Norton Commander? And off goes the holywar. Or artificial intelligence - is it really intelligence or not? I recently did a broadcast and, well, where does one channel resentment? Everything's cleared, nobody's barking on Facebook anymore. Where? Oh, some guy popped up about artificial intelligence. Take that, artificial intelligence! Take that, person who uses it! Holywar. Artificial intelligence is the greatest evil. We must destroy it and everyone who talks about it. Pure holywar.

Yuriy Romanenko: Pyrrhus, where do you find them?

Serhiy Datsyuk: What?

Yuriy Romanenko: Where do you find them? Like, these kinds of people.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Find who? They find me themselves and come to tell me what a bastard I am. Right. Well, Pyrrhic victory - yes, that's a war where the winner suffers such losses that it would've been better if they'd never started it at all. Well, obviously, the Paraguayan War is the closest to us. Why is it Pyrrhic from all sides? Because not only did Paraguay suffer defeat and shrank many times over - the population shrank and the country became a laughingstock after it. And Brazil, Argentina were still coughing it up for decades afterward. That's the first Pyrrhic victory. From both sides, whoever started it, that was -

Yuriy Romanenko: Brutal.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes, that wasn't a victory. Also, there's no victory in asymmetric wars - well, for example, network wars, guerrilla wars, and so on. There's no victory there. Right. Here's Sydir Kovpak - did he win? He went on all the parades, of course, but he didn't really -

Yuriy Romanenko: From Putyvl to the Carpathians.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well, yes. I mean, what kind of path is that even? In guerrilla wars, there's no victory - let's give examples to make it clear what we're talking about. The US in Vietnam, the USSR in Afghanistan - these are all asymmetric wars where you can't say who the winner was. The USSR in Afghanistan. Who was the winner? Was Afghanistan the winner? They just - the USSR realized it was costing them too much. Or the US in Vietnam. Such processes began inside the country that they preferred to -

Yuriy Romanenko: Or in Iran right now.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes. These are wars in which there will be no victory. But victory can always be declared afterwards. Always. Even if the war had no victory, it can always be declared. Naturally. In what other wars is there no victory? Obviously, in nuclear war. Total, limited, local, in strikes with tactical nuclear weapons - there's never victory under any circumstances. A country that delivers such a strike suffers such a response afterward that it would've been better if it had never struck. And it thinks afterward: damn, why did we strike? Got nothing out of it. And lost so much. In nuclear war, there are absolutely no victories.

And then there's the paradox of a civilizational rupture war. That's when such a total transformation of the victor occurs that it ceases to exist. You know that Sparta was the victor, and the victor ceased to exist after victory, because the type of its civilizational existence, right? It's a military system, it's militarism, right? Like with us, where the military are the greatest heroes, civilians are worthless, because, well, exactly as with us - it was exactly the same with them. Only warriors matter, they're heroes, everything's built on them. And the ordinary farmers are nobodies, their names don't matter, they can be sacrificed, and so on. Well, the farmers scattered, and there were no citizens left. And the warriors who came back suddenly saw that nobody wanted to feed them. And Sparta ceased to exist.

The war lasted twenty-seven years and exhausted Sparta's resources. Social disintegration followed. Wealth and gold poured into Sparta, which destroyed their system where the warrior was - well, everything was sold, everyone got rich, nothing worked anymore. Yesterday's ascetics began drowning in corruption. And thirty-three years after victory, Sparta was utterly defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra, right? And that was it, it was over. They remained in legends, they remained in myths. And most importantly, they remained in the school curriculum. All schoolchildren are told about Sparta in the form of lies - what heroes the Spartans were! But they're never told the historical truth, that these heroes later disgraced themselves. Schoolchildren simply don't know this.

These are wars in which there's no victory. And now we're gradually transitioning to Ukraine, to ask the question of whether Ukraine can achieve victory in this particular war. And here we come to generalizations, to people's ability to generalize. I discussed some of my theses with some people, and I heard a rejection of what I was saying. Well, look, let's talk about generalization. You or I return to our apartment, having been away for a long time. We open the door - the apartment reeks. We take a couple of steps from the door, stumble, fall. Something's lying there. We go into the kitchen. Unwashed dishes, cups on the table, everything's piled up. We generalize: the house is a mess. Right? And at first glance it seems like this generalization is the ultimate one. Because what's generalization for? Well, to understand where it came from. Because when you say "the house is a mess," you start thinking: either the wife, or some relatives, or someone was living here illegally, right? You're making a generalization.

But if you have experience, especially military experience, what should you do? First, identify the source of the stench. Is it the sewage that stopped working? Then, with war experience, check for water, electricity, heating - especially if it's winter outside. Look, this is no longer "the house is a mess" - this is "something's wrong on the street" or "the country is a mess." We walked in and the generalization was "the house is a mess." But with experience that the source might not be from the house, we'll think "the country is a mess," right? It's the same with victory. When we think about Ukraine's victory, we say victory over whom? Obviously, over Russia. It doesn't even occur to us that we need to simultaneously defeat European bureaucrats, America with its dead-end democratic path of development, China that's helping Russia, Iran that's helping Russia, Hungary that's sided with Russia, Poland, whose stance is unclear to us. We need to defeat many. Ukraine cannot win this war by defeating only Russia. At first glance, such a generalization seems strange, but when you start thinking through everything that's happened, it turns out you need an adequate generalization about victory to even discuss what victory is and how it can happen.

Second point: when we talk about Ukraine's victory, we typically do what I did at the beginning - we talk about victory. We don't hear the word "Ukraine." How so? Victory, of course, Ukraine's. Let me give an example again. 1991. We look - a rich, the richest country of the USSR. Industry, science, education, medicine, high living standards, population - just live and be happy, right? And now look, all of that stays, just Moscow gets the boot. But the Muscovites at the time - Rutskoy came and cautiously inquired: "Haven't you considered that, well, your strategy is a bit wrong? That all of this without Moscow - none of it will exist." "What, us? We're wow! We're rich beyond measure! We'll tear everyone apart here." I remember this drive - I was present for all of it. I was there, I heard these arguments. I remember what they were sending around on the eve of the vote before December 1st, right?

Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, I remember that well too.

Serhiy Datsyuk: And now look. The same thing when we talk about Ukraine's victory. We think that it's that pre-war Ukraine. Let's say - 1991. No, no, 2013. No, no, at least 2022, right? Any of them. Fine, pre-war, before the large-scale war, and victory. But that Ukraine doesn't exist. That Ukraine cannot win. In principle, because it doesn't exist. Will whatever wins be Ukraine? And questions arise that weren't initially part of the conversation about victory. Strange questions. Does the state still exist? Does civil society still exist? Is this society unified? Isn't it fractured? Because there are masses of people who continue to convince everyone, including me, that civil society isn't fractured. We're painting in our heads some remnants of that Ukraine. Fine, not all the territory, but the state exists. And it will win. Fine, not all of civil society, but a healthy part of it exists, and it will win. Guys, none of this exists anymore. Neither that country with its territory, nor those cities - and this is the most important thing, we'll return to this. Nor that civil society, nor that business - none of this exists anymore. So when we say "victory," it's the victory of god knows what. The question isn't even that we won't be able to use the victory. We - no! The "we" that could be said to be capable of winning no longer exists.

Now the question arises: what happened? Why just last year all of this still existed, and now we can state that it doesn't? What happened this winter? Simple question. What happened this winter?

Yuriy Romanenko: Infrastructure collapse as a result of strikes.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes, but we did the generalization exercise together. That's a good first generalization. Infrastructure collapse from strikes. Let's generalize further. A certain escalation occurred. Look, there were strikes before this too. Strikes on cities happened before, strikes on urban infrastructure happened before, strikes on critical urban infrastructure happened before. But! This winter, a critical infrastructure urbicide occurred at such a level that it showed us: the war of attrition is over. A war of annihilation has begun - the destruction of cities. Cities were being destroyed before too, but people weren't forced to decide whether to stay here for the next winter. This winter marked a turning point.

Yuriy Romanenko: It happened because - and it's important to clarify here - people could leave cities before due to the military threat, the threat of death, but here they were leaving their homes due to the threat of death from cold, from - well, from infrastructure collapse.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Infrastructure collapse. And, well, Olya deserves credit for the concept of "urbicide." She identified this at the beginning of the war. Now she's written a new article. I won't retell it, but she simply examines what urbicide has come to, right? She identifies several stages there. I won't retell it. But read it in article form.

Although, well, right now nobody's interested in reading articles, and some institutes hold back articles from publication because they aren't read, aren't discussed. Look at what's happened, right? This is just in the context of what we're talking about. But I'll show it. The city is what constitutes the greater part of Ukraine. Before the war, seventy percent of Ukraine was urban residents.

Yuriy Romanenko: More - seventy-two.

Serhiy Datsyuk: That's not important. I'm saying seventy-thirty, right? If urban space as the primary way of life in Ukraine is being destroyed, then yes, what the national patriots want is happening. Ukrainian villages, Ukrainian suburbs of large cities - but the cities themselves as carriers of intellectualism, professionalism, business, infrastructure development, scientific development, intellectual progress - they won't exist. What will remain are urban shells. What are urban shells? Some buildings exist, some infrastructure works, transport runs. Well, there are taxi problems, but you can always find someone. There's no urban environment - it doesn't produce intellectualism or intellectuals, it doesn't produce science, it doesn't produce technology. And cities as shells very quickly lead to the country becoming such a shell. There's the West, which supplies us with weapons and ammunition. There's logistics, serviced by these shells, delivering everything to the front - but the country itself doesn't exist. Because a country isn't walls and towers. Desolation in a city isn't because buildings and bridges are destroyed. What causes desolation in a city? The late Glazychev said this: desolation in a city comes from the absence of people. Not from the absence of buildings, but from the absence of people. Buildings can stand.

Like how for part of our winter in many cities, people weren't there, because Klitschko called on people to leave. What happened? When people left the top floors, buildings couldn't be heated, essentially, because they couldn't bleed the air from the top floors. They said the police couldn't help get access to the evacuated apartments. And why not? Communication with Kyiv authorities was killed, meaning the civilian communication infrastructure was destroyed. The NSDC still hasn't analyzed this problem. I just received a utility bill with the full cost of heating. Even though we had no heating in any of our rooms all winter. Until the very end, we had heating in one room. Thank God they connected one more. But in two more rooms, we had no heating and still don't. But I have to pay in full. I'd like to ask the government: tell me, is it right that I'm paying for full heating when in reality most of the winter only one room was heated? Explain to me - is this right or not? Because everyone - I was heating with space heaters, air conditioners, and so on.

Yuriy Romanenko: And paying for that too.

Serhiy Datsyuk: And paying for that too. So is this right? Well, that's how it should be? I'm not going to take it to court. I understand everything's destroyed. To hell with you, I paid. But could you at least analyze that your communication system didn't work? What did the communication system look like? I call, I explain the situation. They say: we've passed it on. And I ask the question, as someone who wanted to understand this: "Tell me, do you talk to the plumbers?" - "No." - "Then what do you do?" - "We pass it on to them." So there's no situation where a plumber calls you back and announces the reason? - "No." - So if I call you tomorrow, you won't tell me the reason or when it'll be restored? - "Correct." Communication was totally destroyed. Even these dispatch centers that were introduced - they didn't actually establish communication. There were people who collected information and passed it somewhere, and you waited a week, after two weeks they might connect you in some room, then disconnect you again. And it was unpredictable - when they'd turn it on, when they'd turn it off. And you couldn't reach the people who actually knew why this was happening. Can we help somehow? There was no communication.

What happened? The urban communication that should have been organized for such cases broke down. If in peacetime it worked - dispatchers collected info and passed it on and it got done - then in wartime it doesn't work, because a person expects an answer, wants to understand whether to stay or leave. Because when nobody tells you when it'll be fixed, you're in a state of stress and threat, because everything is genuinely freezing. It turns out that in freezing conditions, without communication with actual plumbers, none of it works. And many buildings were destroyed precisely because of the lack of communication. Look, we're analyzing just this one situation, but it shows that internal urban communication within city government, within the city's life-support system, was killed.

Yuriy Romanenko: The intrastate system too.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well, wait, we'll get to that. So we establish that the country has turned into a shell, cities have turned into shells. Talking about how all of this can somehow win - well, maybe it can. But who will be able to not just use the victory - who will even be able to record this victory? Who will be able to say: well, fine, we won, now we'll keep working? We're in a situation where the country no longer exists, and we're trying to think about its victory. Moreover, various conversations with national patriots alarm me, because I see that people have gone completely insane. People I've known for a long time, whom I always considered intelligent - they're spouting utter nonsense. And to logical questions they respond illogically, at the level of faith. "Everything will be fine, you just don't believe." - "In what?" - "You have to believe in Ukraine." I believe in Ukraine, just not in this one - this one doesn't exist. I believe in the one that will need to be built, and from scratch. And possibly even with a different name. Not because I'm not a patriot, but because I think it through and analyze it. I can't afford to simply believe. In what? Well, in Ukraine. In which one?

Yuriy Romanenko: In Bucha, this ended - ended in deaths. Because people believed that somehow it would resolve itself.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Look, a question arises. If it won't be Ukraine, right? And we can roughly see this now - then what kinds of victory are there in general? Fine, we note: there is no complete Ukraine, there is no complete victory. So what kinds exist?

Well, first, there's military victory. That's what we read about on Facebook - that we'll destroy the enemy's logistics on the front more thoroughly, because the front is already thirty, forty, even more kilometers deep. Destroying logistics will allow us to - besides that, we're destroying various factories deep inside Russia, their infrastructure. We'll destroy them, and then - the footnote - and we'll get better conditions at peace negotiations. But guys, why destroy so much just to get "better"? This isn't about victory. Well, they say no. "If we get better conditions in negotiations, that will be victory." No, guys, that won't be victory. For one simple reason - you won't consider it victory because you didn't set that as the goal. So in military terms, this isn't victory.

Military victory - the destruction of the enemy's armed forces. Will it happen? No. Capturing their territory? No. Depriving them of the ability to continue resistance? No. Control over space, destruction of equipment, manpower, capitulation? No. Who provides this? The army, the General Staff, intelligence, the defense industry. No.

Political victory - cementing the results of war on paper and establishing a new world order. Under this Constitution, it can't be done. Under the Constitution, Zelensky simply cannot sign any document where he promises something, makes some compromise - he doesn't have these powers under the Constitution, and parliament does nothing to give him these powers, because it understands that it too would be held accountable afterward. So we have no political ability to cement victory - any kind, however pitiful, however small. Even if there is one, we can't cement it.

Who provides this? Diplomats, government, international organizations, presidents, and so on. How? Under our Constitution, political victory is impossible. And people listening to this think Datsyuk is making it all up. He's a capitulator, he's a bastard, a Muscovite mouthpiece, he's making it all up. Guys, once again - under our Constitution, there's no ability to achieve political victory. Don't believe me. Ask constitutional scholars, ask deputies who know the Constitution, ask national patriot experts. Let them confirm or deny my words. Politically, under the Constitution, Ukraine cannot achieve victory.

Yuriy Romanenko: Because until all the territories written into the Constitution are returned - that's defeat.

Serhiy Datsyuk: How, how, how will you formalize this? Moving on. Economic victory. Both you, and Monin, and a number of others - and Oleksiy Kushch constantly shows that everything being done isn't economic victory. How did you even allow the IMF and other scum, who even before the war were already... to get in here during wartime with their dirty hands and impose conditions - those who impose them don't understand what modern war is, how modern business works. They haven't talked to a single businessman, they don't know how they survive, and they're demanding something - it's just a nightmare.

Yuriy Romanenko: And getting the effect of pennies - sixty billion hryvnias, but along the way substantially increasing taxes.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Why do you listen to European idiots - once again, European idiots who don't even talk to Ukrainian businesses? Why do you listen to them? For what purpose? The question arises: is economic victory possible in such a situation?

Yuriy Romanenko: Impossible.

Serhiy Datsyuk: It means obtaining material benefit from the conflict or demonstrating the superiority of your system. How can you try to achieve superiority of your economic system over Russia's when you have no economic sovereignty and someone's dictating absurd conditions to you? Access to resources and markets, reparations, maintaining the stability of your own economy until the end. None of this will happen. Who provides it? Industrialists, businessmen, the Ministry of Finance, logisticians, workers. Well, this is assuming at least something of this remains. At breakneck speed, everything is relocating and leaving Ukraine. How can you even raise the question of economic victory?

I think I'm the first to raise this question in Ukraine. You haven't even commissioned your experts to ask - what kinds of victory are even possible? What is economic victory? Find me at least one speech by the president, at least one speech by our Cabinet of Ministers - has anyone spoken about economic victory? And what are the conditions for economic victory? Did you think about this? What IMF? The IMF is a peacetime structure. Where did you idiots crawl off to? Pure idiots.

Social victory - preserving the integrity of society and its unity in the face of threat. That no longer exists. Moreover, it's precisely the existence of a narrow stratum claiming it does that shows it doesn't. Everyone who thinks it doesn't just stays silent, because, well, it's pointless now.

Yuriy Romanenko: They're already laughing. Even schoolchildren are laughing.

Serhiy Datsyuk: High morale, right? Absence of internal divisions. They didn't include in this concept that there should be no, well, language patrols and so on. They couldn't even imagine this kind of idiocy before. Who provides it? Civil society, social institutions, volunteers. But we only have activists providing it, specifically national-patriotic activists. Nobody else. But that's a very shaky victory. I'd say it's not a victory at all. Social authoritarianism isn't a victory.

Israel has found itself more than once in the situation of having to leave certain territories. But what does Israel have that Ukraine doesn't and probably never will? Two things: intellectualism and solidarity. These are the two fundamental things for social victory.

Yuriy Romanenko: So Israel, in a situation that threatens defeat, right? Or serious problems. Israel comes out and says: look, we have a very serious problem, but for the survival of our nation we need to, say, leave Sinai. Maybe some patriots would say: how can we leave Sinai? It's a buffer zone. "No, no, no, you don't understand, we'll really have problems if we don't leave, because the US will stop supporting us and everything else." "Ah, if that's the only way - okay, we trust the government to -"

Serhiy Datsyuk: An intellectual position was established, and solidarity was achieved on this matter. Can we hope that something like this will happen with us?

Yuriy Romanenko: We don't even have such a dialogue.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Exactly. And finally, cultural victory. I'll read how this is traditionally formulated. Imposing your language, your words and images, when the loser begins to see the world through the winner's eyes. Can we impose our language? Fine, on Russia's territory - can we at least impose it on Ukraine's territory?

Yuriy Romanenko: No.

Serhiy Datsyuk: This is reality. Language patrols, a strict ban on all Russian literature, everything, everything, everything. Can we impose the Ukrainian language?

Yuriy Romanenko: Everyone's already laughing, everyone.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Why? What's wrong?

Yuriy Romanenko: Because it already looks absurd even in the eyes of those who - many of those who recently supported it. It's just absurd when that language patroller from Odesa gets drafted into the army, and then - god knows, he's been five times already, five times in the psychiatric ward. Someone paid for him, and instead of defending Ukraine as he was preaching - he spoke from a patriotic position, saying "I'm a patriot, all that stuff, so everyone - Ukrainian language" - well now, for everyone it's obvious that it was fake.

Serhiy Datsyuk: What is it? Dominance of your literature, cinema, and values on the enemy's territory. I can't even imagine us making films. Just think about it - I follow closely what's being produced in Ukraine, what's being produced in Russia. Guys, at least in terms of plot complexity - can we offer Ukrainian cinema that's more complex in plot than what's being made in Russia? I'm not talking about ideology, but values. Just in terms of plot complexity.

Yuriy Romanenko: And in Russia right now there's also a collapse when it comes to culture.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Also. Well, at least reaching pre-war levels.

Yuriy Romanenko: By the way, before the war it was the same - Okean Elzy and other Ukrainian bands, they were present there, they were winning over space.

Serhiy Datsyuk: There were few of them, but at least, yes, they were present and winning space. Cinema still never managed to. Simply in terms of cinematic thinking, in plot complexity - it never reached that level. And moreover, we're exploiting the war theme and think this will last forever. As soon as we make peace, that's it, this parasitizing ends.

Who will provide this? The intelligentsia, arts figures, media, thought leaders. And I'd rather not steer the conversation in this direction. Well, clearly, civilizational victory, right? Proof of viability, the origin of your own path of development, way of life. How do we do this if by the end of the war we've mirrored Russia? What civilizational victory can we speak of? The same propaganda, the same authoritarianism. And it's unclear which is worse, right? The same coercion, bans - here and there. How can we speak of any civilizational victory, even an approximate one, when even such a goal isn't being set? When the defeated side voluntarily adopts the value system. Maidan - if we had maintained dignity, freedom - in any form, in any societal structures, in any traditions - we could have come and said: look, this is our civilizational perspective. But we can't do that. We destroyed this during the war. We'd like to win here, but we fundamentally can't do it.

Who provides this? The nation as a whole, its history, religion, philosophy of education, and its elite. Well, with the elite, it's a separate story altogether. There's also such a thing as elite victory in competition - victory in the elite competition of war. What is the elite scheme of Russia? Send all free thinkers abroad. Go, preserve what exists. We won't pay attention to this. Then after the war, we'll ease up on propaganda. You'll come back, you'll sort things out somehow. A normal scheme. What about in Ukraine? Damn it, block everything off. Declare everyone who left as traitors. And those who stayed - everyone is forced to keep their heads down.

Yuriy Romanenko: And on top of that, push out opinion polls about how those who left the country - some number here thinks they should be stripped of political rights. You bastards, come back first! Make it so they're motivated to come back.

Serhiy Datsyuk: So in elite competition, it's a total loss, a defeat without any attempt at even comprehending it. There isn't even an attempt. People like me who try to comprehend this - we're traitors, because, well, I'm speaking against it. Right now I'm committing treason, you understand?

Well, clearly, mental victory through collective transformation - here nothing has even started, because we're experiencing a mental catastrophe, we did a separate broadcast about that. And Yuriy Andrusiv on your "Hvylya" in 2017 made a statement: "Ukraine needs a mental victory in Donbas." He said that, and you published it.

Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.

Serhiy Datsyuk: And how did we do - did we achieve mental victory in Donbas or not?

Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.

Serhiy Datsyuk: So there was a time when smart people like Andrusiv understood this. And? Did we achieve mental victory in Donbas in anything, anywhere?

Yuriy Romanenko: That question isn't even on the table anymore.

Serhiy Datsyuk: What? That question isn't even on the table anymore.

Yuriy Romanenko: That question isn't even on the table anymore.

Serhiy Datsyuk: And finally, spiritual victory - right? Through a spiritual battle within oneself and transformation. Well, here, of course, only by leaving Ukraine, because in Ukraine it's practically impossible to engage in transformation. And Olya, when writing her article, researched the state - the psychological state of Ukrainians after the winter. It's horrifying. We're talking about - not about stress, not about PTSD and other things. Everyone knows that. But in terms of the capacity for any kind of spiritual self-improvement at all.

Yes, when you can't do anything, it turns out you have free time. Even when it's freezing outside and you're in the kitchen heating a Dutch oven just to maintain the kitchen temperature, you're still left to your own devices, and in theory you could, well, strive spiritually. It turns out nothing is possible, because such a barrage of idiocy hits you that, well, only by shutting yourself off from all of it can you maintain some more or less neutral existence. Not spiritual transformation, not spiritual searching, but neutral. Maintaining elementary bodily survival. Not freezing, not getting sick, and so on. We're no longer talking about any spiritual struggle, none whatsoever.

And from this perspective, we're experiencing a spiritual catastrophe inside a necrophilic mass ressentiment. I've even, of course, been paying attention to this, I just know how it will develop. I raise this question, and the ressentiment crowd comes running, hurling nasty words at you. And well, there's nothing surprising about this anymore.

So when we go through all of this, the question arises: can these questions be raised somewhere? For example, can we raise the question in politics - fine, forget mental, spiritual, cultural and so on - but at least political victory? What politicians can actually do.

Parliament is dead as of today. But what happened? Just recently everything seemed to be working. The monocoalition existed. But then Yermak left, and the monocoalition ceased to exist. What was Yermak doing that the monocoalition existed? Well, let's put it this way. We'll use only open sources. I think Yermak created a voodoo doll for each member of the monocoalition and pulled their strings - these voodoo dolls - we won't accuse him of anything - but pulled their strings. As soon as he left, nobody's pulling the strings of these voodoo dolls - or voodoo deputies - anymore. And the monocoalition stopped working.

Yuriy Romanenko: It turned out nobody was there to maintain the integrity of the construction.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Nobody to maintain it. So parliament is dead. What's the president doing?

Yuriy Romanenko: Wait, there's another important point. It turned out that inside parliament, reaching agreements among themselves - as actors, small ones, but actors - who can form some kind of policy, and parliament can form enormous clusters, as it were, of political institutions and clusters of activity. Nothing. They're zeroes.

Serhiy Datsyuk: The president still tried to be commander-in-chief during the Zaluzhny period, completely stopped being commander-in-chief during the Syrsky period. Or maybe he just made a better arrangement with him. He's only a foreign policy spokesperson today, doesn't deal with domestic politics at all. Or only occasionally, if materials are prepared for him. And in this sense, he's not a domestic political leader. The issue isn't that he doesn't control parliament. The issue is that he doesn't control domestic politics at all. He doesn't engage with the government about anything, he demands nothing from - and now once again, through Klitschko, they've decided to sort out their relationship. Guys, you haven't even produced a simple analytical report on the situation at least in Kyiv. What plans can you have if you haven't analyzed the problems? Can we have a list of problems we faced during this winter - for example, at least those I've described in this broadcast? Can we? And can you publish this list so that people at least know and say: you know, this part is wrong, and here's what actually happened? At least talk to people, document the problems the city faced as a result of critical infrastructure destruction in freezing temperatures, document them. Let the residents, the citizens, correct you. Do this simple thing that's taught in the very first weeks of working with a city at a strategic level. They didn't do it - they immediately wanted a plan. How can you make a plan if you don't even know the list of problems you've faced? You don't have one. A plan for what? Restoring these power plants so they get blown up again? And what's the point?

You haven't even raised the question of what communication looks like, why it's broken down. You haven't raised the question of what the structure of housing and communal services is today, for which you want to provide heating, electrification, and so on. You don't even know how this is organized. Can it be documented so we can just read it? No. So how do you plan to win at the city level? Fine, to hell with foreign policy victory. How can Kyiv win in the war? If it's functional, if its military industry inside it is working. If its professionals are supplying the front, right? That's how it can win. But you called on citizens to leave the city. And who are they? These are the people working for the front, working on drones, working on military orders. You called on them to leave the city. How did this even occur to you, tell me? You're at war, and you're calling on citizens to leave the city, knowing these citizens work for the front. How did this even occur to you?

Yuriy Romanenko: The most important thing - and what's happening right now - it's warm, everyone's relaxed after all of that. But since everyone now has the experience, everyone's watching the preparations, and these few months will be spent on - look - on preparation in every sense. Those who have money and who understand that if the government isn't launching preparations for the next winter season, their preparation consists of figuring out how to relocate to other cities or other countries, with all the consequences for Kyiv's functionality.

Serhiy Datsyuk: A simple comparison between a resilience strategy and a victory strategy, right? So, resilience strategy. Goal - survive. Victory. Goal - restore order and build a new world. Or a new country, right? Resilience strategy. Horizon - undefined. Victory strategy. Horizon - final. With a clearly defined perspective. Resilience strategy. Foundation - resource sustainability. Victory strategy. Foundation - normative clarity and the generation of new resources.

Resilience strategy. Logic - minimizing defeat. Victory strategy. Logic - positive, affirming new meanings, new perspectives. Resilience strategy. Time works against everyone. Victory strategy. Time works toward the perspective you've set. And so on and so forth. We could continue, but I want to show that these are fundamentally different - it's not just "let's not say these words, let's say different ones." It means acting differently, managing differently, hiring different people with different competencies, presenting different projects, taking different money for different goals. None of this is what's happening today. This is what it takes to win.

So Ukraine's elite isn't pursuing victory. It's hiding its inaction behind the pretense that it's pursuing resilience, but it's not even doing that. It's a lie. It's engaged in looting.

And the basic question - can an actor remain an actor if its strategy is only resilience? No, of course not. An actor is in expansion, in generating new meanings, new perspectives. If you're not generating them - ideally on a global scale - if you're not generating and demonstrating this -

Yuriy Romanenko: Look, in this logic there's no actor right now. On the global level. What Trump has just shown with Iran, and before that too - shows that it's just trash. China too. Russia. Well, everything's clear. Europe is strictly on the defensive.

Serhiy Datsyuk: And if we analyze what the Ukrainian government is doing, it's clear that this is a survival strategy and a strategy of prolonging the war. Because behind all these terms - eternal war, attrition, "Putin doesn't want to make peace," and so on - it's all prolonging the war. Because if the very framing of the question about victory is absent from the political framework, all you can do is prolong the war, because you can't exit it - politically you can't.

The normal approach is to gather the deputies and say: look, in order to exit the war, we need one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. This means changing the Constitution on such-and-such an issue, or adopting a sub-constitutional act for an ad hoc case, so as not to change the Constitution. Come up with something to create the political conditions for what can be presented as victory. If this isn't done, then even what we'll be forced to do - and we will be forced - we won't be able to present as victory. The elite will face final collapse, they'll be laughed at, mocked, their assets will be seized, they'll be found everywhere and terrible things will be done to them. They don't understand this.

Yuriy Romanenko: Look, let me show this with concrete examples. For instance, what Israel is doing right now. Israel clearly, honestly, specifically says: we run in this war as long as the Americans run. If the Americans stop running - that's not a problem for us, because along the way we've hit such-and-such a number of targets. And if we've stopped Iran's nuclear program for ten or twenty or five years - we've already achieved victory. If we've also killed their leadership along the way - we've already achieved victory. In short, they've defined the criteria for victory, they've defined their minimum goals. And they're implementing them, hurrying to implement them before the war stops. Perfectly understanding that it will stop - sooner rather than later.

Serhiy Datsyuk: But there are also unpleasant things - that all shared ideas about the war have been destroyed. And neither parliament, nor the president, nor the government talks about this. We wanted NATO - there will be no NATO whatsoever. We wanted the EU. It's sad to acknowledge. The EU no longer exists. You don't understand this yet, but it doesn't exist. You continue listening to the IMF. The IMF no longer exists. You don't understand this yet, but it no longer exists. Guys, the world before which you're trying to dance, justify yourselves, or whatever - it no longer exists, stop counting on it. You're only making things worse for yourselves. But getting these simple thoughts across - I don't even see how to do it today.

Are there any questions?

Yuriy Romanenko: There are many questions, because people are vigorously discussing our whole conversation. About victory or what? Now I'll throw some your way. Like the broadcast. While I'm choosing. Good viewership, good viewership, so let them keep watching. Um, so let me see - ah. Right, intellect, intellect, intellect. Kystrytsia writes: "If the most important thing is to stop the war, and if everything seems impossible to Datsyuk, why is he here?"

Serhiy Datsyuk: What does "impossible" mean?

Yuriy Romanenko: Well, seems unattainable. The situation from which we could escape the trap.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Look, my position hasn't changed since before the war. I believe this Ukraine doesn't exist. What new Ukraine can be built? We've written more than one book. And to promote this book, without our involvement, a group was created on Telegram. If they shut down Telegram - we'll move to some other channel. It's not a problem for us at all, because we didn't create it artificially, we didn't pay for it. People will gather in another place. And representatives of the Ukrainian government - whatever you do, you can't do anything about this, because meanings and perspectives bring people together. What you're doing drives people apart. Whatever you do, people will still gather in the name of meaning and perspectives. That's why I'm here - because we have three books, we have meanings and perspectives described. That's why I address the audience I already have, that you have, that we share, which will actually do these things - create a different country. If its citizens really want to, they can even keep the old name - Ukraine. If they don't want to, it'll have a different name. But this country doesn't exist.

Yuriy Romanenko: Well, the old one, you mean.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes. That's why I work for the sake of people. Not for the state, not for the nation, not for the country. For the people who believe in republican meanings and perspectives. For these people.

Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm. Serhiy Arkadiyovych, how do you assess this view: this war gives a chance for thinkers and a qualitatively new elite in Ukraine that can help society mature?

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes, on the ruins - on the ruins, yes. I'd say, not even on the ruins of the country - on the ruins of this world. Because I fear we're entering a larger trend of destruction. Not only our country will be destroyed, but Europe will be destroyed, the world will be destroyed. In one form or another, right? It doesn't have to be nuclear war, though I don't exclude it. And yes, on the ruins of the country, on the ruins of Europe, on the ruins of the world, new structures will need to be created. Possibly networked, possibly already with the mediation of artificial intelligence, possibly on different foundations. Yes. And we've been working on this for more than a year - we started long before the war.

Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm. Shteinbok writes: "Why blame everything on European idiots?" By the way, I had this question too - I wanted to raise it as well. Misho, thanks for the reminder. Why blame everything on European idiots when all the so-called IMF demands for tax increases are the initiative of our own guys - Hetmantsev, Marchenko, and other lads.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Look, if this isn't an IMF demand -

Yuriy Romanenko: It's not an IMF demand.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Were there any statements from the IMF? Guys, stop using us as cover.

Yuriy Romanenko: It's convenient for them.

Serhiy Datsyuk: It's convenient for them? Well, then it's an IMF demand.

Yuriy Romanenko: No, it's not an IMF demand. Look, it's not even a question of convenience - they don't care. They just don't care.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well, then this shop needs to be shut down, I think. If such bad things are being covered up with this, then we simply need to legislatively ban any reference to IMF demands as discourse. Just make it so that you can't even appeal to this, because it's just a dead end.

Yuriy Romanenko: Because really, if you ask the logical question - let's say we've had a cooperation program with the IMF for twenty years, even longer - since the nineties - but then the biggest one started from 2008, when the crisis began. So, have we benefited from this cooperation, or - not even that way. Has the situation qualitatively improved as a result of this cooperation or not? No, it got fundamentally worse. Significantly worse. And this was happening without a war. We didn't get any -

Serhiy Datsyuk: So the corrupt have access to the IMF, the corrupt take something from the IMF to then plunder it. The IMF turns a blind eye to this, and we think our people are to blame, not the IMF. No, they participate in the corruption. So I disagree with you.

Yuriy Romanenko: No, the fact that they earn on interest -

Serhiy Datsyuk: Of course.

Yuriy Romanenko: They earn on interest -

Serhiy Datsyuk: Of course. That's why I think it's convenient for them.

Yuriy Romanenko: No, look, it's definitely convenient for them, definitely convenient, because furthermore, besides the IMF issuing some demands - these demands are embedded in the structure of interaction with the IMF's key donors, who created it and who, through these demands, implement their own policies.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Look, this then seriously contradicts what we were discussing, because the possibility of Ukraine's victory in war is a sovereigntist concept. As soon as you let any international structures that you're forced to submit to inside the sovereigntist concept during war - you're knocked out of victory. Clear, transparent logic. How did we allow submission to any external structures?

Yuriy Romanenko: Mm-hmm.

Serhiy Datsyuk: You want victory? Yes. That's a sovereigntist concept. Stop paying attention to external demands. Victory is a sovereigntist goal. What else could it be? The IMF doesn't come here for Ukraine to win - they don't give a damn.

Yuriy Romanenko: It's not an actor in the war.

Serhiy Datsyuk: If victory is a sovereign, internal goal - reject everything that hinders sovereign agency. That's what a victory strategy is. Reject everything that hinders sovereign agency. This is elementary.

Yuriy Romanenko: This, by the way, is what the Arabs are coming to now as well, because they - they were also in a position where they were semi-independent actors, right? Money, resources, yes - but no full agency in the sphere of security. And they outsourced this agency to the US, hoping the US would protect them. And the US just started beating everyone with a stick.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well, so - it's unpleasant for me to say this, but it must be stated. Everyone who talks about the IMF - they're traitors to the Motherland. These are people who work against Ukraine's victory.

Yuriy Romanenko: Talk about it - in the sense of talking about the IMF?

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well, people who say something on behalf of the IMF - these are people who betray Ukraine. Simply by logic: are we for victory or not? If victory is a sovereigntist goal, and you're serving those who aren't sovereign, then you're traitors. How else?

Yuriy Romanenko: Right. Wait a moment. Shteinbok continues: "Serhiy Arkadiyovych isn't committing treason right now. He's talking about important problems, but in places he's building his argumentation on myths and distortions, which personally makes me want to argue about these arguments rather than engage in the discussion on substance."

Serhiy Datsyuk: Which myths and distortions? Can we have at least one?

Yuriy Romanenko: Let me say from my own perspective. It seems to me you're too fixated on these so-called national patriots, who essentially have always been, are, and remain instruments.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Look, there are no "national patriots" - there are nationalists, there are patriots. National patriots is for me a provisional term for people who reduce patriotism solely to the national. If you don't speak Ukrainian, you're not a patriot. So for me, national patriots are a conditional part of Ukrainians who primitize everything into very simple things. Like "only speak Ukrainian, only Bandera is our father, only the right heroes, Ukrainian language period, hatred of Russians, there are no good Russians." Some simple things like that. It's not possible to say that all - say, not all nationalists share this. Not all nationalists are national patriots, and not all patriots are national patriots. It's roughly a loosely defined group of people who try to oversimplify everything, but they have enough activity to carry out precisely these primitive things. So for me, it's a conditional term.

Yuriy Romanenko: Another question. Where does the certainty come from that we'll be forced? Viktor Buzhymsky asks. Basically, about being forced to make peace on terms that aren't ours.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Look, I don't have certainty, but my experience shows that I was saying this long before, you were saying this long before. This is the logic of war. They've been paying us for a very long time and want to see results. If there are no results, they'll force us into what's convenient for them. As long as the Americans at least sell us air defense, weapons, and so on, and the Europeans can buy them because it's convenient for them that we fight Russia here rather than them - everything will continue. As soon as the US stops even selling - we'll be forced. It's not certainty, it's just the logic of military affairs.

Yuriy Romanenko: Right. Serhiy Arkadiyovych, don't you see a certain advantage for Ukrainians in a world that's falling apart - as people who've gained a difficult but valuable survival experience?

Serhiy Datsyuk: A difficult but valuable survival experience is shared by many people. Of those people, the number who can use it is the same number as those who use an easy survival experience, not a hard one. As my practice shows, no matter how harsh or easy your lessons are, the number of people capable of using them is approximately the same. Very small. Someone lived through extremely complex trials at the edge of life, and someone merely almost got hit by a car. The number of people in both cases is small. So you can't think that the more complex the experience, the more people who can use it. Nothing of the sort. People who change are few regardless of how complex the experience. For some, a hint from their mother - "put on a hat" - is enough to undergo an inner transformation, while for others, even a blow to the head won't allow it. That's just how people are.

Yuriy Romanenko: Romanenko Shors, Katya Gutter asks: does Serhiy think wars in the digital era are prolonged wars? Instagram, TikTok, YouTube emotionally engage a large number of people. Politicians and populists can't end a war. Well, it's always been this way. Not just in the digital era.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well yes - how is this different from previous eras when there were mass media in the form of newspapers? It was all the same.

Yuriy Romanenko: Right. The tools are different, but they work in a similar way.

Serhiy Datsyuk: The principle is the same.

Yuriy Romanenko: Yes. Let me look, there was something else above. Hmm, right, right, right. We covered this, we covered this, we covered this. Covered everything. More or less what we already discussed.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Well, then let's wrap up.

Yuriy Romanenko: Yes. So, let's wrap up then. Thank you, Serhiy Arkadiyovych. Support Serhiy Arkadiyovych - thank you, thank you, like Miroshnyk does for us regularly. In the broadcast description you'll find all the links: Monobank, Mono card -

Serhiy Datsyuk: Ah, yes, I want to announce that our book sales site has reopened - due to all these issues with the city freezing and so on, the site had been shut down. Now it's open again. You can go to FFlib space again. And buy our books. So -

Yuriy Romanenko: Yes, I'll drop that link too. It's in the broadcast description on YouTube and in Telegram too. I put it up first thing. So you'll find the link there. That's it! We're wrapping up. Tomorrow we'll have three broadcasts - Monin on the tax reform he's developed. Then Bebel with a historical broadcast, and Udovyk, he wants something about Trump. I think we'll argue again, but I think it won't be boring. That's it, see you tomorrow. We'll start tomorrow, I think, around four PM - somewhere around four to five.

Serhiy Datsyuk: Yes, goodbye everyone.

Yuriy Romanenko: Thank you all. Rest up, take care.