Anatoli Ulyanov
![Emmanuil Evzerikhin, Stalingrad (1943)](/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail_medium/public/2022-09/304935387_552610606613985_6763701997580343027_n-1024x658.jpeg?itok=xXwP_qlq)
The superfluous people of Eastern Ukraine
Imagine you are a Russian-speaker in some bombed-out Eastern Ukrainian city, waiting to be liberated. Some of the “liberators” will be first checking your closets for young men to mobilize and use as a Z-branded canon fodder. The other liberators make it clear that they see you аs nothing more than a “vatnik,” a Homo Sovieticus. All that remains for you to choose is which knife you would like to be liberated with: the good knife of the victim or the evil knife of the aggressor?