Chris

I think you have nothing credible to say about the personal feelings of any Ukrainian towards any Russian unless you somehow gain access to the source of those feelings. As you’re unlikely to have lost anyone as a result of having your homeland invaded, nor are you likely to have to have worked with (or played sport against) someone whose brother fights with the invading army, or whose social media accounts loudly support the invasion, it’s unlikely you will ever have any credible moral authority to suggest any Ukrainian should behave in any particular way towards any Russian. Your only viable alternative is an intellectual understanding, but that would require you to listen to what Ukrainians are saying about themselves and their struggle which you seem oddly unwilling to do.

The rift between those two peoples is going to take generations to repair. A passing acquaintance with our own history and especially attitudes towards Germans for decades after WW2 would be instructive here. For now, if a Ukrainian says it’s too painful, then they are the oppressed and that’s their privilege. We need do no more than believe them.

Everything isn’t about great power politics all the time. But if you absolutely insist on seeing it as an aspect of grand strategy then no, it isn’t more likely that there’s a campaign on to demonise Russians. There’s no need; they’re doing that fine all by themselves. The Ukrainians know the Russians better than anyone. If they think it’s worthwhile denying Russian TV useful images for internal propaganda (or, indeed, propaganda in the Global South where there’s only lukewarm ambivalence towards the whole affair) … then again, our best course of action is to believe them.

Not for the first time, I observe that your inability to see this through anything other than a Great Powers lens leads you to the deny agency of Ukraine and Ukrainians to fight for their national survival in any way they see fit.