Political Neo-Rusynism as an Element of the Russian Hybrid War Against Ukraine and the Countries of Eastern Europe

The question of Carpathian rusynism or political rusynism does not fit into the framework of some local and temporary phenomenon. This is a long chain of consistent policies of the authorities of various states and politicians regarding the Transcarpathian branch of the Ukrainian nation, which extends from the middle of the 19^th century, reaches its peak in the 20s and 30s of the 20^th century, and recovers at the end of the last century. Having arisen in the middle of the 19^th century in the wake of the "Spring Revolution" in Europe as a result of the political split of Ukrainians in Galicia, political rusynianism soon turned into an instrument of ethnic division and territorial fragmentation of the Ukrainian nation and, accordingly, the inclusion of Ukrainian ethnic territories in different historical periods, at least as part of the Austrian and Russian empires, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the leaders of neo-rusynism, taking advantage of the favorable political situation in Eastern Europe (the collapse of the Eastern bloc), obtained from the Slovakian government tacit recognition of the Rusyns as a people separate from Ukrainians in exchange for the integrity of this country. Thanks to the financial assistance of the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, the first so-called World Congress of Rusyns was held in March 1991 in Medzilaborce. This is where the inspired initiative to create a new nation of "Rusyns" came from. Slovakia and its real financial support then also played a leading role in the creation of the so-called "Rusyn language" (international seminar in Bardejovske Kupele at the end of 1992, codification in Bratislava) [6].

The relay of the official Bratislava, which either naively believed that by dividing Ukrainians and Ruthenians and inventing a "Rusyn language" for the latter forever solved the "Ukrainian question" on its territories and saved the Rusyn-Ukrainian Presov region from separatism and thereby ensured the inviolability of its borders, was picked up directly by Moscow. The Rusyn map is being reinvented in a hurry by the party-state leadership of the Soviet Union, again with the aim of keeping Ukraine in the "updated" Union of the SSR, which, in the end, did not save it from collapse.

On December 1, 1991, as part of the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum, according to "official" statistics, 78% of the population of Zakarpattia Oblast allegedly positively supported the question "On the status of Tran- scarpathia as part of Ukraine" as its autonomous part. The people of Transcarpathia really answered "yes" to the question on the ballot: "Do you want Transcarpathia to be enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine as a special self-governing territory as a subject within independent Ukraine and not included in any other administrative-territorial entities?". But at the same time, the survey did not mention any "autonomous territory". On the contrary, the referendum removed all reservations regarding the liquidation of the Zakarpattia Oblast and the unification of the territory of the region with other western regions of Ukraine into a new entity, provided that administrative and territorial reform will be carried out in the future [7, p. 525].

The results of the referendum soon began to be actively interpreted in their own way by various anti-Ukrainian political forces. Few people today will deny that the main interpreters here were the Transcarpathian party and KGB nomenclature, on the one hand, and the "enlighteners" of the newly formed "Rusyn government" in Slovakia who controlled the Slovak state mass media and Radio Presov that is geographically close to Uzhhorod, on the other hand. Of course, this coordinated company was conducted by Moscow. The goal of Gorbachev's USSR that was living its last days was obvious - to show Ukraine and, eventually, Georgia (Abkhazia, Adjara, South Ossetia), Moldova (Trans- nistria), Uzbekistan (Fergana) and even Yeltsin's Russia itself (Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan) that these republics will not be able to exist outside the USSR. They will simply crumble to pieces, and only the Soviet Union was and can continue to be the guarantor of their integrity and prosperity. Czecho-Slovakia, for its part, also sought to protect itself from possible steps taken by the Rusyn Presov region aimed at leaving Slovakia. Therefore, the idea of the autonomy of Transcarpathia, but necessarily within Ukraine, completely satisfied it.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin's "democratic" Russia, weakened at the time, "forgot" about rusynism for a while. As a prototype of the future "Russian world", the Russian Federation, at the turn of the century tried through the structures of the CIS to push the so-called single humanitarian space that would ensure the supremacy of the Russian language, literature, culture, and through them the political dominance of the Kremlin on the entire territory of the former Soviet Union. Having strengthened itself, now Putin's Russia, following the best KGB traditions, launched an open attack on everything non-Russian in the post-Soviet countries by implementing the "Russian world" political project based on the experience of centuries of Russian expansion. The purpose of this project was very successfully and succinctly characterized by Lyudmila Putina, the then-wife of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin: "Russia ends where Russian language ends" [8]. V. Putin himself, during the awarding ceremony of the "Russian Geographical Society" in November 2016 unceremoniously and programmatically declared that "the border of Russia does not end anywhere" [9]. In Zakarpat- tia, Rusyn separatists, local Hungarians and the so-called Russian-speaking population of the region became a strong support for Moscow in the implementation of its plans.

It should be noted that Transcarpathian "political rusynism" was not a single movement from the very beginning, which allows us to understand why the "Rusyn leadership" easily switches its orientation towards different states. Historically, four movements stood out in it: Muscophilic, Magyaronian, Subcarpathian Rusyn (local) and Czechophilic. With the exception of the Czechophile movement, these movements will continue to be represented in the region. In the 2000s, the Muscophile wing was headed by Father Dymytriy (Sydor), a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the local wing was headed by Yevhen Zhupan, and the Magyaron wing, according to some researchers, was led by Hungarian political parties. "Rusynism" was supported by the local regional government, the Society of Hungarian Culture in Transcarpathia, the bishopric of the UOC-MP in Transcarpathia, as well as part of the leadership of the Mukacheve Greek Catholic Diocese led by Bishop Ordinary Ivan Semediy [10].

The adoption by the Zakarpattia Oblast Council on March 7, 2007 of the decision to recognize the nationality of "Rusyns" significantly fueled the separatist forces of the region, at the same time causing opposition from the statist elite of Transcarpathia. In particular, attention was drawn to the fact that although there are more supporters of the Hutsul identity in Ukraine (21,400 people) (compared to about 10,000 Rusyns), "political players do not care about them." In response to the decision of the Oblast Council, the Rakhiv Raion Council adopted a special decision, in which special emphasis was placed on "preventing speculation on Ukrainian ethnonyms" [11].

It should be noted that Ukrainian researchers of rusynism immediately drew attention to the "artificial identity" of the Ukrainian population of Transcarpathia, formed exclusively by external factors of rusynism as an "anti-Ukrainian political movement." At the same time, many defined the decision of March 7, 2007 to recognize the nationality of "Rusyns" as a "demarche" of the Zakarpattia Oblast Council in the conditions of the all-Ukrainian political crisis [12]. Some researchers of Transcarpathian "rusynism" associated the socio-political activation of Rusyn NGOs in the region, especially in the mid-2000s, with the political initiatives of Viktor Baloha, head of a powerful political and business group in Transcarpathia. According to their belief, V. Baloga actually has been the coordinator of the Rusyn movement in the region since 2005. With his alleged support, the People's Council of Zakarpattia Rusyns was established with Ye. Zhupan as its head, a decision was made to recognize the nationality of "Rusyns", and the newspaper "Subcarpathian Rusyn" was financed from the regional budget [13].

Despite everything, the very next year, in 2008, the separatists formed a kind of "parliament" of Subcarpathian Rus - the so-called "Soim of Subcarpathian Rusyns". Dmytro Sydor, the author, priest of the UOC MP, an active Russophile, supporter of the Third Rome, is mentioned as the head of the Soim. A year earlier, the same "father" Sydor initiated a meeting in Mukacheve called the first "European Congress of Rusyns" held under the watchful eye of the Russian mass media and specifically Moscow television cameras, elected the "prime minister of the Republic of Subcarpathian Rus" [14]. They chose an unremarkable, familyless and homeless Petro Hetsk, a native of Uzhhorod, who had never heard anything about Rusyns until 1996, worked as a computer technician in one of the libraries. Before that, however, he served in the army, and later graduated from the Moscow Engineering and Technical Institute together with the notorious future "leader of Novorossiya" Oleg Tsaryov. Subsequently, the "prime minister", whom the "ardent Rusyns" themselves perceive as nothing but a buffoon, hid for a while in Moscow, and his "statesmanship" activities were reduced to all kinds of pasquills about Ukraine, which he spread in the Internet [15]. Thanks to "active" search, P. Hetsk managed to find "Rusyns" even in Bukovina.

But in the treacherous year of 2014, namely on March 14, as befits a loyal follower of the "Russian world", he immediately "officially" appealed to the President of Russia V. Putin as the "prime minister of Subcarpathian Rus" to carry out a "peacekeeping operation" in Transcar- pathia [16]. According to the plans of D. Sydor, the government of "Subcarpathian Rus" was to be established in Zakarpattia Oblast on April 24, 2014, which the Russian media wrote about at the time. However, the predictions did not come true. In June 2018, in an interview with the Russian "Literaturnaya Gazeta", the "Holy Father" once again called on Moscow to actively reclaim Tran- scarpathia, "because East Slavic, all-Russian civilization begins from there and extends to Alaska." He urged the Kremlin leaders "Intervene, as this is where Russia's vital interests are" [14].

In 2008, the so-called Soim of Subcarpathian Rusyns and the Council of Zakarpattia Rusyns held the next "European Congress of Rusyns". On October 25 of the same year, the "congressmen" ultimatum stated that if the Ukrainian authorities do not implement the results of the 1991 referendum on the autonomy of Zakarpattia, then the Rusyns will be forced to independently resort to its creation as part of Ukraine. And a year later, at the end of 2009, the poem by the founder of the Transcarpathian Russophile Rusyn movement "Subcarpathian Rusyns" Father Oleksandr Dukhnovych becomes the "official anthem of the "Republic of Subcarpathian Rus" under the name "Long live the Rusyn people!", which at the same time becomes the official anthem of Rusyns of Zakarpattia Oblast approved on December 22 by deputies of the Zakarpattia Oblast Council [17].

We can say that there was the "Rusyns" attempted to create their own, so far virtual, "trained army". On August 23, 2014, the "first national unit" - the Ruthenian battalion named after I.G. Kundri (archimandrite of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Russian Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Jov Ugolsky, a "Carpathian" spiritual missionary). According to "official" Rusyn internet publications, the battalion included volunteers from Zakarpattia Oblast, Presov Region (Slovakia), Lemko Region (Poland), and Hungary; a total of 337 people under the command of some "commander" Yu.A. Ianzo. The motto of the battalion became "Подкарпатьска Русь і Новорусько - навхтема рокаши!", which, translated from another version of the newly born "Rusyn language", which can be seen by this slogan to "rapidly develop", eloquently means "Subcarpathian Rus and Novorossia - forever together!" [18]. As expected, the battalion turned out to be as fake in reality as the "Republic of Subcarpathian Rus" itself [14].

The so-called "Plan to ensure the federal status of Transcarpathia" developed in Moscow in 2014 was not implemented, and could not be implemented in 2014, according to which on October 15-25, 2014, it was planned to seize administrative buildings, the airport of Uzhhorod, and turn to Kyiv with a proposal to sign a federal agreement. According to the idea of the "prime minister" P. Het- sko, the plan should have been implemented by the "radical units of the Rusyn movement" and the forces of the Hungarian community under the control of the "Movement for a Better Hungary" party. Considerable hopes were placed on the "Rusynska Rudyna" organization ("Rusyn Family), which was supposed to include about 1,000 people. It was planned to create 4 mobile groups and hold 5-6 protest actions against the policies of the central and local authorities of Ukraine every month [19].

Despite everything, there were still attempts to create paramilitary units, albeit virtual; some experience has been gained. Now the only one thing left is to implement in practice the establishment of the "state of Subcarpathi- an Rus" or some other "subcarpathian people's republic" proclaimed by a handful of Moscow henchmen. Its political recognition, like the recognition of the "statehood" of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, will obviously not have to wait long, at least from the Kremlin's side. This is clearly evidenced by the personal position of the President of Russia V. Putin. In his "scientific" work "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians", published in Ukrainian on the website of the Russian president for the first time in history on July 12, 2021, the newly-minted "protector", "father of all peoples and nations" shed a bitter tear regarding the hard fate of Subcarpathian Rusyns. "I will speak separately about the fate of Subcarpathian Rus, which ended up in Czechoslovakia after the collapse of Austria-Hungary. A significant part of local residents were Rusyns. This is rarely mentioned now, but after the liberation of Transcarpathia by the Soviet troops, the congress of the Orthodox population of the region spoke in favor of the inclusion of Subcarpathian Rus into the RSFSR or directly into the USSR with the rights of a separate Carpathian Rusyn Republic. But this opinion of the people was ignored. And in the summer of 1945, it was announced, as the Pravda newspaper wrote, about the historic act of reunification of Transcarpathian Ukraine "with its ancient homeland, Ukraine", he writes [20].

V. Putin's article, both in its entirety and in the part concerning Transcarpathia, serves as a classic example of "gray" disinformation, i.e. the use of a synthesis of true information with disinformation used in hybrid warfare. Let's try to prove it.

First of all, V. Putin uses facts that are generally known to the general public and are beyond dispute: 1) he uses the term Subcarpathian Rus that was also used by official Prague in the pre-war years (the term Transcarpathian Ukraine is not used deliberately); 2) he mentions the well- known fact of the disintegration of Austria-Hungary that for a long time included the Transcarpathian region; 3) he emphasizes that Transcarpathia was liberated from fascist occupation by Soviet troops (although it is not specified that these were troops of the 4^th Ukrainian Front staffed mainly by Ukrainian prisoners). These facts create an initial general background that signals in the mind of an average person that this information is trustworthy.

The second set of reliable information includes facts generally known to the public, but the meaning of which is understood by a much smaller number of people. As a rule, it concerns a trained category of specialists, namely: 1) the population of Transcarpathia is identified as "Rusyns", which for a Russian or a person with a Soviet mentality is consonant with the word "Russian". At the same time, the fact is omitted that such a definition was imposed by the authorities of Hungary and Czechoslovakia in order to keep Transcarpathia as part of their states (if they would have called the Rusyns Ukrainians, the question of their territorial affiliation would immediately arise) 2) the focus is made on the Orthodox faith of the Rusyns, which the average person associates to a large extent with the Rusyn (Russian) Orthodox Church. But at the same time, there are no mentions of the fact that the pre-war Transcar- pathia was canonically subject to the Serbian Orthodox Church (Mukacheve- Presov eparchy); 3) the "convention" of the population of the region is mentioned, which ordinary citizens know about only in general terms.

This type of information, limited or dosed to a certain extent, is aimed at consolidating the veracity of the information offered in general in the human mind.

And, finally, the third key set is the introduction of outright disinformation, which determines the main goal of V. Putin's article - to consolidated in people's minds, in our case regarding Transcarpathia, that this region was unfairly, against the will of its inhabitants, the Rusyns, was included in the territory of Ukraine, and the Rusyns themselves were forced to recognize themselves as Ukrainians. It is about the allegedly ignored decision of the congress to ask the leadership of the USSR to include "Subcarpathian Rus" in the Soviet Union as a union republic, or in the Russian Federation as an autonomous republic. The calculation here was made precisely on the fact that the majority of its population does not know the details of the "congress of the Orthodox population", and therefore, based on the two previous sets of information, it will believe this set as well.

Of course, real documentary facts are deliberately omitted here. Let's read an article in the diplomatic dictionary published in Moscow in 1986 in Russian language under the editorship of the world-reputable USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs A.A. Gromyk: "The 1945 Treaty on Carpatho-Ukraine was signed on June 29 in Moscow and entered into force on January 30, 1946. It was concluded in accordance with the general desire of the population of Carpathian Ukraine expressed in the Manifesto of the first Mukacheve Congress of People's Committees (November 26, 1944). It established that Carpatho-Ukraine (which was mentioned as Subcarpathian Rus in the Czechoslovak constitution), a region that was included in the Czechoslovak Republic as an autonomous unit on the basis of the 1919 Saint-Germain Peace Treaty "reunites in accordance with the desire expressed by the population of Carpatho-Ukraine, and on the basis of a friendly agreement... of the parties, with its old motherland - Ukraine, and is included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" [21].

It is hard to believe that the professional intelligence officer V. Putin knew nothing about these historical facts or historical-geographical terms. But, contrary to these realities, at the end of his disinformation throw- in, he makes a true reference to an article in the main Soviet newspaper "Pravda" about the inclusion of Transcarpathia in Ukraine, which only strengthens the feeling of "injustice" regarding this region. Against the background of other "historical" textbooks of the Russian propaganda machine, the average Russian or post-Soviet citizen gets the impression of the existence of an artificial entity - Ukraine, which was created by Russia from Russian Donbas, Russian Novorossiya, the Russian Black Sea Region, Russian Transcarpathia and, in the end, Little Russia, together with Kyiv, which is the "mother of Russian cities."

So, as the logical conclusion follows, it is necessary to correct these historical mistakes and "satisfy the aspirations of the people" (in fact, V. Putin openly and cynically announced Russia's new territorial claims to Ukraine). After all, the wider the halo of Russianness in the world, the stronger Russia is, the more it influences world processes, decides the fate of political regimes in neighboring countries, including Slavic countries, among which Russia, according to the Kremlin, has historically played and is obliged to continue to play a key role, the role of patron, liberator and defender from everything "foreign". Because this is her fate, the fate of the Third Rome.

In Russia itself, Moscow actively uses the "Rusinskiy Mir" information portal in its outreach with people from Zakarpattia. It was created in 2020 specifically for "Rusyns who live and work on the territory of Russia." Phone numbers and addresses are published for the visiting residents of Zakarpattia to contact if they have problems with the police, migration services, job search, etc. [22].

However, returning to "rusynism" as a definition of "nationality", Russian masterminds increasingly dislike the word "Rusyn", since it, although being consonant with the word "Russian", is already very attached to the word "Ukrainian". And, as you know, the words "Ukrainian" and "Rusyn" for Ukrainians are synonymous. Hence, the Rusyn puppets of Moscow are beginning to use the term "Rusian" or "Rusyn (Rusian)" more and more often in order to put an end to any Ukrainian associations forever. And this, for its part, should additionally confirm the thesis that Ukraine "occupied" and forcibly "Ukrainized" the entire nation of "Rusians" in Transcarpathia! Therefore, the demand of the "Rusians" to both the Ukrainian government and world leaders to protect it from denationalization, preserve its identity, which can be done at least by granting autonomy to Subcarpathian Rus (at least to begin with), appears to be quite "fair". As one of the leading "Rusians", the head of the Rusyn community in Moscow "Karpatskaya Rus" Mikhail Dronov, emphasized, "Thank God some of the Moscow Rusyn priests help us in this" [23].

It should be noted that expectations placed here upon certain political circles in Hungary as well. According to the words of the "prime minister" mentioned by the author, P. Hetsko: "We will receive help from Hungary. Hungarian nationalists are one of the toughest nationalists in Europe. In all respects. We expect help, including physical and military training... We don't expect it, we are confident in it. Any help: military, material, personal."

At the same time, the Russian news agency "Antifascist" noted that "the words of the political leader of the Rusyns are partly confirmed by the recent statement of the leader of the right-wing radical party "Jobbik" Vona Gabor that the leadership of the Hungarian party held negotiations in Moscow last week with the aim of gaining support for the creation of autonomy (in Ukraine - author) for Hungarians and Rusyns" [15]. P. Hetsko's statement echoed the statements made at the time by the Vice Prime Minister of Hungary, Zsolt Semjen, about the need to create autonomy for local Hungarians in the Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine [14]. Perhaps this also explains the stormy negative reaction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary and its head Peter Szijjarto in September-October 2017 to the new Law "On Education" approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which, among other things, allows the Hungarians of Zakarpattia Oblast, to learn the Ukrainian language along with their native Hungarian language and to integrate normally into Ukrainian society.

But what about "Great Hungary"? Isn't this why the Hungarian government, in the form of undisguised blackmail, openly declared that it will block (and blocks) all Ukrainian European integration and Euro-Atlantic projects, and will even try to revise the Agreement on the Association of Ukraine with the EU, if Ukraine does not abandon its nationally oriented, state-building Ukrainian educational policy [24]. Everything will now depend on whether Ukraine is ready to defend its national interests, or whether it will once again agree to "sleep through" this region in favor of some one-time benefits, as has already happened with Crimea and the Donetsk region.

Political Rusynism as an Element of the Russian Hybrid War Against the Countries of Eastern Europe