Don’t put in the newspaper that we want Ukraine to surrender, say commentators who want Ukraine to surrender

There’s an old adage in journalism: “If someone says it's raining and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window.”

Much to her subsequent dismay, Iuliia Mendel gave an interview to one such journalist doing their job at the UK’s Telegraph, published this weekend.

In her interview, Mendel blamed Ukraine for Russia starting the war, praised the German far right for its pro-Russia position, and advocated for a series of existential concessions from Ukraine to Russia as a reward for its aggression, including giving up territory and giving a Russia a veto over Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose its own security alliances.

It’s always important to add that “surrendering territory” means surrendering human lives, and doesn’t come close to describing the horrors that term entails. Those are human lives with as much right as everyone else not to live under occupation and not to be thrown into filtration camps, and not to be subjected to widespread torture, sexual abuse, and killings, and also the mass kidnapping of children from their parents.

Surrendering territory is surrendering human lives to all that, in addition to surrendering our rules-based international order, rewarding an aggressor and providing offensive advantages that will enable them to escalate their aggression.

Despite this, Mendel and other pro-Russia commentators are angry that this is being characterised as them wanting Ukraine to surrender.

Another person who has previously characterised Mendel’s position as surrender is… er, Mendel herself. In a post earlier this year, Mendel claimed that supporters of Ukraine wanted Ukrainians to die instead of surrendering.

So the Telegraph is a perfectly correct headline summarising her position, but it’s no wonder the pro-Russia commentators are furious.

They still think they can be subtle when laundering pro-Russia and pro-war positions within the language of just wanting what’s best for ordinary Ukrainians. They think if they partly acknowledge that Russia is responsible for Russia’s invasion then that gives them free rein to spout pro-Russian views without challenge.

They feel smug about their ability to play this game with us all and get away with it. They are so self-entitled that they don’t expect anyone to call them out on it.

Those days should be over. Call out pro-Russia and pro-war commentators for exactly what they are advocating. It’s time we all look out the fucking window.

For more on Mendel, Vatnik Soup has just published an overview of her less than illustrious career