A bicycle trip across Ukraine to Odessa in 2018 prompted Jakob Marti to study the country’s history. In view of the war, he asks what he himself can contribute to peace. His answer: to bear the ambivalence of reality instead of taking sides.
From the COVID-19 pandemic to the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza, a pattern has emerged, especially in Germany. In the public sphere—dominated by the mainstream media, television, and politics—narratives arise at lightning speed. They declare a particular point of view to be politically and morally correct and stigmatize divergent views. On the other side, counter-narratives with wide resonance have established themselves in alternative media; the mainstream media simply ignore them or defame them as fake news, propaganda, and conspiracy theories.1
The accounts in alternative media cover a wide range, from contributions by serious scholars to positions at the extremes of the political spectrum. Many people, insofar as they follow such events at all, adopt one view or the other. In this way, communities of belief or conviction organize themselves around certain narratives and face each other from irreconcilable positions. Friendships and families can even break apart.
It is not surprising that level-headed people, in view of the danger to democracy, call for us to start talking to one another again. But this discussion is not taking place. It is unlikely that one side’s interpretation of contemporary historical processes is fully backed by facts, while the other side’s account rests only on fictions or propaganda. Both sides generally rely on facts that cannot be disputed as such, even if, in the battle of narratives, they are interpreted in opposite ways or mutually ignored.
The Caucasus War of 2008
Who fired the first shot in the Caucasus War of 2008? Contrary to the persistently repeated story that Russian troops started the war, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), set up by the EU foreign ministers and led by the Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, concluded that the war began with a massive Georgian artillery attack on Tskhinvali, which also struck Russian peacekeeping troops stationed—under an international mandate—in South Ossetia. Nor could it be proven that Russia had been on the verge of launching an attack of its own. Was the Georgian attack nevertheless possibly justified under international law? According to the same report, “[i]t was not.”2
However, the final report also notes that the Georgian attack had been preceded by weeks of Russian-backed provocations in the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and that much of Russia’s military response to the Georgian advance “went far beyond the reasonable limits of defense.” The unhelpful conduct of NATO and of the Russian Federation also contributed to the escalation of the conflict. This included Moscow’s lifting of earlier restrictions on Abkhazia in March 2008 and the declaration of the NATO summit in Bucharest in April of that year that Georgia and Ukraine would become NATO members.
The report concludes that the conflict had many causes, which can be assigned to different time frames and actions. “Thus a series of mistakes, misperceptions, and missed opportunities on all sides accumulated up to a point where the danger of an explosion of violence became real.”
There is a fact. Who fired the first shot? Within the framework of a neutral investigation, this fact can be clearly established. The contemporary historical process that led to the war, however, is far more complex and cannot be captured in a simple statement that is either true or false. Thus entirely contrary accounts of the conflict can arise, as suitable facts are selected, interpreted strictly in the sense of the narrative, and woven together into a narrative that is consistent.
The Battle For the One True Narrative
My thesis is that the events (the contemporary historical processes) themselves contain elements that lead to contrary interpretations and give grounds for them. Reality itself is inherently contradictory. It contains light and shadow. This is the ambivalence of the contemporary historical processes we are currently living through. The word “ambivalence” is formed from the Latin ambo (both) and valere (to be valid). The considerations in this article touch on the call for multiperspectivism that Louis Defèche set out in Das Goetheanum on May 21, 2026.3 Here, however, I want to show that multiperspectivism is grounded not only in the complexity of reality but even more in its inherent contradictoriness—understood in a thoroughly ontological sense.
When I argue within the framework of a narrative, I pay attention to the consistency of the arguments (the direct proof and the indirect, circumstantial evidence). This is a common procedure that we mostly apply unconsciously. The arguments are meant to support and reinforce one another. Gaps in the chain of circumstantial evidence must be closed. The aim is a “consistent” (contradiction-free) account. Thereby, the complexity of the situation is reduced. Whatever could weaken the persuasiveness of the account is devalued, ignored, or described as enemy propaganda.
The ambivalence inherent in the historical process is externalized and now appears as the narrative of the other side. In the battle of opinions, I am deeply convinced that my account ought really to convince any reasonable person, if only he were willing to listen for once.
Parallel to the struggle on the battlefield, there is a fight for the one true narrative. When I take a position along with hundreds of thousands of others, I become a combatant in the information war through taking sides and holding the morally correct attitude. Both sides want to help the truth prevail in their endeavor to do good and to remain true to their perceived moral impulse.4 Serious concern for peace, freedom, democracy, or a future worth living in general demands victory over the enemy in the battle of opinions.
The premise that historical processes are inherently ambivalent calls us to seek to understand the perspectives of both sides, while refraining from hasty judgments and from taking sides.
With this practice, I set out on the open sea of contradictions and will probably return with newly gained insights. At the same time, I open myself to facts that may still be unknown but could be fundamental for understanding contemporary historical processes. Do we really know everything that is truly important today about the COVID-19 pandemic, about Gaza, or about the causes of the war in Ukraine?
By refraining from adopting the “right attitude” and taking sides, I create a sphere of inner neutrality. I allow for complexity rather than reducing it. I set aside the consistency of my own perspective and include the ambivalence of the contemporary historical process in my reflection by actively calling to mind and enduring the contradictions of possible interpretations.
The inner neutrality meant here is not to be confused with cold detachment toward the victims. Refraining from partisanship does not prevent me from feeling empathy and giving support to those who need help.
In the mediation of a personal conflict, I gain insight into the motives of the other side under the guidance of a mediator. From the other person’s perspective, I may also discover aspects of my own behavior that fuel the escalation. In this way, I can also recognize my own shadow.
The Protest Movement on the Maidan in the Winter of 2013/14
The development of the protests on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, “Independence Square,” in Kyiv, which began on November 21, 2013, is a complex process. One side tells it as a “Revolution of Dignity,” transfiguring those killed as the “Heavenly Hundred,” while the other side portrays the events as a coup by far-right and nationalist forces with covert foreign support.
The protest movement, in which several hundred thousand people of all social classes and age groups took part, lasted from November 2013 to February 2014. It was directed both against the rampant corruption of the ruling elite and against a policy imputed to President Viktor Yanukovych, who was regarded as pro-Russian, to once again deliver Ukraine into Russia’s sphere of influence by suspending the Association Agreement with the EU.
The protests were marked by the ability of civil society to organize itself, by solidarity and a willingness to help, and by the courage and determination to withstand government pressure through three bitterly cold winter months and fend off several attempts by the government to break up the protests by force. The Russian poet Olga Alexandrovna Sedakova wrote, “The light of Maidan is also the light of solidarity. [. . .] This solidarity does not know either class or national borders.”5 For the individual, it was the intense—at times almost intoxicating—experience of becoming absorbed in something great and entirely new. On the Maidan, the self-empowerment of a civil society became a concrete, individual, and social experience and created the founding myth of a new Ukraine.
This is the account that prevails today in the mainstream media and politics. However, the initially peaceful protests were increasingly overshadowed by violence, some of which came from groups within the protest camp. Particularly worth mentioning here are the far-right and radically nationalist party Svoboda, founded in 1991 as the Social-National Party of Ukraine, and the Right Sector, in which far-right paramilitary groups and football ultras had joined forces at the beginning of the protests. Although these groups were numerically a clear minority in the protest camp, they had a clear strategy, battle-tested armed units, and organizational experience from earlier protests (the Orange Revolution of 2004, the “Tax Maidan” of 2010), which made them clearly superior to the amorphous mass of the civil-society camp. Steffen Dobbert, a reporter for Die Zeit, reported from Kyiv in January 2014: “The supporters of the far-right Svoboda party are not in the majority on the Maidan, but they determine the protest actions because they are organized like an army of the opposition.”6
From the outset, the leading activists of Svoboda and the Right Sector pursued the goal of overthrowing the hated government, by force if necessary, and establishing an ethnically defined Ukrainian nation-state. Their tactic was to keep the momentum of the protests alive and to escalate it violently through armed attacks on the security forces and the occupation of state buildings in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, while attributing the excesses of violence solely to the government, thereby discrediting it both domestically and internationally.
The Massacre of February 20, 2014
The protests culminated on February 20, 2014, in conditions resembling civil war and the shooting of 48 demonstrators on the Maidan by snipers. The Maidan activists immediately blamed the Berkut special police forces. These were subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and were said to have acted on the orders of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. This account was largely, though at first not entirely, adopted by the Western mainstream media; it has since become firmly established and is also held by renowned historians of Eastern Europe such as Andreas Kappeler, Serhii Plokhy, and Martin Schulze Wessel. As early as the spring of 2014, however, there were several other accounts that called this version into question.7
We have two contrary narratives about the Maidan protests, both of which claim truth for themselves because they rely on well-documented events. By contrast, however, there is only one truth regarding the question of which side’s snipers shot demonstrators and police officers on the Maidan on February 20. Here, consistency of evidence is precisely what matters. As an example, let me mention the work of Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist at the University of Ottawa. One focus of his research is the Maidan protest and in particular the question of who was responsible for the massacre on February 20, 2014.8
Katchanovski bases his analysis on several hundred witness statements, including those of snipers; more than 2,000 videos and recordings of live internet and television broadcasts; reports by 120 journalists who covered the massacre from Kyiv; more than 6,000 photos; and forensic-medical and ballistic examinations in the Maidan massacre trial. Since 2014, Katchanovski has published his research in academic journals and in books from renowned publishers, though some historians reject his work as unscholarly and speculative.
Katchanovski concluded that the massacre on February 20 was deliberately organized as a false-flag operation and carried out with the participation of oligarchic and far-right actors from the Maidan protest camp. In the course of the morning, snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and on the roofs of other buildings controlled by the protest camp shot dead a total of 48 demonstrators and four police officers and, according to Katchanovski, wounded at least 149 demonstrators. According to Katchanovski, no solid evidence could be found that Yanukovych or his ministers had ordered the massacre of the Maidan demonstrators on February 20.
With the massacre, the number of demonstrators killed rose to over 100. It marked the climax of the protests and contributed to the immediate failure of the agreement mediated by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Poland and signed the following day between the government and the Maidan leaders. Immediately afterward came the overthrow of the government, Yanukovych’s flight, and the formation of a new government that included three ministers from Svoboda. These events triggered separatism in Crimea and in the Donbas: Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014; the military action of the new government in Kyiv against the separatists in the Donbas in April 2014; and, thereby, the beginning of civil war.
From a moral standpoint, Katchanovski’s account is shocking. But is it also trustworthy? Far-right Maidan activists are supposed to have organized the shooting of demonstrators—their own people, so to speak? It should first be emphasized that Katchanovski proceeds in a strictly scholarly manner. And he can in no way be accused of pro-Russian sympathies.
From the perspective of the Svoboda activists, the course of action Katchanovski describes appears entirely rational. After these activists had pursued the goal of overthrowing the government for months, and with success within reach, the agreement between the protest movement and the government announced by the EU foreign ministers now threatened to undo everything. From this perspective, it was rational to escalate the violence to its maximum intensity in order to deliver the final deathblow both to the government and to all international mediation efforts.
Svoboda and the Right Sector stand in the tradition of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), founded in 1929, and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), founded in 1942. Activists from both groups have publicly referred to this tradition on multiple occasions, explicitly citing Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), a leader of the OUN during the Second World War. During the Second World War, the OUN and UPA collaborated closely with the German Wehrmacht and the SS in the hope of establishing a Ukrainian nation-state recognized by the German Reich. From 1943 to 1945, in preparation for an ethnically pure state in Eastern Galicia and Volhynia (today’s western Ukraine), the UPA murdered at least 70,000 Poles and actively supported the Holocaust.
In interviews that the brothers Dmytro and Vitaliy Kapranov conducted with Maidan activists, Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector on the Maidan, said, “First, we put the emphasis on propaganda, as Bandera had taught, and second, we had to be ready for violent resistance, because we knew that we would not manage without it.” These interviews, published in Kyiv in 2017, are a valuable source for understanding the insider perspective and the radical nationalism of far-right Maidan activists but have so far been given only marginal attention in research.9
The ideology of radical Ukrainian nationalism was decisively shaped in the interwar period by Dmytro Dontsov (1883–1973). His main work, Nationalism, from 1926, can be described as the ideological manifesto of the OUN; it was also received and disseminated by Svoboda activists.10 After 1991, it went through several new editions. Dontsov propagated struggle and violence instead of pacifism. The Ukrainian state, he held, would be born out of war against Russia.11 He postulated a doctrine of “amorality,” which consists in unconditionally subordinating moral scruples to the absolute goal of an independent Ukrainian nation-state, and thus justifies any crime. And he called for the total spiritual, cultural, and political separation of Ukraine from Russia.
The Dark Forces of Nationalism
In the events of the Maidan protests, bright light is mixed with dark shadows. The Maidan contains, as in a germ cell, elements that unfold in the further course of history.
On the one hand, there is the capacity for social self-organization and the admirable strength, determination, and solidarity with which Ukrainian society resists the Russian war of aggression to this day.
On the other hand, there is the propagation and gradual imposition, by far-right forces, of a militant ethnic nationalism fueled by hatred of all things Russian. This includes the growing state pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), up to proceedings to dissolve the UOC’s Kyiv Metropolis; the removal of millions of Russian-language books from libraries; the dismantling of Pushkin monuments; the legal honoring of the OUN and UPA as ‘fighters for the independence of Ukraine’ in April 2015; the renaming of Moscow Avenue in Kyiv as Stepan Bandera Avenue in July 2016; and most recently the reburial with state honors of the remains of the OUN leaders Andriy Melnyk (1890–1964) on May 25, 2026, and Yevhen Konovalets (1891–1938) on August 18 at the National Military Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv, each in the presence of the Ukrainian president. His official website states, “The President noted that Andriy Melnyk had returned to a free, strong, and proud Ukraine—the one he had dreamed of.”12
It is also a fact, however, that sympathy for far-right parties among the Ukrainian population—compared with Germany—is negligible. In the parliamentary elections of October 2014, the Svoboda party, with 4.7 percent of the vote, failed to clear the five-percent threshold. And in the 2019 elections, despite an electoral alliance, it fell back to 2.1 percent.
Faced with overpowering neighbors, Ukraine has repeatedly sought to assert its independence through nationalism. Ukraine is, however, a country that, like no other in Europe, unites within itself the opposites of East and West—in origin, language, history, religion, and geographical location—and is thus virtually predestined to form a bridge between East and West with a confederative structure. Rudolf Steiner repeatedly pointed out the destructive power of nationalism, especially in 1920.13
In a broader historical context, we should also consider that with reunification in 1990, the German nation-state was restored after a first unsuccessful attempt in 1849 and a second, successful one in 1871. The alternative after the fall of the Wall would have been the formation of a confederation, which could also have inspired the formation of states in east-central and southeastern Europe (Yugoslavia).
The causes of the war do not lie with Russia alone. They also lie in the eastward expansion of NATO, driven above all by the United States since the mid-1990s, and in the European Union’s clumsy approach to Ukraine in connection with the Association Agreement. The contribution of domestic political developments in Ukraine is also usually left out of the picture. Furthermore, the increasingly Russophobic reporting in Western mainstream media since the mid-2000s also plays an important role.14
Altogether, this is a many-layered dynamic with many actors, in which cause and effect often cannot be distinguished and which is difficult to penetrate. The decisive actors, including the German mainstream media, remain caught in this dynamic to this day.
What Can I Myself Contribute to Peace?
Friedrich Glasl, an internationally renowned conflict and peace researcher, sees a status of neutrality under international law as the solution for Ukraine. In an interview with Gerald Häfner, he said that the concept of neutrality would be the solution par excellence. Neutrality, he argued, is not a stopgap measure but something that should have been adopted long ago, as “forces of the middle.”15
At present, however, there are no visible signs of a process of mutual rapprochement between the parties to the conflict or of any prospects for a resolution, either in Russia or in Ukraine. The parties are caught in the logic of war, which only recognizes military victory as a solution, and are no longer able to end the conflict on their own—each for very different reasons. At this advanced stage of conflict, only external mediation can help. This makes it all the more tragic that the mainstream media and politicians in Germany and Western Europe are also fueling the conflict. The public debate on all sides is dominated by military, geopolitical, and moral arguments.
As the arms race continues and the threat of a major war in Europe grows week by week, fatalism and a sense of powerlessness and despondency are spreading. Europe seems paralyzed these days. A process of mutual understanding, in understanding the other perspective and perceiving our own shadow, will have to take place at some point. On the individual level, however, I can overcome powerlessness and, out of inner neutrality, prepare a future understanding through the conscious examination and mediation of opposing perspectives—if possible, together with many others. What is to become reality must first be thought out in the spiritual sphere.
Footnotes
- See Richard David Precht, Angststillstand: Warum die Meinungsfreiheit schwindet [Fear-induced standstill: Why freedom of opinion is dwindling] (Munich: Goldmann, 2025), 17ff.
- Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), Report, vol. 1 (September 2009), 19–32, quotations on pp. 22, 23, and 31, accessed Nov. 1, 2026.
- Louis Defèche, “Multiperspectivism: A Requirement for Seeking Peace,” Das Goetheanum: English Edition (June 3, 2026); first published in German, May 21, 2026.
- Cf. Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History (New York: Little, Brown, 2020); first published in Dutch, 2019.
- Olga Sedakova, “Russian Society in the Light of Maidan,” trans. Olya Krolya, Maidan Translations, March 12, 2014, accessed Nov. 1, 2026; first published in Russian, March 7, 2014.
- Steffen Dobbert, “Sieben Irrtümer über die Revolution in Kiew” [Seven misconceptions about the revolution in Kyiv], Zeit Online, January 30, 2014, accessed Nov. 1, 2026.
- See, e.g., Stephan Stuchlik, Olga Sviridenko, and Philipp Jahn, “Todesschüsse in Kiew: Wer ist für das Blutbad vom Maidan verantwortlich?” [Fatal shots in Kyiv: Who is responsible for the bloodbath on the Maidan?], Monitor (ARD), April 10, 2014, available in the ARD Mediathek and on YouTube (uploaded by Ed Monsur, April 22, 2014).
- Ivan Katchanovski, “The ‘Snipers’ Massacre’ on the Maidan in Ukraine,” Cogent Social Sciences 9, no. 2 (2023): article 2269685, published October 6, 2023 (open access); Ivan Katchanovski, The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Origins: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), open access. For a critique of Katchanovski’s analysis, see William Jay Risch, “The Maidan Shooting: Conspiracy Theories and Unanswered Questions,” Commons, February 20, 2024.
- Брати Капранови [Kapranov Brothers], Майдан. Таємні файли [Maidan: Secret files] (Kyiv: Nora-Druk, 2017). Available online on 69 numbered web pages, 1 to 69; the quoted statement is on page 21.
- Дмитро Донцов [Dmytro Dontsov], Націоналізм [Nationalism], 3rd ed. (London and Toronto: Ukrainian Publishing Union, 1966), available online; first published in Ukrainian, 1926; [cf. Trevor Erlacher, Ukrainian Nationalism in the Age of Extremes: An Intellectual Biography of Dmytro Dontsov (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021) – Tr. note.]
- Dmytro Donzow [Dontsov], Die ukrainische Staatsidee und der Krieg gegen Rußland [The Ukrainian idea of the state and the war against Russia], ed. Ukrainische Zentralorganisation (Berlin: Karl Kroll, 1915).
- Official website of the President of Ukraine, “The President Took Part in the Reburial Ceremony of Andriy Melnyk and His Wife Sofia Fedak-Melnyk at the National Military Memorial Cemetery,” May 25, 2026, accessed Nov. 1, 2026.
- See Rudolf Steiner, What Is Necessary in These Urgent Times, CW 196 (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2010), Dornach, Jan. 9 and Feb. 22, 1920; Die Krisis der Gegenwart und der Weg zu gesundem Denken [The crisis of the present and the path to healthy thinking], GA 335 (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 2005), Stuttgart, Mar. 10, 1920; Healing the Social Organism, CW 198 (Forest Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2025), Dornach, Apr. 3, 1920. See also Understanding Society through Spiritual-Scientific Knowledge, CW 191 (Forest Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2017), Dornach, Oct. 23, 1919.
- See Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, Was passiert in Russland? [What is happening in Russia?] (Munich: Herbig, 2007); Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russophobia: Anti-Russian Lobby and American Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Gemma Pörzgen, “Moskau fest im Blick: Die deutschen Medien und die Ukraine” [Moscow firmly in view: The German media and Ukraine], Osteuropa 64, nos. 5–6 (2014): 293–310; ARD-Programmbeirat [ARD Program Advisory Board], “Resümee zur Ukraine-Berichterstattung” [Summary on the reporting on Ukraine], Protocol 582, June 2014.
- Gerald Häfner, interview with Friedrich Glasl, “Ukraine: Wie wird Deeskalation möglich?” [Ukraine: How can de-escalation become possible?], Goetheanum TV, October 30, 2022, from minute 52:50.
