On the situations in Ukraine and Israel, where identity is freedom

Jerusalem, from our correspondent. “I’m pleased with how it turned out, because both sides deserved to lose.” That everyone would lose in the Israeli elections was a wish that Natan Sharansky – a dissident in the Soviet Union, a minister in Israel, a chess player and an intellectual – had expressed during the election campaign. “I said it as a joke, but in the end that’s exactly how it turned out. It happened because sometimes you presume to speak on behalf of an entire people, when in fact you’re only speaking for half of them.” And everyone, says Sharansky, has in fact lost.

When entering Natan Sharansky’s study, in addition to his own eyes, at least two other pairs observe those who arrive. Sharansky’s eyes are blue, with a calmness that, out of courtesy and habit, conceals the turmoil within this man – an intellectual who has fought for his ideas, risked his life, and ended up in prison, indeed in the Gulag, for defending Judaism, his culture and freedom, against the violent annihilation perpetrated by the Soviet Union. His life has been marked by a series of acts of resistance – small and deadly, personal and historic – such as lighting the Hanukkah candles in his cell or singing the Israeli national anthem to grate on the ears of his tormentors. He paid dearly for every word. The other eyes that emerge from the walls of the room are similar, not in colour, but in their calmness, the spark of unyielding resistance, and the dignity of those who know that one dies for freedom. They are companions in life, in struggle and in ideals: the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov, whose portrait appears behind Sharansky, and the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in the famous photograph, gazing out over the riverfront in Basel, imagining Israel – the country where Natan Sharansky now lives, having been born in Donetsk, Ukraine, during the Soviet era. His eyes light up as he describes the Ukrainian city, now in ruins and under occupation by the Russian army. “It was beautiful,” he tells Il Foglio firmly. He pauses to gather his thoughts; it seems he hasn’t thought about his Donetsk – as it was, as it used to be – for some time, but he is glad to do so now. “When I was born, at the start of my life, it was very dirty because of a certain mindset and, above all, the industries. The air was full of pollution; you’d go out in a white shirt and within a couple of hours it wouldn’t be white any more. Then, in the 1960s, great efforts were made to transform it, to make it cleaner and more liveable. Relations between Jews, Russians and Ukrainians were not straightforward, but that is another story – one that improved over time. In the 1970s, for example, the situation had become more manageable.” This is the history – abused and mistreated – which today also lies at the heart of the lie upon which Vladimir Putin has built his war of invasion. Sharansky repeats that Donetsk was beautiful, almost as if he needed to convince us, to juxtapose a concrete image of life with that of the void and destruction that emerges in fits and starts from within the territories occupied by Moscow. “It is painful to see what is happening to it. The story of discrimination against Russians is a lie; that is obvious. In my day, everyone in the city spoke Russian, and Ukrainian as a second language. In the surrounding villages, however, Ukrainian was spoken primarily, and Russian was an additional language.”

It was Ukraine; the whole area was strongly Ukrainian. Then the mines were discovered, it became an industrial centre, and workers began arriving from Russia. “The number of Russians has increased over time, but Donetsk was never perceived as an area detached from Ukraine; it was part of the whole. Putin made it all up.” He invented the discrimination against Russians, the non-existence of a Ukrainian identity – and for Sharansky, the word “identity” has a profound and redemptive meaning, which he explains during our conversation – and the demonisation of its democracy. “In recent years, I’ve seen how much Ukrainian democracy is growing. Ukrainians are becoming increasingly Western.” Sharansky argues that this may not be the right adjective to describe the transformation of Ukrainians, and now that there is a president in the United States who feels closer to Putin’s regime than to the battle for Kyiv, the category of ‘the West’ seems to need more precise definition. “I felt embarrassed watching the scene of the Oval Office meeting. Donald Trump’s policy towards Ukraine is shameful. The White House chief wants elections in Ukraine because that is what a regime in Moscow is telling him. When he speaks to Zelensky, he uses the terminology of a game – ‘you don’t have the cards’ – and the Ukrainian president has to explain to him that he is not playing any game but is fighting for Ukraine’s right to remain a free country.”

When Sharansky speaks of Ukraine, he does so not only because he comes from Donetsk, but also because, as Israel’s Minister of Trade, he signed the first agreement between Jerusalem and Kyiv. He has followed the country’s development since the fall of the Soviet Union, comparing how Russia and Ukraine have evolved: ‘Unlike Moscow, immediately after gaining independence, Kyiv decided to confront its own past. It did so in a precise and realistic manner. Like many other nations involved in the Holocaust, Ukraine struggles to acknowledge its own responsibilities and the role of its population, but it is doing so in a far more courageous way than others, and there is less anti-Semitism in Kyiv today than in many European capitals. It is a democracy that has emerged through free elections, with a succession of five presidents who came to power by criticising their predecessors, primarily for corruption, and who then often lost the subsequent elections because of that very same corruption. Corruption exists, but it is not the kind that keeps the Russian state afloat. The difference is that in Ukraine people vote, and presidents are sent packing. The result of this process is the election of Zelensky, who, like his predecessors, ran an election campaign against corruption, and is a Jewish president who makes no secret of his Jewish identity. It is an important sign of how the country has overcome many of the prejudices of the past.”

At the site of the Babyn Yar massacre carried out by the Nazis, there is now a memorial visited by both institutions and members of the public; it is the place that commemorates what Sharansky calls the ‘Holocaust of bullets’, and during these years of war, a Russian ‘denazification’ missile struck very, very close by. “For me, Babyn Yar is an extremely important place; it stands on the largest mass grave of the Holocaust and today is a profound symbol of the effort to preserve memory.” The memorial was established by the Soviets, who, however, dedicated it vaguely to “prisoners of war”; when Ukraine was on the verge of becoming independent – with just one month to go – it was recognised as the site where Jewish citizens were exterminated.

Putin is right about one thing: today’s war has deep roots. They are not the same ones that the Kremlin leader labours to explain with lengthy historical digressions; they are much more recent, stemming from the West’s own difficulty in imagining a free Ukraine. Sharansky points to Sakharov behind him, drawing us into a conversation between them, somewhere between the Gulag and exile: “Unlike all the Sovietologists who, right up to the very last moment, thought the Soviet Union would last forever, we always knew it would collapse and had predicted it years in advance. We had seen that it would begin to disintegrate from the borders – from Poland, from Germany – and then the collapse would come from within. There was one crucial factor in this collapse: Kyiv’s independence would be the final blow.” Whilst in captivity, the two men reflected on the end of the system that sought to silence and repress them; they waited and kept their hopes alive. Sharansky was later released in Berlin as part of an exchange on the Bridge of Spies; Sakharov was never sent to a labour camp, but both were released in 1986. Talking about the enemy’s downfall was a way of surviving, of not going mad, of giving meaning to the struggle. But the two men, according to Sharansky’s account, had realised that “Ukraine’s independence would lead to the end of the Soviet Union, and we thought it would become a very powerful country, like France; Kyiv has everything. It has industry and agriculture; it is a vast country”. It was precisely at the moment when the Soviet monster was collapsing that the root causes of the war were created, in that fearful impulse which Sharansky describes as the attempt to prevent the emergence of a powerful Ukraine: “First of all, the free world forced Kyiv to give up its nuclear weapons. That was the first erosion of its power. I once had a conversation with Bush Senior, who asked me how to persuade Ukraine not to leave the Soviet Union; I burst out laughing – it was impossible. No one had realised that Moscow’s containment of Kyiv had become an ambition to conquer the world.” As always, the focus was on Russia – a mistake that keeps being repeated – rather than on Ukraine. “I met Putin in the early years of his presidency; his stated aim was to restore honour, to command respect from Bush Jr, from Angela Merkel, from the superpowers, and he felt he had failed. At a certain point, however, he realised that the Bushes and the Merkels come and go, whilst he would remain, potentially, forever. He devoted himself to ensuring his own continuity from the very first days of his first term, but that was the moment when he stopped thinking about his relationships with leaders – who were bound to fall or change – and instead began to think about how to restore the empire. Not the Soviet Union, but the empire of Catherine and Peter.” And so came the wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine at times when Putin realised he could capitalise on moments of US weakness. “He sensed them. When Obama signalled he would stay out of Syria, Putin moved into Crimea. When Biden withdrew from Afghanistan in a chaotic fashion, with images of soldiers fleeing and the Taliban seizing control, Putin decided to move into all of Ukraine.” Sharansky recounts his work in the Helsinki Group, which led to the agreements in which the Soviet Union recognised the post-war European borders – this diminutive man has done it all; he has lived a thousand lives. “It seemed that model was working and, despite differing views, everyone appeared convinced that no one would ever again attempt to change Europe’s borders by force. Now Putin has sent his message: if I am strong enough, I have the right to change everything by force and to restore the ‘historical justice’ of the Russian Empire.” The threat is to everyone; it is to the very order of Europe. “That is why Ukraine is right, just like Israel, to believe that its struggle is for the good of the free world. Zelenskyy is not asking for weapons out of some cynical self-interest, but is seeking the necessary support because he is fighting for everyone, without asking anyone to die for Kyiv.”

Sakharov and Herzl, the two pillars of Sharansky’s office. Israel and Ukraine: the dissident’s two battles, with very different nuances. “In Israel, we feel that we are fighting for our survival and against the terrorism that threatens the whole world, and even if the whole world is against us, that does not mean it is right. Israelis feel strongly that this is a war for the right to exist, even though everyone around us says it is not so.” The two countries, though worlds apart, mirror one another. On 7 October, Zelenskyy was one of the first leaders to condemn the Hamas pogrom, describing it as “the same evil” as in Bucha and all the Ukrainian towns where Russians have massacred civilians. There is no exclusivity in suffering or in evil. The causes may differ: Israel is fighting for its right to exist, Ukraine for its freedom. Both are convinced they are fighting for a cause that extends far beyond their national borders. “In Israel we have a highly polarised society, but we are not divided over the accusations of genocide, which the world now regards as a fact, without even questioning the meaning of the word. Psychologically, we are shielded from external criticism, and for the majority of Israelis, the war must be waged, even if the outside world condemns it. After the terrorists crossed our borders, killing, torturing and kidnapping, it was only natural to go and track them down, even if they were hiding amongst two million people. To survive, we must kill those who tried to kill us, and it was rational to ask the Palestinian population to move, so as not to be used as human shields. The fact that the world is watching the images of a destroyed Gaza and accusing us of genocide and of starving the Palestinians to death cannot stop us; in Israel, people know that this is a lie and that standards are being applied against us that are not applied to anyone else, not even to dictatorships. “At the United Nations and in the European Union, there are more resolutions on human rights violations by Israel than there are against all dictators put together.” All this predates the latest war against Hamas; as long as twenty years ago, Sharansky formulated his ‘3Ds’ theory (demonisation, delegitimisation and double standards) to illustrate when anti-Zionism turns into anti-Semitism. “Even before the war, we were not well regarded by European politicians. After the attacks in France, a French diplomat told me: ‘If Israel did not insist on being a Jewish state, but agreed to be a state for everyone, then Europe would have no problems with terrorism.’ This statement implies coming to believe that the problems of terrorism are due to Israeli nationalism.”

Identity is a central theme in Sharansky’s thinking; he believes it must be defended, just as he did with courage and determination under the Soviet regime to preserve his Jewish identity. When there is no identity worth fighting for, a void, an abyss, is created. “I have identified two major attacks on identity: one from Marxism and the other from post-identity Europe.” Sharansky is very European, and when he speaks of his disappointments with Europe, he never does so with bitterness, but with a sorrow to which he cannot grow accustomed. “The ‘woke’ movement did not yet exist, but the Europe that had left the Holocaust behind had begun to perceive Israel’s Jewish identity as a problem.” It is the word ‘identity’ to which Europe has long been allergic, and when it saw Kyiv rise up and fight to defend its own identity – demonstrating that Ukraine was not Russia, that Ukrainians were not Russians, and that the difference between the two peoples was so great as to drive the country to protect its own identity by force of arms – it seemed that Europe might finally understand that behind identity lies freedom, the pride of ideas, and the fierce need for survival. It did not turn out that way; European identity remained a taboo, but Europe stood alongside Kyiv, taking Putin by surprise. “I’m always very critical of Europeans, but they’ve proved themselves strong – the exact opposite of Trump’s United States. We were used to the opposite: to be wary of the European response and to trust the American one; that’s how we dissidents used to think. No one had any hope in Europe. But with Ukraine, it stood firm; Putin tried to intimidate it – and continues to do so by talking about nuclear weapons – yet he saw that Kyiv was not only ready to fight to defend its identity, but that it had solid allies behind it, precisely those on whom no one had placed a bet”, certainly not Sharansky.

In Ukraine, there is often talk of ‘Israelisation’; the idea of living alongside a neighbour that almost surrounds you and wants to destroy you is preparing Kyiv for constant defence and the notion of perpetual war, just like Israel. Israel is studied, followed and held in high regard, even though, recently, the Ukrainian army has shown it is capable of achieving things even more surprising than the IDF. Behind all this correspondence, however, Israel has remained on the sidelines, and Sharansky has spoken out in favour of the need to unite the fronts – which are already united ideologically, but not militarily. The former minister believes that they are now more united than people realise, and he also gathered this from a recent conversation with Zelensky: “Before, he was very frustrated; he couldn’t understand Israel’s distance. Now that has changed.” Jerusalem has often said it had to focus on its own wars, justifying its relationship with Russia on the grounds of the need to contain Iran. That was the world of the day before yesterday. “At the start of the war, I felt I was in the minority. Everyone believed that supporting Ukraine was impossible; we had to think about Iran, and therefore about Russia. In 2015, Israel did not want a Russian base in Syria, but the United States had handed control of the Middle Eastern airspace to Moscow, and for years the Russians watched and monitored us Israelis as we prepared operations, yet did nothing to stop us. I once spoke on the radio, explaining how necessary it was to help Ukraine. A woman, upon meeting me in the street, attacked me, shouting: ‘Just because your son isn’t on the plane carrying out raids in Syria and mine is, you’re prepared to risk my son’s life for the war in Ukraine, which isn’t ours’. Now public opinion has changed; even the presence of the many Israelis who come from Russia no longer acts as a brake or an excuse to justify our relationship with Moscow, which was the only country to host a Hamas delegation after 7 October and provided aid to Iran during the war.”

Sharansky spent nine years in a labour camp; he was accused of treason and espionage, and subjected to lengthy interrogations, solitary confinement and intimidation. He was a ‘refusenik’ – the term used in the Soviet Union to describe citizens, mainly Jews, who were denied the right to emigrate. Sharansky wanted to go to Israel, but Moscow replied that, due to his studies in mathematics, he was privy to state secrets and therefore could not leave. He was imprisoned and threatened with the death penalty. The physical imprisonment of a brilliant mind turned into an expansion of his mental horizons, and whilst he was locked up, harassed and isolated, Sharansky did everything he could. He played chess against himself without a board or pieces: ‘I played thousands of games in my head, and the great thing is that I always won’ – if irony can sting, his certainly did. In confinement, he imagined and reasoned. Chess was so important to him that he often prepared for interrogations by imagining them as a game: ‘You have to anticipate your opponent’s moves; you mustn’t be unprepared, and the KGB officers were methodical, predictable people.’ He laughed a great deal at the situation – grim and bleak – first in Lefortovo prison and then in the penal colony. Occasionally he imagined his release, which eventually occurred, and during which he took his final measure of satisfaction: they ordered him to walk in a straight line, but he began to zigzag along the Spies’ Bridge.

He wrote a book about his imprisonment, published before the collapse of the USSR, entitled "Fear No Evil". His work is still circulating in Russian prisons, where it is read as a manual of resistance; and when Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny, was imprisoned in a penal colony, he too began to read it. He decided to write to Sharansky: ‘He told me that his experience was strikingly similar to mine. I replied that when I began writing the book, I did so in the hope that it might help people in the same circumstances. That is why I decided to describe everything in detail, including the interrogations. By the time it was published, the Soviet Union had almost collapsed; I had been the first political prisoner to be released, and then a much faster process of release began. I envisaged it as a historical autobiography, and suddenly, today, it is fulfilling the purpose for which it was written. It’s sad – my dream has come true: my book is helping people. ‘I used to joke about it with Navalny.’ He shows the text of the letters – his written in black ink, Navalny’s in blue ink on prison stationery. Navalny thanks him. He hugs him. “The old days are back”—Russia has never recovered. The tone is light-hearted; Sharansky compliments Navalny on how he exposed the Kremlin’s attempt to poison him. When the former Israeli minister speaks of the FSB security services, he refers to them by their old name, the KGB—the very same organisation that imprisoned him: “I know of no one in history who has survived poisoning and managed to force the KGB to confess before the whole world. It is unprecedented in the history of humanity.” Sharansky appreciates Navalny’s characteristic, dismissive tone. He recalls defending him when others called him an idiot for choosing to return to Russia, knowing full well he would be arrested. “If your aim is survival, you won’t go that far; if your aim is to influence your people, to encourage them not to be afraid, then you return home with this message: I am not afraid, nor should you be. I believe Navalny was a far more credible alternative to Putin than many of the so-called democratic opponents – many of whom are good friends of mine – but they have no connection with the people in Russia; they are outsiders. Navalny really managed to give the impression of being one of the people; he sent a message that was at once more incisive, direct and personal. I don’t know if Russia was ready to rise up; they didn’t even do so during the war in Ukraine.”

Russia remains unchanged; the dissident’s book is still relevant today. The peoples who survive and triumph are those who, like Ukraine and Israel, even when everyone would like them to follow a straight path and do what others expect of them, decide instead to zigzag their way forward, like Sharansky on the Bridge of Spies: the moment he was walking away from his captors, he decided to reveal his identity. That walk stood as a manifesto of freedom.