HIGH IDEALS: A Letter On Ukraine

Dear reader,

This is a letter on Ukraine. More specifically, on the context behind our top priority corporate activist policy - War on Ukraine.

As you may know, Schema has a corporate activist policy that is shaped by our moral compass and code of ethics. Mentioned in the previous letter, these are:

1. War on Ukraine

2. Sustainability

3. Animal Welfare

4. Mental Health

5. Freedom of Speech

The list was intended to be viewed based on actionable priority, however, in practice it is opportunistic. We see an injured kitty in the streets of Bangkok, we feed it. We get asked to greenwash on behalf of a client, we consult them out of it. We see a junior creative struggling with mental health, we coach them through it all. The government jails a young student for critiquing the monarchy, we share the story and make sure her message is heard. But then comes Ukraine... Ukraine is the only domain which receives our total aggression, negative energy, and unapologetic discrimination against russian business entities and tax paying citizenry - both private and public. Yes, we discriminate - scary words for an ad agency, right?

People who are afraid of words are susceptible to many fears in life. Understanding of context and mastery of words dispels most of those fears. I hope that by the end of this letter, your suspicion of our motives is replaced by understanding, and fear of words is replaced by anger - both things that we can mobilize against evil; against the russian identity. First - context.

I was born in 1993 Lithuania. 2 years after the country had miraculously regained its independence from russian communist rule. A country in hiatus, with its historic heritage and green plains plagued by soviet concrete jungles. The so called "Soviet blocks" were made for one reason only - to host an influx of "comrades", brought here from mainlaind russia to dilute our native Lithuanian population with russian-speaking "comrades". Russification is the standard playbook that this evil entity deploys in all regions, where it is not met with resistance, disgust and repulsion. This is the global vision of the so called "Ruskyi Myr" or "Russian World" - a wet dream of old soviets and new age russians alike.

Westerners rarely understand why soviet symbolism and public discourse in defense of it is banned in most of Eastern Europe, alongside Nazi symbolism and apologia. I'm tired of explaining why the communists - both russians and the chinese, as well as their modern editions, were always far worse. While Nazi's rose to European power as fast as it fell, communist russian influence still robs parts of the world of its soul to this day.

North Korea is a soviet project. So is Laos, which is basically a prison camp. So is Myanmar, with authoritarian forces funded by russians and chinese through proxies. Let's not forget Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Entire regions divided, robbed, manipulated by the old soviets putting their tentacles on the scales of power - resulting in genocide, warmongering, suffering of innocents and total inter-generational instability. If you fail to understand the history of these powers, their origin, creed and direction, you fail to grasp the basics of geopolitical thinking. This is a chance to look into it.

Back to Ukraine. This sun-drenched breadbasket of Europe, the true birthplace of the Rus’ people, has been the russian empire’s favourite chew toy for over three centuries.

What russians call “little russia” is in fact the elder sibling they have spent lifetimes trying to smother. From the moment muscovy crawled out of its swamp and started LARPing as the heir to Kievan Rus’, the playbook has never changed: claim the land, erase the language, import your own colonists, and call it “brotherhood.”

The Cossack Hetmanate begged for protection in 1654 and woke up inside a prison that stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific. Every revolt was met with the same elegant russian solution - mass executions, cultural bans, and fresh waves of “little green men” in different uniforms.

Fast-forward to the 20th century and the mask slipped entirely. Stalin, that moustached gremlin (kremlin?) of the russian world, turned the Holodomor into an industrial-scale slaughterhouse. If you're unaware, now is a great time to look up the word - Holodomor. Then look up Bucha Massacre, if you think all of that is a far past. Between 1932 and 1933, Ukrainian peasants - men, women, children - were deliberately starved while their grain was exported to buy tractors and tanks.

Cannibalism in the villages. Bodies stacked like cordwood along the roads. Conservative estimates outline a death toll of around four million, serving one goal - to break the Ukrainian nation once and for all so that the “Ruskyi Myr” could digest its richest province without hiccups. The same russians who later banned any mention of this crime still celebrate the man who ordered it. Because in russia, historical memory is whatever the tsar/president/dear leader - or the elites and infrastructure hiding behind it - says it is.

When the USSR finally collapsed in 1991, Ukraine (same as my country) grabbed its independence like a drowning man grabs oxygen. Russia sulked, then schemed. Gas cut-offs, poisoned elections, the Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity - every time Ukrainians tried to face West, something was pulling on its leg from the East.

In 2014 the mask came off again: little green men without insignia seized Crimea in a weekend, then lit a proxy fire in Donbas that burned for eight years. Fourteen thousand dead before most westoids even learned how to spell “Minsk agreements.” The world shrugged. “It’s complicated,” they said. Translation: we like cheap gas and don’t want to hurt russia’s feelings. Forget about Asia - in countries like Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and surrounding region history concerns itself with domestic elite-washing and realpolitik is a dangerous hobby, rather than an academic reality.

Then February 2022 happened. Putin, the face that represents the russian elite via shirtless horse-riding imagery of every russian imperial insecurity, launched the full menu - missiles, tanks, Bucha, Mariupol, filtration camps, child deportations, and a genocide-shaped hole where “denazification” used to be written in the war plan.

The same rhetoric, the same tactics, the same Ruskyi Myr, the same propaganda wet dream that my grandparents survived in Lithuania. Only this time the world was watching on TikTok, curated by an onslaught of russian bots And still, some “intellectuals” in the West clutch their pearls about NATO expansion while Ukrainian children are taught to duck under desks when the sirens howl.

This is not ancient history - this is today, now. The russians, or orcs, as we accurately call them, are the same parasites that occupied my country for fifty years, shipped my people to Siberia, and tried to turn Vilnius into a provincial russian city. I was born in 1993 - two years after Lithuania clawed itself free - and while enjoying this most unprobable freedom, I am burdened by a kind of responsibility. Every time I see footage of a russian tank rolling through ukrainian wheat fields, I see the same concrete jungles they poured over our green plains. And every time I watch Ukrainian drone footage, getting close to the orcs and going offline, I get a dopamine hit.

Uneducated, checked out western people and isolated populations across the globe are not likely to understand this perspective. Whether it's business, friendship, work or leisure, the topic won't even come up - it is a privilege afforded by many, and I respect it.

Here's how we materialize it when it does come up. Schema does not “support” Ukraine the way other agencies send polite tweets and rainbow logos. We play out our part as practically as we can - through disassociation from russian tax paying entities public and private entities while associating with any and all entities that support Ukraine through pro-bono opportunities.

No russian clients. No russian suppliers. Immediate contract terminations with no refunds to russian-aligned entities. No russian tax-paying citizenry gets a single euro of our creative oxygen. We discriminate against the russian identity, business and people - unapologetically, explicitly, permanently, proudly. My blood, my history, and my agency’s moral compass demand we starve it... so we do.

Not because it is trendy or will be respected by business circles wherever we go. Because it is personally essential and morally right.

Because if Ukraine falls, the next stop is my home. And when I get the military draft summons, I don't want to even consider issuing refunds to pro-russian entities and refer them to our business partners. We refuse to let russian presence stain our portfolio and you should too.

Analyze and copy our Schema Activist Policy #1: War on Ukraine - as found on our footer under "Activist Statement" and in every single service contract.

Click here to access our Pro-Ukraine page, discover our vetted organizations in support of the Ukrainian relief and military efforts and connect with us to request marcomms assistance for your Pro-Ukraine organization.

Next letter is on Sustainability.

Slava Ukraini, Harry @ Schema