A Ukrainian conductor rejects the Russian perspective

Kirill Karabits, principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, has been talking to the London Times, which is a subscriber-only site. Here’s a sampling:

My mother and sister live in the centre of Kiev and now I’ve been watching what’s happening there almost 24 hours a day on television. I never imagined that one day things would go so far that people would be killing each other in the central square of my capital city.

From what I’m hearing, everyone is fed up. It’s corruption on all levels in daily life, from being stopped by policemen in your car to trying to get any money from the Government for any project — and I know plenty about that. People cannot go on like this: it’s a protest against the whole system.

I was in Russia in December performing at the Bolshoi Theatre and I heard on the news that they were calling the protesters [in Kiev] extremists — they called these students “trained terrorists”! Of course Russia has been trying to suppress these protests. I feel very close to Russia — I’m a Russian speaker from childhood and I’m at home there — but I absolutely disagree with its behaviour towards Ukraine…