Psychologist explains how Russia uses New Year celebrations for manipulation
Social and military psychologist Oleh Pokalchuk stated this in an interview with Ukrinform.
He noted that New Year celebrations are traditionally political in nature. The concept of “New Year's spirit” originated as a political phenomenon: on January 1, as early as 153 BC, Rome established it as the day of the consuls' inauguration, marking the beginning of the administrative cycle. Since then, this day has become a symbolic “time center.” Modern New Year's celebrations also have a Soviet context: Christmas was banned, so New Year's became a secular replacement for the sacred.
"The enemy also plays this game, filling certain dates with sinister meanings. But for us, this should not be decisive, because the enemy deliberately adds an element of destruction here. They impose on us the expectation that New Year's should look a certain way—with Olivier salad, speeches, and all the other Soviet nonsense ingrained in our consciousness. But this is just a calendar date, I repeat, a political and economic one," Pokalchuk noted.
According to him, celebrating New Year's Eve is a tradition, but if we take it too emotionally, it tends to increase anxiety.
"On the other hand, those who choose Christmas as a point of transition or emotional renewal appeal to the sacred—love, culture, tradition. Even if we abstract from religion, this better fulfills a stabilizing function for the psyche. New Year's, on the contrary, almost always condemns us to anxiety, regardless of whether there is a war or not, because you have been told that this is a holiday that you must celebrate," explained the social and military psychologist.
As reported by Ukrinform, the Foreign Minister of the aggressor country, Sergey Lavrov, quoted by Astra, said that on the night of December 29, the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly launched 91 drones at Putin's state residence in Valday in the Novgorod region. The Russian minister threatened Ukraine with a “retaliatory strike” and said that the targets and time of the attack had already been determined.
