Rebel comrades: How Russian imperial nostalgia found its Confederate soul

Frida Ghitis : The pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine waved a flag that looked suspiciously like the Confederate battle flag.

She says the Confederate flag had a niche following in certain Russian circles, even before the war in Donbas .

Ghitis says it was a flag for vatniks, who defended slavery not just on racial grounds, but as an inherently superior social system.

The "vatnik" mindset: Fighting for your exploiter.

Julian Zelizer : The Confederate South believed it was too important to fail; the vatniks of today believe Russia is too special to lose.

Zelizer says both groups, blinded by propaganda , willingly march into the meat grinder for rulers who see them as nothing more than disposable labor.

He says the same desperate clinging to a myth of lost greatness, blaming outsiders for their own decline.

The "vatniks" and the MAGA warriors are not revolutionaries storming the gates of power. They are the ghosts of dead empires, clawing at the ankles of the living, trying to pull them back into the dirt. The real rebellion is moving forward. It’s Ukrainians defending their right to exist, the younger generations around the world rejecting tyranny.