Russia in Ukraine

 

Russia in Ukraine

 All of the West’s emotional reaction and energy these days is aimed at Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, a sovereign country, and the atrocities reportedly committed in Ukraine by the Russians.  The most recent atrocity: A Russian missile attack that killed at least 52 people at a train station packed with women, children and the elderly fleeing the threat of a Russian offensive in the east.

 I am as outraged by the Russian actions in Ukraine as anyone, probably more so, since Southeastern Poland and Eastern Ukraine are ancestral areas.  I do not know anyone there, but I’m sure that I have many nieces and nephews and extended family living in that area.  In fact, I just recently established contact with a young woman with my same last name who lives in Kyiv.

 Having said all of that, I like to stay balanced and go back to causes.  Why did Putin attack Ukraine?  The immediate popular answer is that he saw a weak, doddering, ineffective Joe Biden and his incompetent puppeteers, and saw his chance to aggrandize territory that he felt was part of the Russian Empire. 

 To support Putin’s thinking, historically, the Kievan Rus was ancestral for 400 years to Ukraine, Belarus and Western Russia.  Also, Ukraine was a founding communist republic of the Soviet Union.  So, there was plenty of history to support Putin’s belief that Ukraine, particularly the eastern part, should be part of greater Russia.

 That may have been Putin’s contention, but not the Ukrainians’, who value their Cossack descended independence, and do not consider themselves Russian, Cyrillic script and language similarities notwithstanding.  They no doubt also remember Stalin’s Holodomor, the forced starvation of upwards of 5 million of their progenitors in 1932-33.

 The history showing Ukraine as close to Russia fit into Putin’s Machiavellian KGB fueled plans quite nicely.  He would just blitzkrieg across the frozen and mainly flat country with his modernized Russian military, and make short work of the Ukrainians, whom he considered nearly Russians.  Just like he did with the Georgians in 2008.  Maybe Putin should have taken a lesson from the Chechen wars of the 1990’s when the Chechens fought Russia for three years in two wars.

 The Ukrainians had something to say about Putin quickly conquering their country.  The Ukrainians, whose heritage derives from historic fighters like Scythians, Mongols and Cossacks. had been strengthening their military and their defenses ever since Putin first seized the Crimean Peninsula and parts of the Donbas region in 2014.

 The Ukrainians had plenty of their own defensive hardware, and the NATO countries, particularly Germany, sent them additional effective defensive weapons.  The U.S. lagged behind, but authorized over $1 billion in military aid, dragging their feet all the while, and shaking in fear at Putin’s nukes.  It’s a sad pass when socialist, “woke” Europe and Germany lead the way against Putin’s aggression, and the U.S. lags behind, mired in “wokeness” and incompetence.

 Rather than a quick conquest, Putin got his ass handed to him by the Ukrainians, led by their charismatic young leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has become a hero to the western world.

Ukrainian citizens were handed out firearms to fight in the streets.  Ukrainian SAMs shot down Russian aircraft.  Armed drones and Javelin short range missiles knocked out Russian tanks.  Young conscripts in the Russian military defected when they learned that they were fighting “nearly Russian” Ukrainians.  Spring mud engulfed Russian vehicles.  The Russians made some gains in the east and south of the country, but they failed to take Kyiv and retreated to Belarus and the east.

 Published Russian atrocities, and Zelenskyy’s pleas for heavy equipment to fight the Russians continue to activate the EU, and more slowly, the U.S., to provide Ukraine with very effective   S-300 SAMs, armor, and other modern anti-air and anti-tank weapons.  In light of the highly visible predations by the Russians, there is even talk again of sending Ukraine Mig-29’s from ex-Soviet satellite countries.

 Putin’s current objective seems to be to split off and absorb the chunks of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea that he has occupied into Russia, in a negotiated peace settlement, and to ensure that the rest of Ukraine never joins NATO.  On this latter point, since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland, with an 830 mile border with Russia, is considering joining NATO, negating whatever happens on the original 250 mile Russian/Ukrainian border.

 Russian and Ukrainian history, a weak and incompetent American administration, Putin’s ruthless KGB background and some incredibly faulty military advice, informed Putin’s original decision to try to absorb all of Ukraine in one fell swoop.  Since that failed, he will most likely  try to cut off Ukraine from the southern seas by holding on to occupied territory in the east and south as part of any cease fire.

 The Ukrainians, on the other hand, want the Russians entirely out of Ukraine proper, including Donbas and Crimea. Given enough military hardware, it seems the Ukrainians are capable of driving the Russians out.  It seems that it’s going to be a long war.  Let’s hope that the “wokesters” in Washington stop being intimidated by Putin’s nuclear posturing, and give the Ukrainians the heavy weapons and aircraft they need to beat the Russians.

 Ray Gruszecki

April 10, 2022