Out of the Woodwork

Say something impolite about V. Putin and his fanboys swarm all over you

Don’t you dare talk trash about this strong and principled Russian patriot

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I should have seen it coming.

Yesterday I published an article, “Strategic Dissonance,” using Ukraine and the Middle East as examples of how the hapless Biden Administration has made a pig’s breakfast of American foreign policy. In the process, I made critical mention of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, noting that V. Putin’s legions have committed countless war crimes, including the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian targets.

Well.

Among the comments on my article were several specimens of natcon outrage. How dare I intimate that Putin’s actions are unjustified? How dare I opine that Western aid to Ukraine is necessary and just? For example:

Maybe the first step to prevent escalation is to not undermine and overthrow legally elected leaders in foreign countries. This continued practice by the U.S. hasn’t seemed to bring about anything but death, suffering and long-term loss of credibility for America. Chile, Nicaragua, Iran, Viet Nam, Iraq come to mind as prime examples.

Russia felt that Ukrainian entry into NATO was a dangerous threat and reacted quite differently from what the United States would have done if, for example, Mexico entered into a military alliance with China.

Ukraine never existed as a country before 1991: split between Cossacks and Poland, the current territory was annexed, in stages by Russia until Catherine the Great finished the job in 1780. Crimea was a gift to Ukraine from Nikita Kruschev in the 1950s.

One thing current Russian nationalists most detest about the Soviets was their creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1920s (Stalin was Commissar of Nationalities), which let [sic] to the growth of Ukrainian nationalism and language.

In short, the response to my criticisms of Russian aggression harped on all the familiar strings. So let’s review.

Of course, it’s quite untrue that in 2014 the United States overthrew the legally elected leader of Ukraine. The “Revolution of Dignity” was a mass protest movement that erupted after Viktor Yanukovych, then President of Ukraine, reneged on an association agreement with the European Union, choosing instead to establish closer economic relations with Russia. This was not at all to the liking of the Ukrainian people. Their protests were peaceful at first, but when the government attempted to put them down by force, the situation soon spiraled out of control. Ultimately over one hundred protesters were killed by the security forces, and over a thousand were injured. Yanukovych fled and was later removed from office by the Ukrainian Parliament.

Incidentally, the charge that the US had orchestrated a coup emanated from Russia. It was among the pretexts that V. Putin used to justify his subsequent occupation of Crimea and his invasion of the Donbas. However, there’s not a speck of evidence to back it up.

Then there’s the claim that Russia invaded Ukraine because it regards NATO as a threat to its national security. This is patent nonsense. NATO is a defensive alliance that poses no threat whatever to Russia. On the contrary, it’s Russia that poses a threat to neighboring countries, thanks to V. Putin’s imperial ambitions. His attitude toward Ukrainian sovereignty is instructive in that regard. The Russian despot believes that Ukraine is part of Russia and has no right to exist as an independent country. The natcons dutifully parrot this absurd claim, concerning which the people of Ukraine beg to differ. Not explained is why Putin’s self-serving historical analysis should trump the desires of Ukrainians themselves.

Particularly egregious is the natcon claim that Ukrainian nationalism was the creation of the Soviet regime in the days of Lenin. A Ukrainian national consciousness predated the Bolshevik seizure of power, and in Stalin’s day it came to be viewed as a grave threat to the Soviet state. In 2022 I published an article, “Stalin and Putin and Ukraine,” that described how the Stalinist regime delt with that threat:

Though the policy of coercion by starvation [the Terror Famine] affected other areas of the Soviet Union, it was applied with particular savagery against Ukraine. As one of the Soviet Union’s most important grain-producing regions it was naturally a focus of the collectivization drive. But there was more. Ukraine harbored a national consciousness: it had its own language and culture. What was worse from the Bolsheviks’ point of view, it had numerous connections with the West. Eastern Poland was home to many ethnic Ukrainians; a large part of Ukraine had once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the end of the Great War Ukraine had declared independence from Russia, though it proved unable to maintain that status. Even so, in the early days of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalism had briefly flourished. But it soon came to be seen as an existential danger to the state. Like Putin & Co. today, the Bolsheviks believed that only with Ukraine could Russia call itself as a great power. Therefore, all aspects of the Ukrainian national identity had to be stamped out.

And so in Ukraine, the terror famine had the additional objective of destroying for all time the Ukrainian national idea. It was no coincidence that on the heels of the Holodomor, what remained of the Ukrainian intelligentsia was liquidated in a vicious purge, supplemented by a campaign to suppress Ukrainian culture and even the Ukrainian language.

Given this background, it should surprise no one that the Ukrainian people are not at all desirous of reintegration into a refurbished Russian Empire.

It would be one thing if the national conservatives in this country based their position on isolationism: What happens in Europe is of no concern to America. That would be wrong and dangerous, but at least not disingenuous. But no, they regale us with all this fake history, all these absurd and disreputable justifications for Russian aggression, not to mention the undercurrent of dislike of America that runs through their narrative.

I could understand if the natcons simply wanted America to wash its hands of the Russo-Ukrainian War. What I simply cannot understand is why they’re so eager to help V. Putin win that war.