There is a well-known line in a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons, in which Winston Churchill paraphrased the philosopher, Santayana, saying “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” In 1938, the world appeased the nazi tyrant, Adolph Hitler who had previously pulled Germany away from its fledgling liberal democracy. Western European nations allowed Hitler to steal Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia thus prompting then British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberland’s infamous announcement, “Peace in our time.” We all know where that bit of history led: the nazi German ignoble and unprovoked invasion of Poland and the subsequent horrors of World War II. History’s lesson for all to learn remains very clear, appeasing a tyrant only whets that tyrant’s appetite for more, making greater conflict become inevitable.
In 2014, the nazi-like tyrant, Vladimir Putin who had previously usurped Russia’s fledgeling attempt, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to achieve its own liberal democracy, moved to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula from Russia’s peaceable neighbour, Ukraine. The world refused to recognize this theft but otherwise appeased Putin with no more than soft words of objection and ineffectual sanctions, allowing him to hold the stolen territory.
True to an appeased tyrant’s whetted appetite form, late in 2021, Putin started amassing the Russian military on Ukraine’s borders, then launched an unprovoked ignoble full-scale invasion (“special military operation,” what an absurd euphemism for such an unjust action) this past February 24th on the pseudo pretext of the very nazi-like Putin “denazifying” Ukraine and to keep Ukraine out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He set the attack from the north, quickly repulsed, from the east, with the help of Putin’s sponsored and supported separatist rebels (more on them later), and from the south, clearly demonstrating why stolen Crimea must return to Ukraine and remain Ukrainian.
I have read a few items by apologists (sadly, including one Canadian purported historian) for Putin's ignoble invasion of Ukraine and the most striking element of each is that they ignore what must be the twentieth century's most profound event to form the modern Ukrainian national identity, the Holodomor. With an estimated nearly four million Ukrainians starved to death through that synthetic famine, it should be no surprise to any thinking/caring person that Ukrainians feel the need to shun identification with Russia and Russians. Similarly, It should be no surprise if Ukrainians resent the Russian speakers whom the, then, Soviet Union planted among them, following the Holodomor, in order to repopulate the depopulated parts of their country. I feel confident that most Ukrainians do welcome those descendants of the Russian-speaking plants who choose to identify with Ukraine (after all they enthusiastically elected one as their President during their last general election). On the other hand, there are descendants of the Russian-speaking plants who insist on retaining their identification as wholly Russian. Some of them have accepted Putin’s agitation to seek separation from Ukraine and turned to active separatist rebellion with Putin’s instigation, following his 2014 theft of Crimea. These should simply step across the not-so-distant border into Russia.
Nor should anyone be surprised that a few Ukrainians have taken their desire to shun all things Russian and their resentment of the Russian-speaking plants to an ultra-nationalistic extreme (these few are the ones Putin and his apologists keep labelling as nazis). Such nationalistic extremists are most certainly a problem, but they are a problem for Ukraine to deal with and none of Putin's business.
As far as I can tell, I cannot see why Putin apologists insist on putting the current Ukrainian government down as unworthy of help because of corruption. Yes, unfortunately, corruption does pervade Ukrainian society but certainly less so than that in Russia under Putin (Ukraine, 32 and Russia at 29 as of 2019, December – the lower the number, the greater the extent of public corruption according to the corruption index), with his Black Sea palace, severe oppression of active loyal (to Russia in contrast to Putin) opposition, and his lackeys. It appears that the current Ukrainian government’s efforts to curtail corruption had some success until distracted by Putin’s invasion.
I have also read claims that democracy is under threat to be dismantled in Ukraine. The most recent Ukrainian election appears to have been a fair, reasonably democratic, and truly competitive contest that had to go to a run-off vote giving strong results. This can hardly demonstrate any sort of an example of democracy dismantling and is a huge contrast with Putin's dismantling of the limited democracy Russia gained after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
So, Putin wants Ukraine to remain out of NATO, claiming NATO seeks to tear Russia apart. No, NATO has no interest in threatening Russia. In contrast, I anticipate that NATO would welcome an intact, free, prosperous, and liberally democratic Russia as a neighbour with an open society that welcomes free speech, independent media, dissent, loyal opposition, and fully competitive elections. NATO is entirely a defensive alliance. Why else did so many central and eastern European nations choose to rush to liberalize their societies, apply, and join NATO after release from soviet control but that they saw in NATO protection from the oppression they had previously experienced? NATO poses no threat to anybody as long as nobody threatens any NATO member. Prior to Putin’s ignoble invasion, Ukraine had contemplated applying to join NATO but had not yet met NATO’s conditions for membership and had not even applied. Who Ukraine does at any time choose to associate with for whatever reason, including for defence, must remain Ukraine’s own business as a sovereign and independent nation and certainly none of Putin’s business.
I have also read complaints that Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, and his government are unwilling to negotiate with Putin. Who negotiates with a bully? One either caves and submits to bullying or resists bullying. Ukraine has clearly chosen justly to resist with honour. What does Ukraine have to negotiate? Negotiate over stolen territory? Who negotiates with a thief to determine what that thief may steal and may not steal? Unless a nation has a territory that it actually does not want to hold (Russia did willingly sell Alaska), no national leaders, anywhere, would reasonably negotiate the surrender of any of their national territories without totally discrediting themselves as leaders of their nations. Nor can any national leader negotiate away a nation’s sovereign right to choose with which other nations to associate without subordinating the nation as a subject of another. I can only think that the only possible point of negotiation would be what to do about those descendants of Russian-speaking plants who insist on identifying themselves solely with Russia and eschew any identity with Ukraine. Yet this should not require any negotiation; they need only be permitted with a hearty welcome to relocate to Russia.
Putin seeks to bully Ukraine with an unjust and blatantly aggressive invasion. He even uses the bully’s call as unfair when neighbours and friends extend their support and material assistance to the bullied. Currently, Ukraine's just defence of itself drives the vulgar invaders back from their gains. All that Putin can truly achieve will be to drive Ukraine and Ukrainians into deeper distrust of Russia and even farther into rejecting any connection with his people. May western nations’ assistance and Ukrainian success continue and bring peace back to a fully intact Ukraine, as it was before 2014.
