Dmytro Kuleba is Foreign Minister of Ukraine, and he does not mince words when speaking: “I want to be clear – Russia has to withdraw from every square meter of Ukrainian territory! There should be NO misinterpretation of what the word ‘withdrawal’ implies. “Addressing the U.S.-led Summit for Democracy, Kuleba referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s steely determination to retake the stolen territory of Crimea.
“Cessation of Russia’s aggression and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity are essential conditions for peace. Ill-advised (by China, and perhaps Hungary or France) concessions to the aggressor would only encourage Russia to intensify its attacks on democracy, giving it time to rebuild its military capabilities and resume the armed offensive again in Ukraine.”
He wants us to understand something startling: “In this fight, we are defending the entire democratic world.” As Germany, Poland, Lithuania and other nearby nations step up to the challenge of supplying arms and materiel to Ukraine, we have seen an example, long overdue, of not waiting for the United States to take the lead in defending lands closer to those mentioned. The MO for European nations from 1945 up until this war seems to have been to regard America as the shining hill, tasked with defending the entire globe, with smaller industrialized nations as our junior partners.
No more. For Kuleba is correct. His people are indeed defending the entire democratic world. If Ukraine falls or caves to pressure to cede territory to Russia – and as the world has seen, Russia would be encouraged in aggression and not stop with Ukraine - ALL bets for global security are off, and smaller countries will go up for grabs in the melee, disappearing. It is a difficult history lesson to recall that President Roosevelt, our beloved FDR, declined to come to Britain’s aid during the horror of Hitler’s blitz, despite Churchill’s practiced, earnest pleas for arms and soldiers.
While England burned, America stood alone for a year as an island in this hemisphere until Hitler’s canny allies, the Japanese command staff, persuaded Emperor Akihito and his handlers that the time was right for global conquest, beginning with an unprovoked assault on US Naval ships based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Next day, of course, all was altered, the American people were shouting for redress, and Roosevelt with an incensed Congress declared war on Japan as the Japanese diplomatic delegation scurried back to their embassy to pack bags and skedaddle.
Did they know they were participants in a set-up, and that the Japanese command always intended a fast strike? Perhaps not. But they high-tailed it out of Dodge by the next boat, as Hitler immediately declared war on the U.S.
The unsubtle lesson: we cannot wait until Russia begins shooting directly at us, in our home territory, right HERE. American business and defense were lulled into a false sense of peace and dangerous presumption of invincibility, right up until the Zeros slammed our main US Pacific harbor with grim precision on Dec. 7.
Parallels with the present are unavoidable. Instead of Churchill on the White House doorstep, we have President Zelensky, Mr. Kuleba and a whole lot of innocent civilians slaughtered, bearing witness that the time is diminishing when Western Allies might act to stop the carnage and contain Putin’s undisguised power grab.
President Biden, we get it, doesn’t want to widen the Ukraine war or tempt the evil Kremlin gnomes to war directly on America; but those now in power in Moscow have already declared “we are at war with the West.” Do we need engraved invitations to step up assistance to Ukraine with arms and PLANES to counter Russia’s threat?
Joseph Biden is a negotiator of premier skill. Unless I am mistaken, however, he has no front-line experience in combat and none in planning a war. Money – MUCH money – is being thrown over the wall to help Ukraine hold on………and on……….but for how long? To equip a country with just enough arms to keep it breathing but decline to furnish hardware which would produce a win – makes very little sense, except: it is not “our boys” who are fighting over there.
It is not our streets, apart from sporadic gang warfare and mass shootings, which are littered with carnage. No. So we may remain serene and above it all, pretending no moral obligation to eastern Europe, but label our assistance as simple noblesse oblige: kindness to the downtrodden.. Dazed and hardened by suffering, still the Ukrainians hold on………for how long?
As a very young Queen Victoria was instructed by her Prime Minister Lord Melboure: “The purpose of power is to hold onto it.” Ukraine is not trumpeting for power, but survival. Putin reaches out for dominance any way he may grab it, producing a sea of blood and shattered bodies which, we must at last admit, he quite enjoys. How else to prove one is the world’s greatest ruler, than to plunder smaller nations, one by one, straining to devour them by yards or inches and practicing an openly deceitful diplomacy of lies and unveiled threats?
We must wake up. Russia’s demagogue is a small, ugly, hideous man, who well knows he can never, ever stop attacking, slow down, or back up even slightly, or the hounds on his heels will catch up and tear him to pieces. Like a man already dead, he has nothing to lose. His nukes will not save him, but battle fatigue may win – The Russians have far less ground hardware than he needs, and far fewer men willing to go to war for nebulous gains.
Do we dare hope that the Russians themselves may wake from their Medieval sleep of blind loyalty, and recognize that their mythic Tsar is, for all practical purposes of nationhood, destroyed?
Linda Berry is a Northsider.
