Last summer, I had a talk with Lou Cannon, the veteran American political journalist. Let me quote from the piece I wrote:
In Reno, the Cannons had a friend who was Finnish. In November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland. Lou was six. And owing to the family friend, he was very interested in the war, which would be known as the “Winter War.” He is reminded of that war by today’s war. “I follow the twists and turns of the invasion of Ukraine obsessively,” he says. “Normal people are going to work, and then their houses are destroyed or their children are killed. That gets you pretty damn concerned, if you’re a small-d democrat.”
There are many people following the twists and turns of the Ukraine war, I know. Some of them are for Ukraine. Some of them are for Russia. Some are neutral. I suppose it has been this way in every era. When I was younger, I knew a lot of people who were soft on the Soviet Union, not to mention Fidel Castro’s Cuba and other tyrannies. Oddly enough, all of these people lived in free countries, those lucky ducks . . .
• Félix Maradiaga is one of the most admirable people I know. He is a Nicaraguan academic, entrepreneur, and democracy leader. I wrote about him, and podcasted with him, in 2019. Félix is now a political prisoner. Earlier this month, I spoke with his wife, Berta Valle, and wrote about her and Félix: here.
In the course of my piece, I noted the following:
This regime [the Ortega regime] has many allies, birds of a feather — chiefly Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia. In June, Ortega invited Russian troops to train in Nicaragua. There are eight countries that, in 2014, recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea. One is Nicaragua. The others are Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, and North Korea.
Birds of a feather, indeed. The authoritarians are very good at allying with one another. The democrats should be at least half as good.
• During the Trump presidency, the United States did not recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. That was fortunate. Here is a headline from RFE/RL, in June 2018: “Trump Doesn’t Rule Out Recognizing Russia’s Annexation Of Crimea.” (Article here.) During the 2016 campaign, Trump said, “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.” For more on this topic, consult Christian Caryl, here.
• The Associated Press has published an important, disturbing report. The heading is, “How Moscow grabs Ukrainian kids and makes them Russians.” To read every word of a report like this is unnecessary, I think. But to be aware of the basics — that is something not to duck, I think.
• Here is another report, from Euromaidan Press: “‘Children arrived with bits of shrapnel in their scalps.’ Ukrainian doctors recount horrors of Bucha.” The work of doctors in this war, as in other wars, is heroic. Ukraine’s doctors have received national awards already, and I suspect they will receive more in future years. I am full of admiration for them.
• Very interesting is this: “Ukrainian Army officers under 32 explain the meaning of Independence.” These officers, as the report I have linked to says, “were born in the early 1990s, at the dawn of Ukraine’s Independence, and grew up in a free and more tolerant society. Open-minded, educated, and free, they were not cowed by threats, suspicion, or Soviet ideals.”
Fascinating, to hear what these officers have to say. To hear what independence means to them. A lot of Americans are deeply interested in independence, being aware of their own country’s roots — the spirit of their forefathers.
• In a situation such as Ukraine’s, I think, it is important to get to know individuals. Otherwise, war — or mass murder or mass rape or mass deportation — is just an abstraction. Here is a report from the town of Izium. Headline: “Orphan watched dad die, now awaits future in Ukraine shelter.” That orphan’s name is Bohdan, and I appreciate knowing him, in a sense.
• “U.S., Allies to Help Ukraine Build Air Defense Against Russian Attacks.” That is a heading in the Wall Street Journal. The subheading reads, “Pentagon envisions technically complicated project stitched together from different countries’ missile systems.” This is encouraging news. (For the article, go here.) It is a sign — another one — that democratic countries know what’s at stake in Ukraine.
• In a column, George F. Will writes of President Biden,
He has floundered regarding many things but has resoundingly succeeded regarding the most important thing. He has ignited inflation, has made the swollen national debt into a potentially self-exploding crisis as the cost of servicing it rises, and has dispensed scalding rhetoric to a nation weary of such. No president has more needed talented speechwriters or had worse ones: In nine months, they have produced two of the worst (delivered in Atlanta and Philadelphia) speeches in presidential history. Regarding Ukraine, however, Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been superb.
Continues Will,
Blinken’s formulation is pitch-perfect: If Russia stops fighting, the war ends; if Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. If Biden stays strong, with U.S. drones as a judicious increment in punishing Putin’s brutality by reversing his aggression, Biden’s presidency will be deemed by wise historians as, on balance, a success.
In my observation, Republicans have trouble with Biden when it comes to Ukraine: They don’t know whether to criticize him for doing too little or too much. I have seen Republicans do both, depending on which was more convenient, on the given day. The partisan imperative is to condemn the other side, no matter what. But some Republicans will admit, sotto voce, that Biden has handled the U.S. end of the war rather well. This is very awkward, for partisans, for tribalists.
Points for honesty go to the Buchananites, who don’t want the U.S. to support Ukraine at all, and some of whom are unblushing in their admiration of Putin. Long have been.
• The Buchananites are basking in their recent successes in Italy. The new speaker of the Italian parliament is an ardent Putinist — another Salvini. Lorenzo Fontana even traveled to Crimea in 2014, as one of those sham observers of a sham referendum.
In 2018, Fontana called Putin “a shining light, even for us in the West.” He also said, “I have been favorably impressed by so many of Putin’s statements and by the great Christian religious awakening seen in his country.”
Uh-huh. Apart from his depredations in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere, Putin has re-Sovietized Russian society, to the point where there are more political prisoners in Russia today than there were in the final years of the USSR. Independent media and civil society are abolished. Critics of the government are maimed, killed, or imprisoned.
Everyone has a different opinion of what a “shining light” is.
• Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, writes, “The bodybags of untrained mobilized Russian men are starting to come home from Ukraine — including to big cities like Moscow. Even the Z propagandists are getting upset.” Question: Does public opinion in Russia make a difference to the Kremlin? A dent on the Kremlin? Do Russians receive enough genuine news for public opinion to be meaningful?
• In a 2012 debate, President Obama had an airy jibe for Mitt Romney: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” Some of us have noticed something curious: If you support Ukraine, or advocate a tough-minded U.S. policy toward Russia, you may well hear that jibe — though not from Democrats or the Left. A dizzying period we are living in, in many ways.
• Memorial was the leading civil-society and human-rights organization in Russia. It was started at the urging of Sakharov, who was its first chairman. Last year, the Kremlin banned it. This year, Memorial is one of the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. A remnant of Memorial is struggling to keep the project going, in whatever ways are possible. In exile, of course, people have more latitude than they have at home. A lot more.
Here is the latest Memorial newsletter. It begins by saying that Memorial has won the Nobel Peace Prize. It then says that the government — the Kremlin — has seized Memorial’s property. It then says that the political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev, who was a Memorial official, is in solitary confinement.
The men and women of Memorial: They serve as the conscience of Russia. They are some of the noblest people on earth. I think of the saying of José Martí: “When there are many men who lack honor, there are always others who have within themselves the honor of many men.”
• Natalya Estemirova was a board member of Memorial. Murdered, of course, in 2009. Her daughter, Lana, was 15 at the time. When the Norwegian Nobel Committee made its announcement earlier this month, Lana circulated a photo of her mother and said,
My mum was Memorial and Memorial was my mum. She worked tirelessly to help the victims of the Russian war in Chechnya and hold the criminal regime to account. I wish she could be here to share this triumph with her colleagues. But everything we do, we do in her memory.