Terror-State vs. Civilization

Putin’s forces continue their “double tapping” against the Ukrainian people. They perfected this practice in Syria. The Russians strike a community with missiles — killing some and injuring others. The injured are trapped in the rubble. Then come the rescuers, the first-responders — and the Russians strike again, killing and injuring them, too. Putin’s Russia is a terror-state, plain and simple. And the civilized world ought to oppose that state, mightily.

• Putin’s forces have obliterated Kharkiv, the way they did Grozny and Aleppo. From the Kremlin and its echoers in the Free World, you hear that Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east want to be ruled from Moscow. They want to be liberated from their Nazi oppressors in Kyiv. This is one of the most grotesque lies in a world of grotesque lies. Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east have borne the brunt of the Kremlin’s brutality.

(In March 2022, shortly after Putin launched his full-scale invasion, I recorded a podcast with my friend and colleague Luba Kolomytseva, who was born and raised in Kharkiv. She is National Review’s art director. For a post, go here.)

• Something to be aware of — for Ukrainians surely are: “Russian troops are carrying out a systematic campaign of illegal chemical attacks against Ukrainian soldiers, according to a Telegraph investigation.” (For that report, go here.) This is yet more barbarism and lawlessness. But those who care, care already. And those who don’t — never will?

• A report from the Associated Press, by Erika Kinetz and Solomiia Hera: “The true toll of the war in Ukraine is measured in bodies. This man brings them home.” The subheading reads as follows: “He says the same thing to all mothers: We will bring your dead children home.”

All over Ukraine, people are doing extraordinary and heroic things. I am grateful to the war correspondents, who are often extraordinary and heroic themselves.

• David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist, went to see Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president. Zelensky is the object of intense demonization in America — demonization by the populist Right, primarily. Zelensky told Ignatius, “We are trying to find some way not to retreat.” But without American support, it is hard to see a way.

• Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia, is a certain kind of European leader. Balts can’t afford any illusions about Putin and his designs.

• Viktor Orbán is a very different kind of European leader — an ally of Putin’s on the continent. A report from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty tells us that, on April 5, Orbán “received a state award from Milorad Dodik, the Western-sanctioned Bosnian Serb separatist leader.” Of course. Last year, Putin himself received the same award.

Orbán has many, many fans and enthusiasts in the United States: in the Republican Party, at the Heritage Foundation, at the Claremont Institute, at CPAC, and on and on and on. Does it give them pause that Orbán should receive awards that have been given to Putin, even as Putin is savaging Ukraine, and killing his opponents at home? From what I can tell: not at all.

• Donald Trump is at one with Orbán. “It’s like we’re twins,” Trump once said to his Hungarian counterpart. (This was in 2019, when they met in the White House. The remark was reported by David Cornstein, a longtime associate of Trump’s, who was the U.S. ambassador to Hungary during Trump’s term.) Trump never says a critical word about Putin. Ever. On the contrary, he defends Putin at every turn. He even blamed the United States for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Yesterday, an article in the Washington Post said,

Trump has consistently complimented Putin, expressed admiration for his dictatorial rule and gone out of his way to avoid criticizing him, most recently for the death in jail of political opponent Alexei Navalny. He has not called for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter held in Russia for a year without charges or a trial.

I remember the press conference that Trump held with Putin in Helsinki — July 2018. I had never seen Trump so deferential toward someone, so respectful. His tone of voice, his body language — amazing.

Malcolm Turnbull was the prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. Several weeks ago, he said, “When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he’s like the twelve-year-old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero!’ It is really creepy. It’s really creepy.”

I sensed the same thing, even from afar.

• Austria’s Freedom Party is hideously named. A populist-Right party, it is Putin-friendly — very. When it was in power, its foreign minister was Karin Kneissl. Afterward, she went to work for Putin. Today, she lives in Russia. The chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, works for Peter Thiel.

I wrote about Kneissl, in particular, last year, here. And I wish to recommend a new article by Jeffrey Gedmin, an expert on Austria and Germany. He quotes Kneissl on Putin: “the most intelligent and accomplished gentleman I’ve ever met.” (True, she is paid, but I believe she means it.) Gedmin recounts something that happened in the Austrian parliament a year ago. Zelensky was addressing that body, by video. As soon as he began, “Freedom Party” members walked out, in protest. They left signs on their desks saying “Neutrality” and “Peace.”

Neutrality, as between murderer and murdered. Peace, they say. Sure. (I once wrote a book of that title: Peace, They Say.)