The Corner

World

Ukraine and Us

By
President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky at St. Michael’s cathedral church in Kyiv, February 20, 2023. (Evan Vucci/Pool via Reuters)

Near the end of 2019, I went to Kyiv and wrote a report titled “Ukraine and Us.” I believe I have used the title since, and I use it now.

In 2019, I talked with many Ukrainians, including Vitaly Portnikov, a prominent journalist. Let me quote a little from my report.

Portnikov, I wrote,

makes an ominous statement. The “post-Soviet space” is “pregnant with war,” he says. Bismarck and others spoke of the Balkans as “the powder keg of Europe.” Here is another one, possibly. The United States and other democratic nations should do all they can to uphold the international order and the rule of law. Big powers should not be allowed to invade smaller powers and rearrange borders. This is a recipe for disaster. Adventurism, unchecked, will spread. The world has seen it before, to its horror.

“Have no illusion,” Portnikov says, that “if you give something to Russia, if you placate Russia, this will all calm down.” That would be a “great mistake.”

Will the West, collectively, make this mistake? It is quite possible, yes (but not certain).

• On February 20, the American president made a surprise visit to Kyiv. I will quote from the Associated Press’s report:

President Joe Biden swept unannounced into Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jabbing his finger for emphasis on his podium, against a backdrop of three flags from each country, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

This is very, very important. The United States, and the rest of the Free World, must be on a side in this war. Neutrality or indifference won’t do. In the affairs of men, there comes a time to take a stand. This is one of those times — clearly and urgently.

• Very interesting is this lengthy and detailed report in the New York Times: “Biden’s Surreal and Secretive Journey Into a War Zone.” “Surreal” is the word (in addition to “secretive”).

In Kyiv, our president stood shoulder to shoulder with Zelensky and, by extension, the Ukrainians. To use an oft-trite phrase: I was proud to be an American. What letter the president had after his name — “R” or “D” — I didn’t care. I was proud to be an American.

• Many years ago, I asked Charles Krauthammer a question: “Will Israel survive?” The survival of Israel, he said, depends on two things: the will of the people to survive, and the support of the United States. I believe the same thing applies to Ukraine.

• A tweet from Biden:

Another one:

This kind of thing makes many Republicans gag. (It does the same to many lefties, but I am leaving them out of the discussion, for the moment.) What if a Republican were president, doing just what Biden is doing? Would Republicans admire it? The true-believing Buchananites and Orbánites would not, is my guess. But most Republicans? Sure.

In American life, a great deal depends on who’s wearing the red jersey and who’s wearing the blue jersey. Tribalism rules.

• Mitch McConnell is like a ghost from the Republican past. I welcome such ghosts, and hope they will appear as often as possible.

• Here is Mitt Romney, another ghost, laying out his beliefs:

The election of Romney and Ryan in 2012 would have made a big difference in the world. There’s no sense crying over spilt milk. But a few tears are not inappropriate, I think.

• Very different from McConnell and Romney is Ron DeSantis, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024 and the darling of the Republican media:

This is a common Republican talking point: Biden does not care about the U.S. border, but he cares about the Ukrainian border.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is another pusher of that line. I will quote a Newsweek report from last November:

“We had 5 million people cross our border illegally since Joe Biden took office,” Greene said on Thursday, while flanked by GOP colleagues. “Let’s compare that to how many Russians have invaded Ukraine. 82,000 Russians have invaded Ukraine.”

“I think the American people and the taxpayers of this country deserve to know why the Biden administration and this Congress is so interested in funding the protection of Ukraine’s border and not the protection of our border.”

There you go: the Ukraine war as border dispute. Did people think that way about the Germans’ invasion of Poland, followed by the Soviets’ invasion of Poland? (Yes, they did, some of them.)

• DeSantis spoke about Putin’s Russia, and U.S. policy on Russia, in 2017. He was a congressman then. I like the sound of him. He evinced a clear understanding of the major issues involved.

Will that hurt him in the upcoming primaries?

• Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) is very much a man of today. An example:

Generally, I am not a defender of populism. But populism can be a lot less boobish than that. Indeed, the senator’s statement is practically an insult to populism.

• In this column, George F. Will takes the gloves off against Hawley. The column exhibits a typically Willian combination of wisdom and pugnacity. “Hawley, a caricature of a (rhetorically) anti-Washington demagogue, is a human windsock, responsive to gusts of public opinion.” And Republican opinion is trending against Ukraine.

Why? “You are what you eat,” people have long said. I have taken to saying, “You are the media you consume.”

A chyron on Fox News a few nights ago read, “Another $10 billion for the Ukrainian pimp” (meaning Zelensky). Many millions drink this in.

• In recent days, I have heard Americans who support U.S. aid to Ukraine described as “hawks.” I think that is an odd description. A year ago, Russia launched an all-out assault on Ukraine, subjecting it to mass murder, mass rape, and mass deportation. Russia is trying to obliterate Ukraine and drag it back into a Russian empire. The Ukrainians are fighting for their lives: their independence, their nationhood — everything.

Are we who want to help them, for their sake and ours, “hawks”? Ukraine is not the aggressor. President Biden is not the aggressor. NATO is not the aggressor. Putin’s Russia is. The Ukrainians are trying to defend themselves against invasion and annihilation.

I think the terms “hawks” and “doves” make little sense here.

(Do you remember how Jack Kemp described himself? “A dove, heavily armed.”)

• A report from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty begins,

Anti-war demonstrations were held in many European capitals, where landmarks were lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag on February 24 as the world marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, and the National Theatre in Warsaw were among the European monuments illuminated in blue and yellow. In Berlin, activists placed a wrecked Russian tank in front of the Russian Embassy . . .

Western Europe, for the most part, has taken a stand for the integrity of Ukraine and against the aggression of the Kremlin. I might not have bet on this. I would have bet on Eastern Europe, of course: Those nations know what it is to be occupied by Russian forces. But the West?

Maybe there’s life in the old gal yet . . .

• Here is a clip of King Charles, talking with a Ukrainian serviceman who is training in Britain. The king ends by patting the serviceman on the back and saying, “A lot of admiration.” I admire the king for this.

• I have long admired this Briton, Daniel Hannan, the Conservative writer and politician who is now in the House of Lords. Here he is speaking on the subject of the war: “Ukraine is our fight.”

• What are the stakes in Ukraine? What does the war mean for us Americans? These questions cannot be answered fully in a mere column, I suppose — but David French has done a very good job of it, here.

• Republicans, many of them, can’t stop slamming Zelensky for his attire. Here is one of them, MTG again:

I could not have told you that populists would be so insistent on formal attire. This is not typically a populist priority.

• Congresswoman Greene again:

“. . . whose leader is an actor.” I can imagine what the congresswoman would have thought of Reagan. And what he would have thought of her.

• A message from a man who, about two years ago, was president of the United States:

Is that populism? Or simple nuttery?

• Here is an incredibly brave act: Someone in Minsk — the heart of the Lukashenko dictatorship, Putin-aligned — raised a Ukrainian flag on February 24:

(It was Andrei Sannikov who tweeted this photo around. He is a Belarusian democracy leader, now in exile. He was imprisoned and tortured by the regime.)

• Another Ukrainian flag? Have a look at Rihards Kols, a Latvian who chairs the foreign-affairs committee of his country’s parliament. Listen to him, too — straight talk, invigorating.

• Over and over, I hear people — including friends of mine — mock other people who display the Ukrainian flag, or have such a flag in their Twitter bio. Every time I hear this mockery, I feel remiss for not displaying a Ukrainian flag myself, or having one in my Twitter bio.

In a recent piece, I wrote about Vladimir Kara-Murza, Father Georgy Edelstein, and other brave Russians. In August 1968, seven of the bravest went to Red Square, to protest the Kremlin’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. They held placards that said “Shame to the Occupiers!” and “For Your Freedom and Ours!” They also held Czechoslovakian flags.

The Kremlin did terrible, terrible things to these protesters.

It is good and right to express solidarity with a people under siege, fighting for its very life. Trying to fight off a murderous invasion and occupation. Don’t let anyone mock or bully you out of your solidarity. To hell with the mockers and bullies.

“Virtue-signaling,” they say. Well, I like virtue a lot more than I do what they’re signaling.

return-icon Return to The Corner

Exit mobile version