Putin says the war can end if the underlying issues are solved. We have a ceasefire proposal negotiated between Trump’s team and Zelensky’s Ukraine team. This is legitimate. This is Ukraine, who’s fighting for its survival, wanting to preserve itself. Now the ball is, as they say, in Putin’s court. And Putin has said yes, but no, but yes, but no, but yes, but no. The “Vicky Pollard” defense, if you’ve watched Little Britain.
Basically, Putin says no. He said the underlying issues need to be solved. What are these underlying issues? Well, let me tell you.
Why should you listen to me? I grew up in communist East Germany. I grew up under Soviet occupation. My first language starting in grade five was Russian. I grew up with an awareness of being part of the Russian-Soviet world. East Germany was basically a colony of Russia, occupied by Russians, and the beneficiary of Russian-style dictatorship.
The Russian perspective, as far as I was told and taught and which I grew up with, was that there exists Russia – Russia proper – Belarus is the “White Russian” variant of Russia, and Ukraine is the “Small Russian” variant of Russia. But this is all Russia. Ukrainians and Belarusians are folkloristic expressions of being Russians.
Putin’s underlying issue is that Ukraine dares to be Ukraine.
We could go into a long historical examination of how this has shaped, but Ukraine’s experience with Russia has been one of being dominated, experiencing genocide, experiencing all kinds of pain and suppression. And as soon as they could after the fall of the Soviet Union, they made attempts to be free.
The first directly after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The second, the Orange Revolution with Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, when a path was set towards Europe, which failed because of infighting between the two and also because of successful Russian agitation. Yanukovych came in as a Russian plant to control all of that. He was ousted in the Euromaidan after he would not continue to commit to association with the European Union.
Ukraine’s entire history is one of trying to break free from Russian imperial domination. Yes, there was Polish domination, but that’s a little longer ago. When given the choice between Stalin and Hitler, some in Ukraine were so desperate that they chose Hitler. That’s how bad Stalin was to Ukraine – that Hitler seemed to provide an alternative. Well, that is long ago now.
So the fight for freedom that Ukraine has been on for a long time – some people say for 300 or more years – is innate within Ukraine. And this is what endangers Putin.
For Putin, the underlying issue, the underlying cause, is that Ukraine wants to be free. That Ukrainians want to be free. They want to be free to speak Ukrainian. They want to also – some of them may want to speak Russian. So what? Zelensky’s first language is Russian. His television show is in Russian. And unless Russian is seen as an imperial language of domination, there’s no problem with that.
Russia is bombing and killing in areas of Russian speakers. These are the ones suffering most under Putin.
So when Putin started his war in 2014 – first in Crimea, then in Donbas with these fake separatist movements who were controlled by Russia – the attempt was to prevent Ukrainian admittance into NATO and the EU.
NATO wasn’t a threat to Russia. NATO membership is a threat to Russian imperialism. This is where NATO is a threat. NATO threatens Russian attack on Ukraine by defending, by being a way to defend. NATO membership also threatens Russia by not really making it possible for Russia to attack the Baltic countries or Poland or East Germany often.
So when people say NATO expansion is the problem – no, the problem is Russian imperialism. And NATO expansion was a reaction to Russian imperialism. All of these countries wanted to go into NATO because they felt threatened – legitimately so – by Russia.
So do we support Putin’s argument of solving the underlying issues? Well, the underlying issue is Russian imperialism. The underlying issue is Russian desire to completely control Ukraine, eradicate any Ukrainian identity, and submerge it within Russian identity and Russian culture.
We can’t support this if we stand for what we claim to be standing for: freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights. Then Ukraine is our best ally, not Russia.
Russia seems scary to some. But the reason we’re at this point is that Russia doesn’t quite know whether they can win. The economy is bad. They haven’t made many territorial advances. All they can do is destroy.
So Ukraine knows what to do. Ukraine knows to keep calm, carry on, and defend itself.
Are we on the side of those who were attacked, or are we on the side of those who want to destroy? That’s the question. It’s a very easy answer.
Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!
[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]
Erratic Attempts 