Most Americans sympathize with Ukraine and were and are willing to supply it with defensive weapons to repel Russian aggression.
Proof of that goodwill is the virtual draining of U.S. weapon stocks—from stockpiles of anti-tank weapons and large-caliber artillery shells to anti-aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles. Yet the more the United States gives, the more Volodymyr Zelenskyy demands—and the more the American people acquiesce in sympathy for his plight.
Given such U.S. largess, Ukraine currently enjoys the third-largest defense budget in the world, behind only the United States itself and China in annual outlays. That gargantuan expenditure is a result almost exclusively of American massive arms shipments and other NATO countries’ arms transfers, all based on a commitment to help Ukraine repel Russian aggression. Officials in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States have all agreed that the war is a high-stakes proxy conflict between nuclear Russia and nuclear NATO.
The original mission, as assumed, was to aid Ukraine in pushing the invader back to the prior post-2014 borders, de facto established by prior Russian invasions that had absorbed the disputed eastern border and Crimea. Then supposedly, negotiations would begin to adjudicate the ancient border disputes that had led to the first iteration of fighting in 2014.
The Disputed Ukrainian-Russian Border
Ukraine’s latest counteroffensive could, in fact, get close to achieving that goal of reclaiming much of the ground taken after February 2022.
But apparently, the war’s aims have now shifted to reestablishing the 2013 Ukrainian-Russian border. That is an ambitious agenda and, in the past, neither President Barack Obama nor Donald Trump nor Joe Biden had ever signed on to it. Oddly, those on the Left calling for the utter defeat and humiliation of the Putin regime and the retaking of Crimea (and who also gave us 2009 Russian “reset”) had rarely voiced such agendas after the 2014 aggression during the Obama Administration. (And remember that was not Putin’s first rodeo; he had invaded Georgia and absorbed South Ossetia in 2008).
To accomplish this new objective, Ukraine will require far more American weapons, far more deep strikes into Russian territory, and far more attacks against the Russian Black Sea fleet. Those radical escalations have already altered much of conventional American geostrategic thinking.
Gone is the Kissingerian triangulation doctrine that Russia was to be no friendlier to China than to the United States, and vice versa.
Gone is the unspoken taboo on nuclear saber-rattling. Not since October 1962 have so many politicians and media grandees, in and outside Russia, talked so brazenly about the use of tactical, and on occasion, strategic nuclear weapons.
Gone is any legitimate worry of a new “Axis of Evil,” given Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are now united in their active anti-Americanism. The new Axis powers are courting Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some Middle East oil exporters.
Such an alliance brings with it two of the world’s top-three oil producers, the world’s two largest nations, one in population, the other in territory, the world’s largest nuclear arms stockpile, and, in Iran and North Korea, soon perhaps, two of the most unhinged terrorist-supporting nuclear nations.
Gone, too, is the idea that the United States must always have sufficient wherewithal to fight simultaneously two, or at least one-and-a-half, wars. At the rate of the present diminishing American arms stockpile, and our pathetic state of munitions production, very soon the United States will not be able both to meet Ukraine’s insatiable arms demands and still have the weapons and resources fully to arm Taiwan and deter Chinese aggression— aside from meeting any new conflagration in the Middle East.
All the above considerations are well aside from the humanitarian crises in which over 8 million Ukrainians have fled their country that is being systematically wrecked by the Verdun-like war. No one knows precisely how many Russian and Ukrainian dead, wounded, captured, and missing the war has consumed, but the vast slaughter, oddly, has rarely become the chief topic of discussion. The approximations on both sides are likely low, and we could conceivably see 500,000 total casualties by year’s end.
Ukrainian Involvement in U.S. Politics
Then there is the elephant in the room that no one acknowledges. In the last eight years, Ukraine has insidiously managed to massage U.S. domestic politics in a fashion like no other nation in recent memory. Kyiv’s intrusion is ironic, since we had been lectured nonstop about foreign meddling involving nonexistent “Russian collusion” and “Russian disinformation.”
The former was discredited by Robert Mueller’s 22-month failed unicorn investigation and the recent report from Special Counsel John Durham. The latter hoax of laptop disinformation has now ruined the reputations of “51 former intelligence authorities” who themselves signed a disinformation letter falsely alleging that Hunter Biden’s authentic laptop, safely in FBI hands, was a likely hallmark of “Russian disinformation.” Their letter was solicited by the 2020 Biden campaign to offer a plausible denial of the laptop’s incriminating information for candidate Biden in the upcoming presidential debate.
From 2013 onward, Ukrainian opponents of the then-Kyiv government sought out officials high up in the Obama Administration to aid in their efforts to remove the elected, albeit pro-Russian, president and then to help fast track the proper successor government.
In 2015-2016, on the assumption that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in for the presidency, a Ukrainian-American consultant was hired by the Democratic National Committee. More specifically, she colluded with the hierarchy of the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C., to derail Trump’s then-campaign manager Paul Manafort on grounds he was too friendly with the Russians.
Politico reported at the time that the same Alexandra Chalupa, a Clinton acolyte, as part of her $412,000 fee from the DNC, also tapped Ukrainian sources to advance the narrative of Trump-Russian collusion—a project apparently aided indirectly by the Ukrainian Embassy.
Ukrainian Serhiy Leshchenko, the former investigative journalist and Ukrainian lawmaker, was reportedly a source for the fake Christopher Steele dossier—the catalyst that launched James Comey’s misadventure of Crossfire Hurricane.
At the climax of the 2016 campaign, the then-Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Valeriy Chaly, took the extraordinary step of weighing in on the election. He wrote for The Hill an anti-Trump candidacy op-ed that helped feed the then-Russian-collusion hoax that was intended to damage the Trump campaign.
Ukrainian-American and military veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman became a left-wing folk hero for his efforts in prompting President Trump’s first impeachment. Vindman, remember, was assigned as a National Security Council staffer to listen in on a classified presidential phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But Vindman, worried that Trump might indeed delay or stop arms aid to Ukraine, then likely took the extraordinary step of leaking the call, again likely illegally, to a third-party “whistleblower” CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella. Yet Vindman testified that he did not contact and indeed did not even know Ciaramella. He still has not explained how the “whistleblower” knew of the contents of the classified call. And so it was no surprise that Vindman himself was widely reported to be the true whistleblower—and had misled Congress about that fact.
Ciaramella’s supposed knowledge of purported presidential wrongdoing depended entirely on second-hand knowledge of the classified call. No matter. He apparently followed Vindman’s prompt and collaborated with House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Vindman to craft the strategy of impeaching Trump, right after the recent failure of the Mueller investigation to find any proof of “collusion.” Ciaramella was the Ukraine director on the National Security Council and currently is a loud think-tank advocate of ensuring NATO membership for Ukraine.
The Left heatedly blasted any suggestion of what it called the “dual loyalty” defamation of Vindman. But that hyperreaction missed the point. Criticism of Vindman was not based on “dual loyalty” but rather Vindman’s own implausible testimony and his partisan activism as a supposedly nonpartisan military officer on behalf of his native Ukraine, whose agenda included further targeting of President Trump on apparent grounds he was insufficiently pro-Ukrainian.
Indeed, Vindman himself let it be known that the Ukrainian government had offered him on various occasions the key post of defense minister. In truth, no foreign government offers such a high post to a mid-level American officer unless it assumes he brings with the billet Washington insider advocacy and influence—or deserves reward for past service.
Since his retirement from the military, Vindman has been a vocal proponent on cable news of the need to step up existing massive U.S. arms shipments to his native Ukraine, and belittles most who express worries about the commensurate depletion in American strategic arms stocks.
He did his reputation on the Left no favors when he founded his own military contracting company, Trident Support, in which he seeks to be paid millions by the Ukrainian government to service and repair imported arms inside Ukraine.
In other words, Vindman, who was the catalyst for the impeachment of a president over the question of arms shipments to Ukraine, is now a wannabe profiteering middleman military contractor facilitating arms transfers from NATO countries to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy and other members of the Ukrainian government reportedly have also called U.S. news agencies to complain about occasionally unfavorable coverage of the current war. Most notably, liberal media outlets report calls from Zelenskyy himself to the Fox News hierarchy, complaining, in particular, about the perceived anti-Zelenskyy commentaries of Tucker Carlson. Those reported contacts preceded Carlson’s own firing from Fox News.
Then we have the Biden family consortium and its lucrative multimillion-dollar Burisma profiteering. Disputes over the Biden lobbying, along with Vindman’s testimonies, prompted the impeachment of the president of the United States.
Trump’s Call to Zelenskyy
For all his bluster and ranting, Trump has, in fact, persuasively defended his call to Zelenskyy on six grounds that are rarely countered.
First, the Biden family indeed was likely corrupt and may well have peddled its influence to affect U.S. foreign policy to Ukrainian government-related interests for lucrative payoffs.
Second, Joe Biden did interfere in Ukrainian government politics by demanding the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was beginning to question improper Burisma expenditures to foreign agents such as his son—and himself.
Third, congressionally approved military aid was not canceled by Trump but only briefly delayed. The arms shipments included Trump-requested offensive weaponry that the Obama-Biden Administration prohibited.
Fourth, Vladimir Putin did not dare go into Ukraine during Trump’s tenure, although he did so both before and after—during the Obama and Biden Administrations.
Fifth, under Trump’s tenure, there were no formal investigations of likely 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden’s corruption. That restraint was not shared by the Biden Administration, whose special counsel appointee just indicted Trump, now leading in the Republican primary polls.
Sixth, the recent disclosures of IRS and FBI whistleblowers and from internal government documents allege that members of the Biden family had not fully paid income tax on their quid-pro-quo profiteering. There is an additional allegation of a $10 million payoff to both Joe Biden and Hunter Biden from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy giant.
The Ukrainian Gordian Knot
So ponder this complex Ukrainian Gordian Knot: We have Ukrainian government officials and oligarchs interfering in the highest processes of the U.S. government.
Their ambassador damned a leading presidential candidate in the 2016 race in an op-ed.
The DNC paid a pro-Ukrainian activist hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in the “sourcing” of the bogus Steele dossier that sought to sabotage a presidential campaign and presidency.
A Ukrainian-American, pro-Ukrainian activist helped launch the impeachment of the president of the United States by likely improperly leaking the content of a president’s phone call. The Ukrainian government subsequently offered the same officer the minister of defense post, and he is currently the CEO of his own defense contracting company that is lobbying for multimillion-dollar contracts with Kyiv to provide support services for Ukraine’s military. His company depends on a continued and constant flow of Western arms into Ukraine.
There are now stunning revelations that oligarchs with close ties to the Ukrainian government may have paid the current Oval Office occupant, when he was vice president, along with his son, at least $10 million in exchange for influence peddling.
To the degree that the United States supports the brave efforts of Ukrainian resistance is nevertheless a purely American matter. The people of the United States decide their own foreign policy in terms of what is in both American interests and what is the proverbial right thing to do.
They can make their own choices without the interference in their elections by Ukrainians, without expatriate Ukrainian-Americans aiding partisan efforts to smear a presidential candidate, without a military officer seeking to impeach a president while boasting about being asked to head the Ukrainian defense department, and subsequently running an arms business connected to Ukraine, without Ukrainians pressuring U.S. news agencies to report “correctly” on Ukraine, and without Ukrainian oligarchs sending millions of dollars to a prominent American political family among whom is the current president of the United States who sets U.S. foreign policy on Ukraine, apparently in expectation of nothing other than advancing a pro-Ukrainian foreign policy.
The irony is that Americans on their own have been generous to Ukraine, often at the cost of endangering their own stockpiles of critical weapons.
The continued extracurricular and illegal efforts of Ukrainians to lobby for increased arms shipments will prove counterproductive eventually. And if not curtailed, the interference will turn off Americans enough to cut this tangled Ukrainian knot.
For Ukraine’s own sake and self-interest, it should cease and desist all of its insidious interference in American politics.
There is also US aggression as in color revolutions which are the equivalent of Comintern. There is also Ukrainian aggression against Russian-speaking peoples who protested against the Banderites the US helped to put in power. After that, there were the Minsk Accords that were ignored by the West and Ukraine, and after eight years of exhausting all possibilities, Vladimir Putin did what any leader of a poweful country would do to defang a next of vipers in Kiev and keep NATO, a hostile military alliance, away from its borders. In other words: He is not exactly “Hitler”, is he? Having said that, I agree with the rest of your article in that the US is acting recklessly in toying with the idea of World War III.
Thanks for adding that, my thoughts precisely. After the collapse of the Soviet empire and the freeing up of the Eastern bloc the Russian federation was rather weak and prosperous Europe in comparison with a much larger population was rather strong. That is when NATO should have been dissolved and Europe put in charge of its own defense. But the Europeans preferred to continue to be freeloaders and the U.S. military-industrial complex preferred to keep the U.S. in NATO to keep the gravy flowing. The U.S. and Ukraine have a symbiotic relationship based on corruption and mutual interference in each others politics. One is tempted to say that they are both democracies in name only. And isn’t this what this war is all about, “the defense of democracy?”
Why in the world are you, Travis Chittom, valorizing Putin and trashing your own country? Even if everything you say is true, Putin is a monster an order of magnitude greater than your portrait of the US and Ukraine. Maybe it’s time to buy a ticket and seek asylum in Moscow. While you’re at it, you can sign up for the front lines of Putin’s crusade.
Too old to take the Tsar’s coin, also a veteran of the US Army and didn’t much like soldiering. As for the trenches? I do not wish that on anyone and pray that the war will end soon. I didn’t think that I was “trashing” any country, not the US, nor Germany, the one I live in, nor Ukraine, nor Russia, but rather I was commenting on a post and stating my position. I agree with some of the post although I wished to remind readers of the aggression on the side of the Americans and Ukrainians. I have no problem with the peoples involved in this war. My problem is that this war can lead to WW3.
Thank you for clarifying. Your tone was so strident and since I thoroughly disagree with the notion that the US or Ukraine have shown any agression I have trouble seeing your post as non-defamatory. I will take your latest comment as the proper way to read it and start over from there. Thank you also for your service. I trust that you are using it as an explanation of your position and not as a bully stick to gain unwarranted ethos over those who have not been allowed to serve.
Leroy. Leroy. I settled this with the initial poster and now you’re trying to score points by jumping on after the fact with the same debunked one-liners you always use. Sounds like you’re not a fan of dialog and trying to shut down my free speech using a heckler’s veto. I think you need to look a little more into how free speech works.
Even Megyn Kelly thinks Tara Reade is crazy. And maybe you can recall that Orwell said that pacifism is defacto support for the aggressor.
Finally, If Mr. Chittom is too old to take the Tsar’s coin, I’m too 4F to be offered the Hetman’s. Nonetheless, I do what I can.
Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!
The US, not unlike a rabid dog, has been attacking everything in its path in the MENA for the past 20 years. The U.S. is now the poster boy for petty aggressions. It makes me sad to watch the country I was born in rot away from an imperial disease not unlike that which destroyed the Romans. The Romans were serious people at least and would never castrate children and turn them queer for democracy. Ukraine is not our business and they have never won a war in their history so why should anyone be suprised they are losing now. Ukraine should realize that it has been played and make peace with the Russians because they cannot win. Americans should read Tacitus and heed the advice of their first President.
James, James, would you suggest then that disagreement with this Admin’s wild, corruption supporting spending in Ukraine is anti-America and that anyone who holds such a view should be made to follow Tara Reade to seek temporary safety in Putinland? Should not anyone of that view and flawed logic then volunteer to support Biden’s proxy war there on the ground and enlist to support his actual Ukraine agenda? Some who have served, while the lesser involved pursued other interests, have grown tired of supporting illegal meddling in the affairs of other nations. Asking someone who does not agree our misguided Congress to run to Russia is suggestive of someone who does not support our Constitution or its First Amendment.
That is leftism. LOL
Thanks for that laundry list of anti-factual, false claims – straight from the Kremlin no less.
We don’t need Tucker on Ukraine when we have Uictor. This entire article argues by insinuation and manipulative juxtaposition. Key facts are distorted or ignored. It is a sensationalist piece designed, as Uictor has designed most of such pieces since the battle of Kyiv, to smear the Ukrainians and deny them any meaningful US support. Uictor’s preferred outcome has always been that the US turn Ukraine into Afghanistan and let Ukrainian partisans bleed Russia for a decade sustained by US pennies. Far more Ukrainians will die, and the country will be left a true wasteland if Uictor had gotten/gets his way. (my specific arguments can be found in the comments on Uictor’s Revolutionary War podcast and other podcasts that deal with Ukraine).
If even half what is reported on corruption in Ukraine is correct; if even half of the illegal biolabs financially supported there by the cia is correct; if even half the claims of US munition stockpiles being depleted by the military/industrial complex in Ukraine & Russia is correct; if even half the claims of Blinken’s poor performance in Beijing recently are true; if claims of China establishing a major military base and major intelligence gathering post in Cuba and China’s influence growing in South America are true; then the gross overspending of our limited resources in Ukraine is a gross blunder of not only foreign policy but also for our self-defense, sovereignty, and national survival.
Unfounded hyperbole.
3 points
This article could leave a reader with the impression that that Russian/Ukrainian history began in 2014. I have way too much respect for VDH to ever think this was his intent but it is dangerous none the less
Adherence to anything but the official narrative ( Ukraine good/Putin Russia bad) was not allowed. Over the course of 2022 i was suspended by at least 2 message boards for suggesting that Ukraine/Russia is every bit as much a 2 state solution as Israel/Palestine. This remains a very unpopular approach, i continue to believe it makes more sense than WWlll
Lastly, I have said it before & will continue to say it. If the subject is not election integrity then the subject is likely a distraction.
Lew, you were suspended for being a troll, not opposing “the official narrative”; whatever that is.
Being called a troll by an anonymous keyboard warrior responsible for almost 38% (as of 9:50 ET 06/21) of the comments on this article is rich bordering on farcical. Project much James ?
Nope. I’m just having too do extra work here because I’m in the minority on this issue. You’re a keyboard warrior too, so pot meet kettle. ‘Sides, I’ve never been banned or deleted from any site. While we’re at it, I thought you were only going to reply to fact check me!
Most folks I know would be highly suspicious of someone who is as active as you and claims to have never been banned. Could also make one wonder why the need for anonymity. You are in the minority, at least on this site, far more often than you realize. A very wise man once told me ” if you want other people to think you are the smartest person in the room let them figure it out by themselves. Letting them know you think you are is totally counterproductive”.
Hey Lew. Ever realize that in a nation of 320 million, you tacking a last name on your post is absolutely anonymous? I’ll say it again: I have friends and relatives who have specifically asked me not to use my last name. I could always use a fake name and you’d never know.
Don’t know your friends (your last name doesn’t help me with that), so I can’t speak to what’s normal. I don’t need to be the smartest man in the room, and the posts here tell me I’m pretty far from a minority of one. Maybe you should take your own advice? I won’t push you to.
The last line of your comment says it all. America can not afford another color revolution on our home land. We absolutely can not afford WW3.
I think everyone believes no matter what Ukraine is destined to be another Afghanistan. Seeing 13 service members slaughtered in cold blood (they believed they were on a humanitarian mission. Our government lied to them and it cost them their lives. NEVER FORGOTTEN and NEVER AGAIN
Face it Victor, America is the aggressor here. Our war-machine has been continuously pushing NATO expansion to Russia’s frontier since WWII. Interrupted by our only anti-war president since JFK, Trump, who questioned: why are we the only ones paying for NATO? The EU had opened wide trade with Russia. NATO’s an anachronism that the EU accepts as an obligation to repay the USA for its help in ending WWII. Russia’s mistake, with the dissolution of the USSR, was NOT declaring the ‘Gorby’ Doctrine (the name Monroe was taken) about unfriendlies pushing into their comfort zone.
Victor. thanks for the new (to me) bits detailed in your “Ukrainian Involvement in U.S. Politics” section. My, my how the cancer invaded the body politic! This cancer will not leave voluntarily.
This narrative has been repeatedly debunked. It is Russian propaganda and you are spreading it, wittingly or unwittingly.
Unfortunately, the propaganda is ~70% sourced in the US media. The vast majority of US media is neither truthful nor honest. The cia and other US fed agencies have a well-established record of manipulating media. Truth will not be found in the media.
Which media/sources do you recommend then? Where do you get your 70% statistic? What about the other 30 percent? Your simply asserting a conspiracy theory unless you can go into equally accessible facts.
Dr. Hanson: Thank you for that remarkable and enlightening post. However, I would be careful when crossing a street!!
I would like to know why the Ukrainian border is more important than the American border? Is defending Ukraine more important than defending America? And is it in America’s interest to be involved in a proxy war with Russia, and to be meddling in the affairs of other countries? Seems to me that according to recent history, it is not. We are being governed by fools.
It isn’t! That’s a disingenuous dichotomy. We are a big country and can do both. Obama, Trump, and Biden have all wasted orders of magnitude more on foolish programs than we need to close the boarder and defend Ukraine to the teeth.
Governed by fools? Definitely and without a doubt, yes. As for the (former) southern border, the fool in chief and his nurses probably imagine the dilution of citizenship as their dream of on-going keeping iof the reins of power. Probably to them, the end justifies the means. To the rest, not so much. The question is will an honest election be enough.
The American people do not support Ukraine, really. The wannabe dictator makes those decisions to funnel tax money and military supplies to them – I have yet
To see a cite or any sort of debate. Contrary to the media’s narrative, Ukraine is not a poor betrodden country but a money laundering area for Biden and his cronies. Do not give it legitimacy.
Pew has the latest numbers just out if you care to check them. They do not support your ludicrous claim.
Read between the lines, and you can hear two prophetic quotes ringing so loudly and shamefully about all of our politicians feeding off the spoils of war around the globe for the past 150+ years. It won’t be long before they are calling for our American youth to spill more blood in another of their war-boondoggles. VDH is brilliant as usual, but he could’ve saved print by merely stating two sentences:
1. “War is a Racket.” ~ Major General Smedly D. Butler. He had served 34 years, received 16 medals/5 for heroism, including a 2 Medal’s of Honor.
2. “Beware of the Military-Industrial Complex.” ~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and 5-Star General. During his presidential farewell address, he warned the American people to beware of the greed and incestuous relationship of the military and industrial powerful to wage war for profit.
Question: When this war stops & both sides return home – How exactly is the Ukraine going to rebuild? Who exactly is going to pick up that tab??? If the US- explain why? We have spent trillions now they expect us to spend a couple more trillion? What exactly have they done to deserve this $$$? They done more for us that say Taiwan or the Philippines or say Chicago? Is this truly a democratic country? Reviewing its history & today it ain’t what George Washington would say a demo country should be & was the Current leader elected? Anyone checking to see how much $$$ is going into his pockets? I am against another penny headed that way
You can read up on this issue. Ukraine is working overtime to line up a list of countries and private firms to spread the cost out. The Europeans will be having a summit this summer to discuss this very issue.
The probability is it will be US funded. That is what history suggests. Further, that the US gifts Iran billions of $, that the US gifts the Taliban billions of $, that the US funded what amounts to biowarfare research in a biolab in Wuhan managed by China military, suggests a foreign policy that profits with war and that is hell bent on more.
So who do you trust? Where are you getting the facts you state above. Insinuation is not refutation.
“Border dispute”? Ukrainian corruption/interference, dangerous US stockpile depletion, nuclear threats, etc., yes, but . . . I still resonate with Piers Morgan’s call against appeasement.
Gibbs! Bless you. Could you please say a little more! The hatred and Putin-love in these comments is palpable.
Thank you VDH. Devasting summary with great future consequences for USA.
I believe that Jill Biden is a nice and well intentioned person. But I wonder if her role in the current administration will continue to evolve. Will the “Doctor” continue to be a trusted surrogate communicator (like Eleanor Roosevelt)? Or will she evolve into a supervisorary Chief-of-Staff and/or co-president (like Edith Wilson, after Woodrow’s undeniable stroke)? Instead of misapplying the 14th amendment against Trump (written to stop ex-Confederate leaders running for office after the Civil War), why not correctly apply the 25th amendment for Biden’s progressive incapacitation? (progressive IS meant as a pun). Time is not on Ukraine’s side. A negotiation from weakness will result in a Versailles type treaty, that succeeded only in transforming the armistice to a 20 year cease fire.
Well said, Rand Voorhies!
Ukrainian nazis ( were helping German in death camps as guards) killed my great grandfather after WWII. He was an old man and not a treat to anybody. Ukrainian shut him.
They are not nice people and I am surprised that Poland is helping them. Maybe that is order from Washington DC . Otherwise I don’t understand why Poland is helping Ukraine if they still didn’t apologized for genocide of 200,000 Pols in Wolyn.
The Ukrainians have begun to find the courage to apologize and the Poles to forgive. Suffering is a great teacher. It will be a process.
Remember, the President of Ukraine is a Jew. That would have been unthinkable before the Euromaiden. Noah Rothman has a good article about current Polish-Ukrainian relations up at National Review Online.
The amount of ignorance about Ukraine and Russia is obvious. Look at the demographics for both countries and see that each will cease to exist before the turn of the next century. While for Russia this is the last hurrah of imperial (yes, that’s the word) Russia to guarantee its old borders and preserve the existence of a country doomed to extinction (obviously Putin cannot see the hand writing on the wall), Ukraine pulses with nationalism as it has for many centuries and always, in the end, become subject to more powerful neighbors. What we have is a war of attrition between to nations, one of whom cannot win such a war, and the other who will lose eventually to the other nations ready to subsume its territories. We are watching a total waste of materials, financial resources, and peoples in what is the ultimate stupidity to a status quo that cannot last more than a decade. In twenty years regardless of what military victories may be achieved, the population of Ukraine will brow much older and no new generation will be born to take its place. The Russians will also suffer that same fate as each generation to come will be much smaller until there are no survivors. This is merely a race to oblivion for both parties.
Not a penny more for Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine had voted to return to Russia in 2013. The US helped to overturn the elected Russian seeking president in 2014. Western Ukrainians have shelled many cities in eastern Ukraine for 9 years. Cease fire, let the chips fall where they may.
After all is said and history proves it with napoleon and the Nazis ,attacking Russia is a loosing proposition . Putin may well be a psychotic killer but to say he didn’t see 10 years of the continual surrounding by NATO as a threat and to see parts of his historic country nipped away along with nuclear warheads at it border certainly provided a reason that is seen as legitimate by an actual majority of countries in the world . Couple that with the large minority of Russians in Ukraine demanding equal rights and you see a case for some kind of action. I have however , no doubt that with certain concessions this war would have never taken place had Trump remained in office.
I agree that the Ukraine was involved in meddling in US politics and elections – however, they certainly didn’t do it on their own. They were brought in by the Democrats, in particular by Joe Biden (quid pro quo bribery), Hillary Clinton (Russian collusion hoax), Nancy Pelosi (impeachment), and the DNC (election influencing). All of the above was either aided and/or abetted by the DOJ (Rod Rosenstein), and FBI (James Comey, Christopher Wray (Hunter laptop etc)). Don’t forget the CIA (51 signees of the infamous “Russian disinformation” laptop letter) which contributed to election influencing. The media lackeys of the Democrat party both amplified and propagandized the Democrat machinations like the “useful idiots” that they are.
My point is that it was an inside job that enlisted outside entities to get their dirty work done. IMO it could not have been accomplished by Ukraine without those inside facilitators.
The Russian-Ukraine war is the fallout of two weak Presidents: Obama, and Biden. Obama’s naivete, and Biden’s stupidity, combined with his loss of mental faculties (he was always stupid), presented opportunities that could not be passed up by adversaries. Without those two dreadfully weak Presidents, none of this would be happening – again, it’s an inside job. Americans elected both of these terrible Presidents.
Well said, Hober Mallow. Let’s keep our focus in the right place!
2013 Ukrainians appeal to the United States to overthrow the Ukrainian president who is pro-Russian while Joe Biden was vice-president.
2015 Joe Biden threatens to stop aid to Ukraine unless the investigator of his son’s company in Ukraine is fired. Bidens are thought to have received millions of dollars in money in exchange for political influence.
2015-2016 Democrat National Committee hires a Ukrainian-American consultant who then works with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington D.C. to harass Paul Manafort, an attorney for Trump while also working with Ukrainian sources to promote Trump-Russian collusion to harass Trump.
2016 Ukrainian ambassador writes an article for an American newspaper to promote Trump-Russian collusion.
2019 Ukrainian-American military officer who later becomes a Ukrainian arms dealer and a CIA agent who later becomes an advocate for Ukrainian membership in NATO, work to impeach Trump.
2022 Ukrainians appeal to the United States for aid to overthrow Russia while Joe Biden is president.
The US is the biggest player on the block. That obliges us to work with everyone and everyone to work with us. You could present a timeline like this for Israel, Liberia, and Venezuela.
Salient point that other nations have interacted in formal ways with the United States over periods of time.
This timeline does show an alignment of interests. It is yet to be proven that there was an exchange of services, agreements, and partnerships.
Who has benefitted from these actions? Who has not gained an advantage?
Answering these questions shows an alignment of interests.
Only to the degree that other facts are excluded. Correlation is not causation.
Seeking to humiliate a powerful enemy rarely works out well. Even if you are victorious for the moment, the war will continue until one side is ultimately destroyed. For example, the humiliation of Germany and middle eastern nations in WWI directly lead to WWII and beyond. Remember Sykes/Picot! You can still hear that chant if you listen in mid-east protests!
I have not heard or read the benefits of defending the Ukraine where the risk definition is very profound and accepted by all commentators.
I think I get what you’re saying, but could you clarify a bit? Do you mean that you can’t find anyone who supports Ukraine even if it means nuclear war?
This was a somewhat lengthy Juneteenth (Second Independence Day) piece. The title forgot to mention the purpose of the ancient Gordian knot, at Gordium in modern-day Islamic Turkey, which purported to transmit control of Asia (Turkey) to whomever untied the knot. Presently the Alexander we need is not some Vindman, whom my impression of was much the same vein as those retired generals and active Congresspersons who wear the two-faced American and Ukrainian (or Israeli) flag pins — which one do they really serve? No one can serve two masters, rather we should say they serve themselves. But where is our Alexander the Great who in service to himself will serve his people and his nation? Whoever cuts violently through the Ukrainian knot will control the foreseeable future of Europe.
The piece implied the prize of the Ukrainian Knot was control or direct influence of the United States government. That role is permanently occupied by the globalist corporations. A new war every four to five years keeps hundreds of billions of dollars flowing to American workers and industries whose so-called representatives ensure these new wars or regime changes take place on schedule. There were no new wars under President Trump because the swamp was frenetic covering up Pizzagate and preparing for the Domestic Regime Change of the Plandemic (global Great Reset).
Victor N., that was a really elegant and erudite first paragraph. Even though we don’t often agree, I want to give you official “props!” For a keen piece of writing.