Unhappy Anniversary

One year ago, Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine, forcing some six million Ukrainians to flee the country, creating approximately 100,000 casualties on each side, and destroying much of the Ukrainian infrastructure. Many Ukrainians have been kidnapped and sent to Russia for “reeducation” and thousands of tanks and armored vehicles have been lost. 

Buildings housing civilians have been bombed resulting in death and homelessness. Forty percent of Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity has been destroyed, and the Ukrainian economy has shrunk by 30%. 

Some have sought or wished for a cease-fire declared in order to end the carnage. 

This will likely not happen because any ceasefire would leave Russia in control of 30% of Ukrainian territory and in a position to declare a Russian military victory as a propaganda victory that it would use to pursue expansionist plans into a number of bordering states.

This is the most serious breach of peace in Europe since 1939. 

Many Russian apologists seek to blame the West for Russia’s actions, claiming that NATO “expansion” is to blame. NATO does not expand unilaterally. Membership is freely sought by independent states, and it is their right as sovereign states to join whatever alliance they wish as long as they do not violate the United Nations Charter.  

In this case, Russia, a veto-holding member of the Security Council, violated the Charter willingly, claiming falsely that the Ukrainian government was a dictatorship run by “Nazis”, and that they were on the verge of attacking Russia. They proceeded to de-humanize Ukrainians claiming that the country had no right to exist and that its people are somehow subhuman.

Where have we heard this kind of rhetoric before? I recall that labelling people as subhuman was the way Nazi Germany justified its expansionist plans that resulted in the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is also an argument that Hutus used during the 1994 massacre of over a million Tutsis in Rwanda.

Labelling others as “subhuman” is the basis for genocide, ethnic cleansing, or whatever else one wishes to name the destruction of a country, a culture, and the disappearance of a population – either by death or exile.

On February 18th, at this year’s Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stated that the official position of the United States is that Russia has carried out “Crimes Against Humanity”. 

Still, Ukrainian lawmakers want the global community to do more than offer symbolic gestures. They are calling for an international tribunal to be established to discuss these crimes and also to have some verdicts, because they want people to be punished for what they have done in Ukraine and what they continue to do every day. Ukrainian leaders cannot make a deal with Putin as long as there is no guarantee that Putin will hold his end of the deal.

According to James Landale of the BBC, ambivalent opinions held by leaders across Africa, Asia, and Latin America (for a variety of reasons some of which have little to do with Ukraine), must be addressed, and Western powers must urgently remake the case for defending Ukraine. This list includes India, Bolivia, Honduras, Lesotho, South Africa, and 31 other states mostly in Africa and Latin America.   

Some of these countries’ leaders are dictators or would-be dictators seeing in Vladimir Putin a leader who shows how to gain and exert absolute power. Others believe that Russia continues to be a leftist state (as was its predecessor the USSR) requiring their ideological support as occurred when 1960’e communism held sway.

Yet others enjoy sticking it to the West even if this means supporting the wanton destruction of an independent state and the slaughter of a people.

Western leaders must not only focus on how other states support Russia directly or indirectly. A good number of right-wing Republican Members of Congress are questioning the administration’s costly support for Ukraine, and some are outright questioning blaming the Russians for the invasion. Extremist right-wing leaders in Europe are questioning the current blaming of Russia – even NATO member Viktor Orban of Hungary.

This risks dividing public opinion in NATO and European Union countries, and is a clear and present danger to Western unity on this critical situation.

If Ukraine eventually wins, Russians repatriate their soldiers, bury their dead, and decide if they can continue to support the current leadership.

If Russia wins, a free country becomes extinct, a culture is destroyed, and millions of people are either prisoners of a conquering state or live in exile.

Either way, peace appears to be a far-off option as both Russia and Ukraine play a zero-sum game.

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Keep reading: A Nail in Our Coffin

Edition: Estefanía Cardeña