I was a little surprised, this Friday morning, to see in my inbox a newsletter from Thinkspot, which was Jordan Peterson’s social media site. A glitch in the matrix, perhaps, since I’m not subscribed to any of their newsletters. But I was intrigued by the lead article, entitled: “A Political Tsunami Is Breaking In Europe That Threatens To Wipe Away Support For The Ukraine War”. That’s odd, I thought: why hadn’t I heard about this tsunami? So, dear reader, I clicked on it.
The article is written by David Reavill, a Pennsylvanian whose John Bolton-esque moustache screamed “conservative” to me, an assessment confirmed by his writings – at least on fiscal matters. But with his negative attitude towards U.S. support for Ukraine, he doesn’t seem too far removed from the GOP’s Matt Gaetz or Vivek Ramaswamy. And I think it’s worth exploring his arguments, not because he has good ones, but because it reveals how some on the U.S. political right can rationalise shafting an ally.
Firstly, Reavill says that back in 2014, the Donbas was occupied “principally by ethnic Russians”. This is a common misconception, but the truth is that the 2001 census showed that only 38.5% of the population of the Donbas (i.e., Donetsk and Luhansk) were ethnically Russian, with 57.2% being ethnically Ukrainian. This might explain why 83.9% of voters in the region chose independence from Russia in 1991, and why, when the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from the presidency in 2014, he choked at an attempt to have the Eastern and Southern regions declare independence from Kyiv (before fleeing to Russia). Even in Crimea, where there is an ethnic Russian majority, the then-leader of the Russian invasion Igor Girkin had to force the regional members of parliament to declare a fake “referendum” on Crimean independence, in which both options on the ballot were “yes”.
Of course, it’s perfectly true that there is an East-West split in Ukraine, and that those in the East have tended to favour more pro-Russian political candidates, while those in the West have been more pro-EU. But voting for close links with Russia isn’t the same as wanting to be part of Russia. However, it’s also worth noting that many in the Donbas did collaborate with Russia in 2014, although as it was put to me recently by a former Ukrainian diplomat, a key reason may well have been that Russia simply pays better salaries to those on the government payroll than does Ukraine. Also, the local militias – little more than criminal gangs – have been able to extort the local population ever since. Financial self-interest may have been a decisive factor enabling Russia to seize the institutions of government.
Reavill goes on to say:
There were accusations [in 2014–15] that portions of the Ukraine Military (the Azov Battalion) had been shelling these people. It was alleged that up to 14,000 had died in the decade before the [Minsk] negotiations.
Here, Reavill is simply confused. When it was formed in 2014 (and not by Stepan Bandera, as he elsewhere claims), Azov was not formally part of the Ukrainian military, and there had been no shelling at all “in the decade before” – Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine at that point. There’s a serious problem over dates. But what Reavill is clumsily referring to is Russia’s attempted quasi-legal justification for the full-scale invasion of 2022, in which it was claimed that same number of civilians in the Russian-occupied Donbas had been killed by Ukraine since 2014. Russia called it genocide. But Ukraine brought Russia to the International Court of Justice on this point, and Russia was unable to substantiate these allegations in any way, leading the court to order Russia to cease military operations. (Russia is still trying to fight this on the question of jurisdiction.)
What had been happening – and which was being monitored by the OSCE during this time – was sporadic artillery fire from both sides of the line of control against enemy positions. Yevgheny Prigozhin confirmed this on the afternoon of his mutiny attempt:
We fired at them, they fired at us, and this was happening for all these long eight years. Sometimes the number of firefights would increase, sometimes it would reduce.
We do know, however, that during the invasion of 2014–15 and in their occupation of the Donbas, Russia committed the same kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity that they’re still committing today.
Reavill goes on to say:
Not only was the timing of these [Minsk] negotiations a surprise, but they occurred fully eight years before the War [sic] between Russia and Ukraine began.
At this point, readers might be forgiven for thinking I’ve simply picked on Reavill’s article because of the astonishing levels of ignorance (and idiosyncratic capitalisation) on display. But the problem is that practically every pro-Russian claim is complete balls, and practically nothing is so stupid that some people won’t check it. All I can do is try to correct the record.
Reavill is surprised that negotiations were underway to end hostilities in 2014–15, because as far as he knows, there was no war. He seems to believe that Donetsk and Luhansk were merely (as he describes them) “breakaway regions”, and, presumably, that there was a sudden emergence of a militant independence movement in the region, and not an invasion (“war”) by Russia. However, the “little green men” so talked about at the time were, in fact, soldiers under the control of Russia who invaded the Donbas (partly Russian special forces, partly Donetsk and Luhansk militias), including Russian GRU and FSB officers.
Russian heavy equipment was moved into Ukraine for that operation, including the Buk missile system that shot down MH17. Much of this has been admitted by “former” FSB Colonel Igor Girkin, confirmed through open-source intelligence, detailed by Ukraine, and beyond reasonable doubt. Russia has even been awarding medals for that phase of the war, while (e.g.) reciprocally the Donetsk People’s Republic has awarded medals to the likes of Russian General Valery Gerasimov as well as Yevgheny Prigozhin, whose Wagner Group was formed for this invasion – and which we now know without any doubt was an asset of the Russian state. And of course, the official Russian annexation of Crimea was well out in the open.
I can forgive Reavill for not being aware of every detail, but the general lack of awareness that anything nefarious had been done by Russia in 2014 is somewhat alarming. Reavill then goes on to make very odd remarks about the Minsk negotiations:
But [Angela Merkel’s] statement that her objective during the negotiations “was an attempt to give Ukraine time”. In other words, it is time to build up Ukraine’s military in its ultimate conflict with Russia.
It was duplicity at the highest level.
I’ve written about the Minsk Agreements previously, but I’m bemused by Reavill’s assessment that Merkel was “duplicitous”. It’s true that on the Ukrainian side – and as former president Petro Poroshenko has admitted – there was a desire to buy time: the Ukrainian army was in disarray. That’s hardly shocking. On the Russian side, they were concerned that the U.S. might supply weapons, and so it was also convenient for them to buy time and come back later (as, of course, they did). Again, not much of a surprise, and not really a Keith Olbermann “sir!” moment.
However, I don’t think Merkel is being honest if she’s claiming that Minsk was intended by her to buy time for Ukraine, although it ended up having that effect (Google’s translation is dubious). Her motivations were fairly obviously (a) to stop the war getting out of hand, and (b) to be able to continue doing business with Russia. Her motivations now are to preserve her reputation by claiming to have been on Ukraine’s side. And if Merkel had intended to buy Ukraine time, Germany might have done something to help Ukraine build up its defences during that time – like the U.K.’s Operation Orbital, for instance. But that would have upset Moscow. So if Merkel was duplicitous, it was in claiming to believe in Ukrainian national sovereignty while doing everything possible to soothe Putin and to make her country dependent on Russian gas.
In fact, rather than the strange notion that Germany was some kind of Machiavel helping Ukraine behind the scenes, its policy since at least Gerhard Schröder’s time can best be described as unilateral disarmament towards Russia. Schröder – who became Gazprom’s man overseeing Nord Stream minutes after leaving office – shut down the BND’s counter-intelligence efforts in 1997, and the agency was, and probably still is, severely penetrated. The decision to go ahead with Nord Stream 2 was likely tainted by Russian spies, and the lamentable state of Germany’s armed forces under Merkel (and Ursula von der Leyen) generated international ridicule, with barely any fighter aircraft in service, and with soldiers being forced to use broomsticks instead of rifles in a NATO exercise. Reavill’s claims are therefore almost as silly as those of Seymour Hersh, whose top secret source said – without a trace of irony – that Hungary is a leading supporter of Ukraine.
Reavill goes on to say:
And [Merkel’s comments] destroyed the “Ukraine Narrative” developed by NATO. This narrative said the Russian invasion of Ukraine was completely unprovoked and was a complete surprise to the Western Allies. At the very least, NATO, the United States, and Europe had been preparing for this conflict for eight years.
If NATO really had been preparing for a full-scale Russian invasion, it might have provided a bit more than a few NLAWs and Javelins. Very few people expected Ukraine to survive a full-scale invasion, and the fact that they have survived is in large part due to the heroic defence of Kyiv (and, crucially, Hostomel Airport), as documented by Col. John Spencer.
And Russia, of course, did launch an unprovoked attack in 2014, and again in 2022. Nothing Merkel has said about Minsk is even remotely relevant to that. Putin, for his part, has claimed that Ukraine is not a real country, and consequently there’s nothing wrong with attacking it; while on the world stage he’s made false accusations of genocide in order to justify it. He’s also tried to claim that Ukrainians and Russians are really just one cute Slavic brotherhood (which should be governed by Russia, naturally, because Ukrainians are inferior and led by drug-addicted neo-Nazis, of course). Like Hillary Clinton’s accent, the explanation changes with the audience.
But it’s really about plunder (as Prigozhin pointed out), as well as political and economic power, and partly to do with ethnic demography. It forms part of an attempt to restore at least some of the old borders of the USSR – the collapse of which was a tragedy to Putin (although he did get away from Dresden with a washing machine, in typical Russian fashion). The aim is to bring as many states as possible – beginning with Georgia and Ukraine – into the Russian Federation. And if it had anything to do with Putin feeling threatened by NATO, then why doesn’t he care about Finland or Sweden gaining membership, even to the point of moving troops away from its borders with Finland and Norway?
Of course, that’s not the full story. Putin did care very much about NATO membership for Ukraine, but only because that would have prevented him from looting and pillaging the place. That’s something the likes of Peter Hitchens don’t seem able to grasp (while ignoring Ukraine’s wishes). But then, Peter Hitchens thinks Euromaidan was a coup, largely (it seems) because of the leaked Victoria Nuland phone call. Perhaps he’s unaware that Nuland was there completely openly in order to broker an agreement between Yanukovych and opposition leaders. But I digress. The point is that if anyone supposes that Euromaidan or anything that happened in 2014 or later was the true, underlying reason for the Russian invasion, note that Russia had been preparing its people to invade Ukraine since at least 2011, and it’s likely the decision was actually made in 2008.
Reavill then tries to make a connection between Merkel’s comments about Minsk and the spat between Ukraine and Poland over grain exports. Much like the spat with Ben Wallace, I found that spectacle unedifying but understandable. Poland’s farmers don’t want cheap Ukrainian grain ending up on the European market, and they have a powerful voice in Poland’s upcoming elections. Similarly, Zelenskyy and his country are in the fight of their life, and they need all the help they can get. But if I agree with anything Reavill has said, it’s that Zelenskyy’s tone can sometimes be badly off. His speech to Israel’s Knesset in 2022 went down, as I said at the time, like “a cup of cold sick”. But we all have our faults, and I know that I can sometimes be bullish when I should be polite and conciliatory.
Reavill then goes on to suggest Merkel’s comments have given rise to Poland saying it won’t supply more weaponry to Ukraine. Nobody really cares what Merkel says anymore, but in fact Poland has clarified that it’s simply committed as much weaponry as is available, and that those commitments will be fulfilled. Poland has since affirmed its ongoing commitment to support Ukraine, including with diplomatic support for EU and NATO membership, and as a transport hub for weaponry entering the country, until victory. So it all seems a bit of a stretch.
In fact, Reavill doesn’t just misunderstand the past and the present, but in my view he also misreads the future. There have been some recent diplomatic and political setbacks for Ukraine, with troublesome moves in the U.S. Congress, a disappointing election result in Slovakia, and an absurd display in the Canadian Parliament. At the same time, the real battle to dislodge Russian forces from Ukraine is proving very tough. But nothing has changed very much, and it’s simply otiose to ignore the reality on the ground in hopes of finding something meaningful in the political tea leaves.
On this point, it does seem that many on the political right in the U.S. are looking to find reasons not to support Ukraine. Perhaps in large part it’s because the Biden administration supports Ukraine – so obviously there must be something wrong. And for the more conspiratorially-minded, it might be because there’s a bipartisan agreement on Ukraine – and the “uni-party” is always deceptive in some way. But the facts are very straightforward for anyone with an ounce of decency and honour, and those are that we must continue to support our ally Ukraine in its fight against a cruel and barbaric invasion that blatantly violates international law, the hideous accomplishment of which would embolden our enemies to do things so destabilising to our security and way of life that few can but dimly perceive them at this point.
And doing so comes cheap. But Ukrainian lives don’t come so cheaply as the ignorance and apathy of others.
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