Special Issue: Two Years After the Invasion of Ukraine
The Rescue and Liberation of the Old
This month I have been dedicating my substack newsletter to stories about black voting strength, histories, and politics. I still have a few articles left in the works; especially focused on the fight for black representation in Tallahassee - the Florida capital. However, I needed to take a quick aside to write this post. We are now at the 2 year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I wanted to send out this article to discuss my plans for Ukraine coverage over the rest of the year and to remind my readers why backing this emerging democracy is so important.
I plan to do a major series of articles covering the history of the Ukrainian people, the fight for an independent state, and the Democratic history of the nation. I will discuss that more in a moment, but first, lets talk about the current situation.
Russia’s Invasion
On February 24th, 2022, Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. This invasion came after months of arms buildup along the Ukrainian border with Russia and Belarus - a puppet state of Russia. Putin hoped for a quick victory of Ukraine. Russia aimed to continue moving along the eastern border, which as we know already had break-away regions that emerged after Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. Russia invaded from the North, hoping to take Kiev and capture President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. No doubt if Zelenskyy had been captured, he’d have been killed.
Instead of a quick fall of the capital, Ukrainian forces held off the Northern invasion. Russia was clearly ill-prepared for a long war, and Ukraine was able to beat back the invasion of the capital. Russia clearly believed they could break the spirit of the Ukrainian people and get a quick win. This did not happen, and Ukraine proved to be a strong state. An excellent account of the first phase of the war can be seen here. The Kings and Generals Channel perfectly highlighted how the first month of the war went and why it was a Ukraine victory.
The defeat of Russian forces in the North guaranteed that a quick Russian victory was off the table. Instead, the war began to focus much more in the east. While it has been claimed as a stalemate for some time, it is worth remembering several eastern and southern provinces were re-captured by Ukraine after the battle of Kyiv. The current state of control in Ukraine can be seen below. The blue lands are areas Russia took but then lost back to the Ukrainian Government. The red remains in Russian control.
Ukraine has fought this war without major influxes of foreign troops. It has instead relied on NATO and US allies for financial and military aid. Democracies have dedicated billions to keep Ukraine’s civil government running and fund its war efforts. However, in recent months the situation in Ukraine has gotten worse as US funding for the effort have led to ammunition shortages.
But I will talk more about the current political situation at the end of this article. I want to delve into WHY Ukraine did not collapse in the invasion.
Ukraine Unity and Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Russia clearly believed that the war in Ukraine would be quick; believing that the people would quickly capitulate to annexation and that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would not be able to handle the crisis.
I think a good comparison for the invasion of Ukraine is the fall of Afghanistan the year before. In the summer of 2021, the civilian government of Afghanistan was overrun by Taliban forces who now rule the country again after being driven out in 2001-2002. Afghanistan had emerged with Democratic elections beginning in 2004, but these elections were often rife with fraud, corruption, and deep tribal divisions. I wrote about Afghanistan’s democratic history shortly after the Taliban victory. You can read it below.
In my article, I pointed out that Afghanistan’s borders are thanks to the meddling of rival powers, namely the British and Russians, to make the nation a buffer between their two empires back in the 19th century. The nation was a massive mix of tribal groups that often did not get along or even have major interactions with each-other. The nation is so spread out that the North and South rarely interacted. In Afghanistan, the Democracy set up quickly became corrupted. Elections had plenty of credible accusations of ballot stuffing and administrations quickly became ineffective. As the Taliban gained power in the southern provinces and made their way to Kabul, President Ghani fled the nation, reportedly with millions in cash. With that, the Democratic experiment in Afghanistan failed; leaving people to suffer under an oppressive Islamic regime that has rolled back many of the civil liberties that had been established.
Russia clearly believed that Ukraine would be the same as Afghanistan. A quick invasion, a people divided and unwilling to die in a war, and a President who would flee rather than face capture and certain death. However, we all know this did not happen. Somehow, by fortune or divine providence, Volodymyr Zelenskyy proved to be the right man for the job. Zelenskyy refused to leave the capital, and rapidly worked to dispel myths he had fled. The US government offered to aid Zelenskyy in fleeing the capital and getting to the western city of Lviv. Zelenskyy went to the airwaves, recording a video from the capital, where he gave his infamous line
"I don't need a ride, I need more ammunition."
Those of you know follow me know I cover international elections plenty. I followed the 2019 election that put Zelenskyy in power. The race was historic because it saw an outsider win the Presidency in a nation that largely elected major power players to the office. In the runoff election, he easily bested incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, who’d been elected in 2014, by a landslide margin.
I think many of us understandably questioned if Zelenskyy, who’s claim to fame was being an actor, would be up for the job. Ukraine was a functioning democracy at this point, but it had many of corruption issues; like many post-Soviet states. Zelenskyy came in as a fresh face not tied to the old oligarchs, something very appealing to the Ukrainian people. However, could he weather this invasion? The clear answer was yes.
The best I can compare Zelenskyy to is Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. A man thrust into a brutal war that threatened to destroy his country. Instead of fleeing or negotiating a peace that would leave hundreds of thousands in the hands of an oppressive Russian regime, Zelenskyy has opted to fight for his nation. Like Lincoln, the war has taken tremendous emotional and physical toles on Zelenskyy. This article and the side-by-side photos show the effects of the war. This was just two months in, but countless articles have compared the ravages of the war up to the present day. This photo though, moves me beyond words.
This is a man who feels the weight of is nation on his back. If I may also share a personal note. As I right this paragraph and look at those photos, tears are welling up in my eyes.
It is no surprise that in 2022, Time Magazine named Zelenskyy as their person of the year.
Zelenskyy’s personal courage aside, that enough would not be to hold off Russia from taking the capital and the rest of the nation. No, this happened thanks to the unified spirit of the Ukrainian people. But how is this the case? According to Putin, the Stalinist far-left, and NAZI far-right right, Ukraine is a fake nation, not a real unique group of people.
That myth, based in a false reading of history, is what my article series will focus on.
Ukraine’s People and Democracy Series
Last year, in anticipation of the 1 year of the anniversary of the invasion, I planned an article looking at Ukraine’s Democratic elections after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, I found myself unable, or really unwilling, to summarize complex backstories and moments into a few thousand words. I instead resolved to read more, listen to more, and plan a much greater series of articles to delve deep into the history of this region. Ukraine as a nation, as a people, and even as a democracy, stretch back WELL before 1991.
My series will look not only at the emergence of “Ukraine” as a distinct group of people in the 18th and 19th centuries, but some of the forgotten elections pre-Soviet Union. This will include the elections of the late (and by that point dying) Austro-Hungarian Empire, but also the often-forgotten Democratic election in Russia in 1917. That election, following the ousting of the Tsar, showed the clear emergence of Ukraine as a distinct group, with provinces now making up the nation backing a Ukraine-specific Socialist Party.
This election’s results were rejected by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who would go on to win the Civil War, commit countless atrocities in Ukraine, and absorb the nation into the soon-to-be Soviet Union.
The bulk of my series will cover the elections that took place post-Soviet Union. This will include covering the independence drive in the early 1990s, which culminated with a 92% vote to become an independent state.
I will cover the often-overlooked important elections of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which showed the population push further away from the Russian sphere of influence. This would hit the international scene in 2004 when the Orange Revolution broke out after a rigged vote in favor of the Russian-friendly Viktor Yanukovych. The subsequent revote, held under close international observation, would see Viktor Yushchenko, a reformer, easily take the election.
That election would be the first major black eye to Putin, and set his vengeful gaze on the nation. He would spend years aiming to undermine the Ukraine economy, which would then be hurt even more by the Great Recession.
In 2010, voters in Ukraine would give Yanukovych a second try. In my series I will explain the complex politics behind that vote, and yes why it was a major mistake. Though I can’t judge Ukraine’s people too much, as there are apparently millions of people in this country willing to vote for failed-rigger-of-elections Donald Trump again.
I will also delve into a false narrative of east Ukraine being eager to join Russia. The divide we see in the Ukraine elections is economic, historic, and infinitely more complicated, as this handy graph from The Economist shows the divide among other nations.
I will delve into the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution, which ousted Yanukovych. That move came after he tried to move away from the EU and toward Russia, people began protests, and the President responded by trying to pass bills limiting free speech and press; as well as launching violent attacks on peaceful demonstrations. A good summary of the events is here.
Euromaidan is another perfect example of what the Stalanists and NAZIs both claim as a “CIA backed coup” - because that’s what everything they don’t like is. In fact it was a popular revolution against a President aiming to turn Ukraine into an autocracy. I will then delve into the Russian annexation of Crimea, the Russian-backed separatist movements in the far-east, and the rise of Zelenskyy to the Presidency.
This article series will come out bit by bit over the next several months. It is being worked on, researched, and not close to done. It is, however, my major project for this year. I’ve got a stack of 15 or so books, countless hours of podcasts, online research articles, documentaries, and so on. I hope that you all will read along as each piece comes out.
“America First”
So why am I dedicating so much time to a nation on the other side of the world. There is an important election in America this year. As I have said 100s of times on social media, this Presidential election is a fight for the very Democracy we have. We face a Republican Party increasingly moving to the far-right, abandoning any notion of pluralism, democratic values, or basic empathy. The GOP is poised to nominate a man who tried to steal the last election after his defeat. A man now indicted for a litany of crimes, who has been found liable for sexual assault, and who wraps himself in Christian nationalism despite his clear lack of actual faith. A man who fully intends to use a 2nd term to punish all his perceived enemies.
This is precisely why I am going to dedicate a great deal of my free time to the Ukraine story. Don’t worry I’ll be covering plenty of American politics, especially via this newsletter. However, as we have seen in recent weeks, Ukraine has become a battle-line in America. Currently funding for Ukraine, which is is desperately needed to aid their war effort, is being held up because the far-right Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, refuses to allow any vote on an aid bill that has already passed the Senate. Conservatives demanded border security be part of any funding package, but when a major border bill was proposed, they rejected it.
It comes as Donald Trump decries NATO, treating it like some sort of protection racket, and saying he’d encourage Russia to invade nations HE felt were not paying their way.
“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled telling [a foreign President]. “In fact, I would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”
I want to quickly counter a false conservatives talking point on this matter. The European continent has dedicated a great deal of funds to the effort. From a % of GDP perspective, many European nations well outpace us on this front. This graph, from September 2023, does not even account for recent additional EU funding programs.
Our aid to Ukraine is the equivalate of me buying a pack of gum. We do NOT hold up our end of the NATO bargain. For Trump, who cares nothing for democratic values or has any sense of right and wrong, these facts don’t matter.
While there is anti-Ukraine sentiment in both the far-left and far-right, the far-left has no power in Washington DC. In the Republican caucus, the far-right is now a majority of the party. These people, who embrace Trump’s “America First” mindset, are no different from the same "America First” organization of the 1930s. Those who said we shouldn’t aid the UK in their war with Germany, saying the war was already lost. The organization who’s biggest figure-head was Charles Lindbergh, a vehement racist and anti-Semite who privately extolled Fascist ideology.
The America First movement of the 1930s has not aged well in the history books. I believe the modern incarnation will fare no better.
So why focus on Ukraine? Because the battle lines in Ukraine are so similar to the battle lines in America. Democracy vs authoritarianism, freedom vs oppression, RIGHT vs WRONG. The Ukraine conflict is the most morally-clear war since WWII. It is only the worst kind of people holding funding up in DC right now.
So my Ukraine coverage will be an extension of my American election coverage. I know full well battles over funding the war effort will likely continue for some time here. We can only hope that Ukraine can hold on, despite our shortcomings, until… to borrow a Winston Churchill line…..
until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.