Stand With Ukraine

 On 24 February 2022 Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, under wicked and false pretenses. After Russian forces surrounded Ukraine on three sides, including its long border with Belarus to the north, Russian armed forces began assaults from air, land, and sea. As I write, now almost 72 hours on (Saturday), the Russian Army is trying to take Kyiv and Kharkiv but meeting determined resistance from the Ukrainian Army – and the Ukrainian people.

What will the outcome of this be? Certainly a lot of death and suffering. The Russians claim not to be targeting civilians but there are too many reports of schools, residential areas, and hospitals being struck by a variety of munitions to give much credence to the Russian claims. There have been civilian deaths but no one has released any figures to date. There are videos of Ukrainian troops fighting Russians with antitank weapons from the UK. It appears now that the prime target is Kyiv but despite the force applied by Russia Ukraine holds Kyiv.

There are real differences in the opposing forces. The Russian Army is larger and has good equipment. It remains largely a force of conscripts; Russia requires every male to serve a year in the armed forces. There is increasing evidence that its morale is not the best with troops questioning why they are killing Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have materially improved their army since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, in no small part because of the U.S. and NATO countries providing training and arms. Please remember that Putin’s lapdog, Trump, withheld weapons from Ukraine for personal political reasons for which he was impeached. I also hope that every Republican (Russia Party) senator who voted to acquit then is feeling particularly shitty right now, but that would take conscience, ethics, and morals which is sorely lacking there. The Ukrainians are fighting on their own ground, defending their country from an aggressor. Putin, who claims to be a student of history, may have missed the quote from Napoleon that said in war, moral power is to the physical as three parts out of four. Clearly, the moral edge is with the Ukrainians.

There is also another interesting fact about war. General Omar Bradley is reported to have said that “Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics.” Twitter is replete with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan pointing out the 72-hour point of an assault, when the food, fuel, and ammunition carried by the front-line troops runs out. The U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force developed logistics to a fine science and art but even then it got stretched at the point of contact. The Russians, not as much. Reports are filtering in of Russian troops scrounging food and gasoline from Ukrainian civilians. I believe if that is true it is a hopeful sign that Putin miscalculated badly. Troops need food (another famous Napoleon quote, an army marches on its stomach), their vehicles need fuel (lots of fuel), and their weapons need bullets. 

Ukraine has suffered much over many centuries. As the breadbasket of Europe, it was a political football for all of its neighbors and it has been invaded, divided, subsumed, and tortured many times. The Ukrainians have been toughened by history. We see that when a Ukrainian babushka fearlessly walks up to Russian soldiers, advising them to put sunflower seeds in their pocket so their bodies can fertilize them in Ukrainian soil. Or the border guards on Zmiinyi Island (Snake Island) who replied to a Russian warship when asked to surrender, “Russian warship, go f*** yourself” before they were all killed. 

The West (shades of the Cold War), led by a real U.S. President, is applying economic sanctions that will bite deeply into the kleptocratic oligarchs that support Putin. The U.S. and NATO continue to ship arms to Ukraine to deal with Russian armor and air power. And even neutral nations such as Finland and Sweden are backing resistance to the new Russian Tsar. Oh, and the common people in Russia are risking their lives protesting in the streets. Yes, we don’t know how this will turn out and it could be utterly grim for the planet if the madman in Moscow decides he will use nukes. We must all remember this is a fight for democracy. Ukraine and the West did not cause this. Putin and his minions, including the Russia Party and Trump, are to blame. Ukrainians are dying – women, children, men – because of a sociopathic madman. When the price of gasoline or bread goes up here in the United States, I for one do not want to hear any whining and griping from Americans. We are all Ukrainians now.