TRUMP’S GOP AND PUTIN: PARTNERS IN PERFIDY

Many Republicans today, led by former President Trump, maintain that Putin’s war against Ukraine is none of our business. America First, they say. Trump First would be a far more accurate description of Republican loyalties.

The war in Ukraine is very much our business. Thirty years ago, the United States applied enormous pressure on Ukraine to surrender to Russia all of the nuclear warheads it held on its territory following the collapse of the Soviet Union. America, along with Great Britain and Russia, gave written formal assurances that in return for Ukraine relinquishing to Russia (for dismantling purposes) the nuclear weapons in Ukraine’s possession, we, along with the British and the Russians, would “respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of its borders, and refrain from the use or threat of military force.” Imagine that.

 That was a hard commitment we demanded of Ukraine in return for what has turned out to be a soft commitment that Trump and the Trump Republicans in Congress have been unwilling to honor. If the United States were to allow the Trumpian Republicans to choke off continued support of Ukraine, we would, deservedly, have secured for ourselves a dark page in history.

Donald Trump and those Trump Republicans in Congress conveniently forget, or, more likely, are simply ignorant of the price Ukraine is paying for its reliance on the assurances the United States made to it thirty years ago.

Nonetheless, those commitments were codified in the so-called 1994 Budapest Memorandum of Understanding. It was a kumbaya naïve moment in American diplomacy. The Republicans in Congress led by Donald Trump are today totally dismissive of the assurances we made to Ukraine. Ukraine, today, is paying the price for that memorandum of understanding we and Russia formally gave to Ukraine, that Trump and his congressional sycophants ignore as they hold up funding for the material support we promised in return for Ukraine transferring nuclear warheads to Russia for decommissioning.

The State of the War

It is doubtful that Vladimir Putin will win his unprovoked war against Ukraine. Yet, to Putin, losing is unthinkable and possibly lethal. He has cost Russia an estimated 315,000 war dead and wounded. The Ukrainian toll of dead and wounded was estimated at 383,000 at the end of last year. So, Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine has, so far, claimed roughly 700,000 Russian and Ukrainian casualties. Putin is the proverbial dog that has caught the car. There is no way the war can end well for Vladimir Putin.

Putin is done in the West. Perhaps he will continue to be well received in China or North Korea and, of course, in the puppet state of Belarus, but not in many other countries. Even worse for Putin, his aggression against Ukraine has driven Finland, which has an 830-mile border with Russia, as well as traditionally neutral Sweden solidly into the NATO orbit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is widely regarded as a courageous leader of a besieged nation, while Vladimir Putin has deservedly earned the enmity of much of the world.

Putin knows perfectly well that few Ukrainians will ever accept him as their leader or Russia as their homeland. He is responsible for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian casualties, and there is now no way he can end the fighting and withdraw from Ukrainian territory without a massive loss of face. And the loss of face within the walls of the Kremlin is probably a death sentence.

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated three unassailable facts.

1. Russia never intended to keep its written 1994 commitment to respect Ukrainian independence.

2. The Trump Republicans in Congress are no more trustworthy than the Russians in the Kremlin.

3. Russia will not conquer Ukraine, but Russia will be difficult to expel from Crimea and the other land Putin has grabbed from Ukraine since starting this war two years ago.

Russia has many times more men and equipment to sacrifice than Ukraine. Here, according to Statista, a global data and intelligence service, is how the two countries match up in manpower and munitions.

Russia Ukraine

Personnel

Active soldiers 1,320,000 900,000

Reserve forces 2,000,000 1,200,000

Paramilitary units 250,000 100,000

Air force

Total aircraft 4,255 321

Total helicopters 1,547 130

Fighter planes 809 72

Dedicated attack aircraft 730 30

Attack helicopters 559 33

Trainers 552 73

Transport aircraft 453 24

Nonetheless, Ukraine is proving to be more determined and resourceful, as nations often are when defending themselves against blatant and unprovoked aggression. The Ukrainians have exacted an enormous toll on the Russian invaders. Russia can no longer rely on conscripts from its far eastern provinces east of the Ural Mountains and far away from its more densely populated urban centers such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russian body bags are now returning home throughout Russia, something Putin never contemplated when he started this bloodletting precisely two years ago this week.

The carnage Vladimir Putin has visited on Ukraine reflects his doomed determination to resurrect as much of the old Russian empire as he can when, in reality, he can restore none of it. While he dreams of Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible and eschews the reigns of the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and yes, the Romanovs, he is, in many respects, as one with them all. While their rule was secured by bloodline, Putin’s rule is secured by rigged elections and murder, as he demonstrated last week with the murder of Alexei Navalny.

Putin’s war against Ukraine has not gone well, and the cost in blood and treasure far exceeds what Putin ever imagined when he embarked on the road to Kyiv two years ago. 315,000 Russian casualties later, Kyiv is still firmly in Ukrainian hands.  

Small wonder then that the Reuters News Agency has reported that Putin is willing to suspend or freeze the war in place, which would mean Ukraine surrendering much of eastern Ukraine and Crimea to Russia. It is an equally small wonder that no one is interested in rewarding any of Putin’s aggression by surrendering territory to him. Putin is, indeed, the dog that caught the car.

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Please consider our Of Thee I Sing 1776 Premium option. While my weekly column is always free, for just $5/month, you’ll also receive my annual ebook, “Essays For Our Time,” and my new Podcasts.

https://oftheeising1776.substack.com/subscribe.

Novels by Hal Gershowitz