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In Ukraine, Theater of the Absurd
Diplomats, pundits, and journalists do not know what to call what is going on in the east of Ukraine. Is it a civil war, a Russian incursion, a pro-separatist rebellion sponsored by Russia, or a Russian invasion? The correct term is increasingly clear. It is Russia’s War Against East Ukraine. It began in May 2014. There are no prospects in sight for it to end.
The War of East Ukraine is pure theater of the absurd. The attacking country claims it has no involvement in the war, while sending in its tanks, APCs, missile launchers, mercenaries, and now regular troops that have chosen to “spend their vacations” being killed on the Ukrainian field of battle. Ukraine’s Western allies — if we can use that term — know these facts, but pretend that they are not certain, thus absolving themselves of the responsibility to do something.
The Ukrainian government in Kiev releases daily briefings on new Russian aggression — kilometer-long convoys of white Russian military trucks crossing the border at will; convoys of heavy weapons waiting until dusk to cross the unguarded border in plain sight of news reporters; captured Russian regulars (who somehow got lost) — a story which the New York Times publishes under the heading: “Ukrainian sources say….”
The Ukrainian theater of the absurd does not obscure certain undeniable facts: We know that the postwar anchor of stability – the acceptance of established borders – collapsed with the annexation of Crimea. We know that Russia is seeking to further redraw national boundaries in east Ukraine. We know that a hot war is going on that would fizzle out overnight without Russian equipment, propaganda, and troops. We know that lives are being lost by the thousands, infrastructure is being destroyed, trade relations have been disrupted, and tensions are high in countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc.
“What a shame”, Ukraine’s “allies” sigh collectively. “What an inconvenience. We could have limited our response to cheap talk had it not been for separatists blowing a Malaysian passenger aircraft out of the sky. Politically, there was no choice after that unfortunate event but to impose sanctions that imperil our own economic recovery and drive Russia deeper into autarky. At least the Russians do not behead captive journalists. Then we’d really have to do something.”
Well, at least we did something, though Putin knows that is about all we intend to do. As a result, he no longer bothers to hide the heavy military equipment he is sending in. Russian soldiers are starting to sport their regular insignias. Why bother to hide when your opponents aren’t going to do anything anyway? The Russian mindset: let’s just jab our finger in their noses. Remember, these were the guys who rejoiced when the USSR collapsed. Let them have some of their own medicine.
The Europeans are a fractious bunch, but an overall consensus is emerging that enough is enough. Now is the time for peace. Let the power-Frau of Europe – Angela Merkel – bring the parties to the table. Let’s get this thing over with. Surely Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko can come to some agreement — if we put enough pressure on Poroshenko.
Peace is easy. Both sides just need to stop shooting. But any peace plan that Frau Merkel brings to Kiev will raise the curtain on a theater that only grows more absurd with each passing day.
The actors in this drama need, however, to answer a question. In order to negotiate peace, we must know who the warring parties are. How can we agree on peace when one warring party claims it has no involvement?
There are three candidates for warring parties, one obviously being the Ukrainian forces directed by the Kiev government. Putin’s Russia, by its own declaration, is not a party to the War of East Ukraine. Putin and his diplomats swear up and down that they have supplied no weapons, no fire from across the border or inside it, no training, no intelligence officers, nothing. All claims to the contrary are supposedly disinformation from Ukrainian fascists controlled by the CIA.
No one can deny that fighting is going on, so there must be forces fighting against the Ukrainian army. They should be represented at any peace talks, presumably representing the interests of those who wish to separate from Ukraine. How about officials of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk — the shadowy figures who came out of nowhere to appoint themselves mayors, ministers of defense, and prime minister? They hired mobs, criminals, and the disaffected to occupy municipal buildings, place local police under their control, and stir up unrest. They perform no civic functions – just controlling the fighting and sowing chaos.
Until a couple of weeks ago, these mayors, prime ministers, and defense ministers could not be presented to the outside world as representing the interests of Ukrainian separatists because they came from Russia, where they had careers in the Russian secret service or worked as PR agents. It would be unseemly to have Russians sitting at the table, even if the Ukrainian forces tolerated this abomination. Hence they had to be replaced with a new set of self-appointed prime ministers, majors, and defense ministers who at least have Ukrainian roots. The problem is that the bench is rather thin. They had to dig deep and make do with minor criminals, science-fiction writers, and other misfits to replace the sadists, murderers, and make-believe-commanders who were being recalled to Russia or perhaps even buried underground.
It was hard enough to imagine the strutting Colonel Strelkov (real name Girkin), the menacing “Demon,” or the PR specialist Borodai at the table with Putin, Poroshenko, and perhaps Merkel. What theater that would make!
We are thus left with an unanswered question: With whom should Kiev negotiate? Russia, which claims it has no skin in the game? Or the goofballs who have appointed themselves the heads of non-existent breakaway states?
Published in General
Listening to Obama’s comments on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a live press conference – – he “looks forward to discussing the situation with our European allies next week.”
Spoken like a mild-mannered academic discussing what’s going to be on next week’s midterm.
What a gutless wonder! No visible anger. No ultimatums to the Russians or to Putin. Nothing at all to give Russia pause or to consider retreating. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Is this most ineffectual human being to have ever occupied the Oval office or what?
Ukraine, I-kraine we all cry for Ukraine.. The world is going backwards at a rapid rate of knots, nots.. nyet?
What has long puzzled me in regards to this war is how slowly it has rolled out.
Clearly Putin has some end game in mind, no doubt a new more favorable border and a rump state Ukraine under Moscow’s thumb, yet for some reason he feels it either desirable or necessary to have a rather slow, protracted conflict. This entire carnival side show began all the way back in February yet only now are Russian forces attacking in brigade strength and even that is a small fraction of the forces he has assembled on the border who are merely awaiting the order. Why?
Is a winter war more favorable to the Russians? Does he believe threats to cut off gas exports to Europe will be more effective during a cold winter? But why would he feel the need for such leverage when Europeans are clearly resolved to do nothing? There is some missing piece driving Putin’s management of this conflict that I have not seen explained or even explored in any coverage.
Scratch the former, I meant battalion of course.
Paul,
This is what comes of having a MSM that can not bring itself to report the news. It is always manipulating facts to serve some imagined end. The NYTimes has been calling them Ukrainian Militants or Separatists. This is nonsense. The only ones doing any shooting are Russian special forces and have been since the beginning. By manipulating their reports they have given Putin just enough room to pull this insanity. If the idiots at the Times had called them what they were to begin with and just reported the facts we wouldn’t be seeing this.
Go back and check the reporting of ISIS. Same deal. Morsi and the Brotherhood. Same deal. Hamas and Gaza. Same deal.
Regards,
Jim
“… but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which do not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. … I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what had happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines.’ ” George Orwell, 1942.
“Understanding what happened in Gaza this summer means understanding Hezbollah in Lebanon, the rise of the Sunni jihadis in Syria and Iraq, and the long tentacles of Iran. It requires figuring out why countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia now see themselves as closer to Israel than to Hamas. Above all, it requires us to understand what is clear to nearly everyone in the Middle East: The ascendant force in our part of the world is not democracy or modernity. It is rather an empowered strain of Islam that assumes different and sometimes conflicting forms, and that is willing to employ extreme violence in a quest to unite the region under its control and confront the West. Those who grasp this fact will be able to look around and connect the dots.”
I don’t think there’s any deliberate attempt by the “MSM” to hide or change any facts. its pure and simple ignorance. Most of these “journalists” can barely be considered to have reached adulthood yet
Its much easier to attribute this to ignorance, rather than malice.
Of course, there’s only 1 real issue at this point: what is the US and NATO’s response going to be? Are we going to step up and do what is needed?
Somehow, I doubt it.
If it were me, I’d take the following steps:
1) Petition to have Russia removed from the Security Council.
2) Put the same sort of sanctions on Russia as we have on Iran, NK or other pariah states.
3) Supply real time intelligence, combat equipment and weapons to the Ukrainian Army. Nothing big: vests, night-vision goggles, radios, gps, short-range UAVs etc. would go a long way. Train them how to conduct artillery strikes the right way.
4) Send US Army advisors ASAP to aid the Ukrainian army. Their commanders STINK
5) Put together a joint US-British-Polish-Romanian-Czech force (and anyone else who wants to join). Make it ready for deployment into Ukraine.
Doc,
The Orwell quote should be required reading for every American high school student and should be on the SATs. If we don’t learn from this kind of thing in the past we are going to be repeating it and often.
Regards,
Jim
6) Scrap defense treaties with Russia. Place permanent US military bases in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. Place permanent anti-ballistic missiles in all these countries. Place permanent US naval base in Romania and Poland.
7) Declare that the US will supply natural gas or oil to Europe.
Of course, none of this will actually happen. We do have a Nobel Peace Prize laureate as President, after all.
It sounds like Ukraine is headed for an Israel-style exchange of land for peace. Maybe they will get to keep half the country, temporarily, by surrendering the other half to Russia. I’m not implying that this is either just or wise. But if Israel was willing to accept such an absurd proposal (more than once) and the West cheers such an arrangement there, then perhaps we will witness something similar in Ukraine.
So Russia has won South Ossetia. They have won parts of the Ukraine. What’s the news on Russia’s henchmen in Estonia?
Again, I wonder if modern Russia is less dangerous than the USSR was.
More dangerous I’d say. Russia’s national ideology and self-identification post-USSR degenerated into a primitive form of nationalism.
This primitive nationalism was always the norm in many such places in Eastern Europe, and communism at least kept it bottled up for a while. Post-communism, it reappeared again. We saw what happened with Serbia. Exactly the same thing is playing out in Russia today.
People who believe in an unworkable utopian economic idea, are at least somewhat rational. At least somewhat intelligent. People who believe in a primitive form of nationalism are not rational.
It’s like dealing with someone with a self-destructive anti-social behavior, as opposed to someone who thinks they are doing the right thing, but are just wrong.
We have learned nothing except that Germany is feckless and like the Czechs were sold out so too will be the Ukrainians. Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania will fall in turn. We have no desire to arm the Poles. The French will collaborate and sell Russia ships. I would say to hell with Europe but unfortunately we made an investment in the 40’s and even though Europe does not deserve to have one American at rest in gardens of stone upon it’s soil I hate to see the Ukrainians and Poles abandoned.
Sounds like the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1968, while NVA involvement in the South was denied. It worked for the Soviets then.
No mention of the countries who guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for nuclear disarmament? Those countries would be the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America “reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” Those countries recommitted “to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”
It’s looking like disarming was a bad decision by Ukraine. But maybe this is the only way the Russian Federation thinks it can guarantee the territorial integrity of Eastern Ukraine against the predations of the former nuclear power in whose political capital is located in Kiev.
Ukraine’s lesson for the world is clear: Never give up nuclear weapons.
Doug: Maybe Europe will show some backbone in Wales. There is always hope,
Aaron:
At least in the late Soviet period, no one believed the ideology any more. I think Putin is more dangerous because he is more reckless.
AIG:
I agree that none of this will happen. Number 7 should be easy, but it is not thanks to Obama’s politics.
Jim:
I agree that the MSM is a big problem. Even after the open invasion of Ukraine, the language of the NYT did not change. I am surprised that the MSM does not call these terrorists patriots.