Russia v. Ukraine: David v. Goliath

Biden says latest intel indicates Russia will invade on Wednesday
16 February 2022.  Pray for Ukraine.

Russia has one of the most powerful militaries in the world. It ranks in the top five nations that spend the most on their military. In 2020, 

A map of Russia and Eastern and Western Europe. The
sheer size of Russia is daunting, and its military budget
even more so. 

Russian military spending amounted to $61.7bn. Ukraine’s was less than a 10th of that at $5.9bn, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.  The Ukrainian military is bigger than it was in 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and then invaded eastern Ukraine in the Donbas region where I served with the Peace Corps.  But it's still David v. Goliath when it comes to war and geopolitics.

It wasn't always the case. In fact, Ukraine used to be the third largest nuclear power in the world. It gave up nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia.  These were promises to respect Ukraine's borders. Russia violated these agreements by invading Ukraine in 2014.  Only then did NATO station multinational forces to protect eastern Europe,  and the U.S. and allies imposed sanctions on Russian and pro-Russian oligarchs. These were the sanctions that Republicans sought to end in 2016, and in most cases did, Oleg Derispaka being the prime example.  

Although the NATO nations agreed to increase support for Ukraine, there is still no international accountability for Putin's invasion of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine's borders, or for that matter for Russia's shooting down of MH-17 over the killing fields of Ukraine, which killed 298 innocent people, or the blatant breaking of international treaties. 

Crimean Tatars, a peaceful and long-suffering people,

mourn the 2014 Russian takeover of their homeland. 

After heroic efforts to return to Crimea & rebuild their

homes and communities, they find themselves once again

under the genocidal thumb of Russia. 

Few shed tears for the loss of Crimea, the indigenous home of the Crimean Tatars, now militarized, stalinized, and victimized by untold human rights abuses. I weep for Crimea, and for the loss of parts of Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts, where I lived for two years and where the warm and wonderful Ukrainian people took in a stranger and made me feel at home. . .

Putin, unchecked, will continue to grab Ukraine into his orbit. It touches the core of his revanchism. He is set on destroying Ukraine and with it NATO in one fell swope. He says this is non-negotiable. Not Ukraine, not any eastern European country, must be accepted into NATO membership. It cannot happen.  

Yesterday's protest in Kyiv. +

Shouldn't these countries be able to make their own decisions, free from the threat of war? It's not what Putin wants.  Nigel Gould-Davis, of the International Strategy Institute in the UK, argues that Putin's immediate fear is not NATO per se, "but its own currently declining influence over Ukraine, whose Western ties are growing deeper, resistance to local pro-Russian figures like Viktor Medvedchuk sterner, and national identity stronger.... Since time is not on Putin’s side, he is seeking to assert dominance over Kyiv while this is still possible.” (reported in Aljazeera, which is on top of this story). 

No one wants war with Russia. I think President Biden is making every effort to work with our allies in Europe to negotiate peace. Putin's aggression has strengthened our alliances, which as we know were severely damaged during the former administration. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelinsky, was elected by a large majority and is holding fast. He has made progress against corruption and is focusing on Ukraine's economy. I asked historian Timothy Snyder, author of The Bloodlands, if there were Nazis in the Ukrainian government. "There are no Nazis in the government," he said. Zelinsky, who is Jewish, is working on self-determination for Ukraine, and that's across the board.  That's what the vast majority of the Ukrainian people yearn for. 

In spite of the massive amounts of intel the US has, no one knows for certain what Putin will do. He's already achieved his goals of creating chaos and fear in the West. His military build up will make a decision to invade easy to carry out. And it will be devastating.

Biden warns that the latest intel suggests that Russia will attack on Wednesday. This Wednesday, February the 16th. 

Ukraine will resist, but it will not be able to hold back the mighty Russian military. I fear for arial bombings of Kyiv, an ancient and  beautiful capital city filled with extraordinary cathedrals. monuments, and neighborhoods. I fear for the destruction of the beauty of Ukraine across the country, from my town of Starobelsk in the far east to Lyiv in the far west of Ukraine; from Chernigov down to Odessa and around the Black Sea. I fear for my friends who have been in harm's way since Putin's 2014 invasion. 

If Ukraine falls, many Russia experts predict that so will other former Soviet Socialist Republics of eastern Europe. Belarus is already in alliance with Russia. Hopes for self-determination and autonomy will be gone. Western Europe will be on the Russian border, facing Putin's Ukraine strategy. The world will be a sadder place wherever Peace Corps volunteers have served in eastern Europe in their efforts to build fellowship across boundaries. 

Putin's map would look something like this, adding eastern Europe and more
territory to what is already the largest country on earth. Putin does not fear for his borders, he's hungry for war and revenge and international dominance over eastern Europe that will bring Russia to the boarders of the West.  

The drums of war are getting louder. The echoes of death and destruction are hovering. The saber rattling is morphing into boots on the ground and bombs from the air. President Biden says if Russia continues to advance into Ukraine, retaliation will be swift and forceful. What does that mean? I pray for my friends.  

Here is a powerful take by Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic, "The Reason Putin Would Risk War," February 3, 2022: "Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine again—or pretending he will invade Ukraine again—for the same reason. He wants to destabilize Ukraine, frighten Ukraine. He wants Ukrainian democracy to fail. He wants the Ukrainian economy to collapse. He wants foreign investors to flee. He wants his neighbors—in Belarus, Kazakhstan, even Poland and Hungary—to doubt whether democracy will ever be viable, in the longer term, in their countries too. Farther abroad, he wants to put so much strain on Western and democratic institutions, especially the European Union and NATO, that they break up. He wants to keep dictators in power wherever he can, in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran. He wants to undermine America, to shrink American influence, to remove the power of the democracy rhetoric that so many people in his part of the world still associate with America. He wants America itself to fail."

Sources/Notes:

1.   https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/how-ukraines-armed-forces-shape-up-against-russias-2022-02-01/

2.  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/25/infographic-military-capabilities-of-russia-and-ukraine-interactive,  Good on options for economic sanctions, which sound severe. 

3.  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/27/ukraine-faces-enormous-military-odds-against-russia

“Ukrainian politics is quite a fractious sport because it’s undergoing a period of protracted reform from an oligarchical system. Russia is ruled under the iron grip of the regime and there wouldn’t be any vacillation on the Russian side,” he said, calling any Russian-Ukrainian war “an unfair fight”.

4.. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_111767.htm

5. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2022/02/04/an-open-letter-to-the-russian-leadership/

6,  https://francurrocaryblog.blogs+pot.com/2016/02/de-occupy-crimea-end-russian-occupation.html

7.  https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-russia-is-slowly-encircling-europe-32596