By the time this appears in print, two things are sure — Kyiv, Ukraine, one of Europe’s oldest cities, will be changed forever, and the lives of all of us will be touched in some way.
Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe, is rich in the natural resources coveted by others — oil, gas, minerals, abundant arable land, clean water and a warm-water port on the Black Sea. Its history is marred by war and suffering. Yet its strong, resilient people and its cultural traditions survive.
The invasion by the fascist autocrat Vladimir Putin is no surprise. He’s always been transparent about his goals — break up NATO and the European Union, weaken the U.S. and rebuild the old Soviet Union. By adopting the anti-gay rhetoric of extremist Russian Orthodox clergy, he retains control through the same kind of unholy alliance between religious leaders and rulers that exists in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and goes back through the Crusades and the pharaohs of Egypt to the beginning of human history.
Religion provides the fervor (maybe the promise of 72 virgins, eternal glory for hastening the biblical End Times, or some other cosmic reward) and bodies for tyrants to use to gain wealth and power. Fortunately, our Constitution’s First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….”
To achieve these goals, Putin smashed cities in Chechnya and Syria and attacked Georgia. Before Donald Trump invited him to become campaign manager in 2016, Paul Manafort spent a decade as consultant for Ukraine’s oligarch-backed, anti-NATO Party of Regions and its former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych. In 2014, Ukrainians tired of Yanukovych’s corruption and his turn away from western democracy. They overthrew the Russian puppet government, and Yanukovych fled to Russia. Shortly afterward, Putin annexed Crimea.
Manafort succeeded in removing U.S. support for supplying weapons to Ukraine from the 2016 Republican Party platform. In 2018, Russian operative Marina Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring to infiltrate Republican-affiliated groups and events, including the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast, to push Putin’s agenda. The NRA allegedly illegally funneled Russian money to Mr. Trump’s 2016 election campaign and paid for Republican legislators’ trips to Russia.
Trump was impeached after he tried to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by asking him to find dirt on political opponent Joe Biden in return for Trump’s release of Congress-approved weapons. Putin’s supporters here in the U.S. continue to advocate for his version of fascist pseudo-Christian nationalism.
Besides direct military action, the threat of mutually assured destruction, and cyberwarfare, the Russian use of social media to undermine America has been very effective.
Tracked Russian trolls and bots are burrowed in on platforms everywhere, spreading nonsense like this: Mainstream media is fake news; Democrats are leftist murderers and pedophiles who support child trafficking; Hunter Biden something-laptop-Ukraine or China; George Soros (code word for Jews) is behind a New World Order plot to dominate the globe; crisis actors, “woke” people, elites, public schools and universities, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and the Deep State are in on the plot; lies and quackery about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and especially about Dr. Anthony Fauci; and the biggest lie of all, that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was somehow stolen. The latest is that there are secret U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine, which are used for nefarious purposes.
A shocked talk show host commenting on Ukrainian refugees exclaimed, “They look just like me!” (She’s white.) Confirmed reports coming out of Ukraine are horrifying. I thought about refugees from wars in the Middle East and Africa, Myanmar, the Uyghurs in China, those fleeing gang wars in Haiti, Central and South America. As many as 68 million, by some estimates.
When it ends, when this madman is finished and there’s no food, no water, no clothing, no shelter, no place to lay one’s head, I wonder about the survivors. What will become of them?
Pam Taylor is a retired Lenawee County teacher and an environmental activist. She can be reached at ptaylor001@msn.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Pam Taylor: When the invasion is over, what happens to the survivors?
