Should the West support Ukraine?



The main or a very major factor on the development of Russian politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been and still is it's relationship with the West.
It had to re-invent itself and we were it's main model, it had to recalibrate it's global stance, which was previously against us, how we treated them and how we reacted to them determined the course that they would take, so I feel that the Regime in charge today is in many ways a monster of our own creation.

Their attitude towards us is in many ways a reflection of our attitude towards them, people are like that, people are like mirrors reflecting back what they see (even if what they see isn't accurate).

have you ever heard of the Wolfowitz Doctrine? I suggest you look it up, it's pretty characteristic. 

In the 1990's the West rushed in to help Russia modernise itself, those who where involved mostly had questionable intentions at best, at any rate the result was very poor, then Putin came to power with a much more KGB derived attitude than Yeltsin, his supporters often say "he got Russia up off her knees", maybe it would be more accurate to say he got Russia up from being flat on her face to the exulted position  of being on it's knees, I don't know.
Leaders like Putin, like mould on walls only thrive in the right circumstances, on the whole people don't like corrupt, murdering, psychopaths in charge, so they tend to push back against them, which limits their growth so to speak, but in an atmosphere of chaos and desperation, then people will be much less willing and able to mind as long as the leader gets results, which he does, at first... then suddenly it's too late.

We played a role in creating those conditions, but more to the point I think we could play a role in altering them, by removing if not the chaos, but much of the desperation.
We can do this simply by undermining the Russian propaganda designed to keep people fearful, to target the propaganda we must identify what makes it so effective, what makes it so effective like the best lies is that it contains a mild element of truth.
Somehow that must be altered.

In the same way the West is somewhat responsible for the state of affairs in Russia, I think Russia has an awful awful lot to answer for the current state of Ukraine.
The Russians and Ukrainians have a lot in common, a close relationship between the two would be quite natural.
Had Russia taken a less genocidal approach to this relationship, I'm sure that it would be rather less strained, I'm sure meddling in their affairs didn't help either or them being so rubbish in general- or the invasion come to that.


It should be bourne in mind, that in Medieval times, when many current European identities had already been formed, the ancestors of the Russians and Ukrainians were one people, even if some were more isolated than others, the Kievan Rus covered the heartlands of both modern nations. 
In the words of Zelensky: "Russians and Ukrainians are brotherly people... ...We are one colour one blood, we understand each other regardless of language.".
That does not mean that today they are the same people, it does not mean that they should be united, but it is important to understand, I think.

The exact meaning of the name Ukraine is disputed, but it may mean "Borderland" which may not be an unsuitable name.
On the West the historical Polish influence is the strongest, in the east, the areas bordering Russia are pretty much Russian including the language that they speak, the difference between the Ethnic Russian and Ethnic Ukrainian populations is not stark, they are fairly intermingled, in much of Ukraine they do not speak either Russian or Ukrainian but a language somewhere in between the two, changing from village to village.
Many Ukrainians of Russian ancestry want to be Ukrainian, many want to be Russian, many don't much care.

Given the troubled history of Ukraine it's understandable that Ukrainian nationalists want to distance themselves from Russia and Russian-ness, that this should be a cause of tension given the Russian-ness of a big chunk of it's population should surprise no-one.

It could be said, that the efforts to "decolonize" Ukraine from Russian influence has often gone way too far, in fact such things have been said, probably with more than a little basis in fact.

For example renaming a street named after some Ukrainian with a Russian name, simply because they have a Russian name, destroying statues of people like Pushkin and Yuri Gagarin, removing the Russian language from official things, even when it's what many people actually speak, chanting slogans like, "hang all the Russians".

The Ukrainians have been around for centuries, but Ukraine as a fully independent state dates back as far as 1991, so as always in these cases teething problems are to be expected...

Like most post-soviet states, it still has a communist hangover, despite it's efforts to overcome it, which means that there is still corruption, inefficiency and various other kinds of what I have heard termed as "Soviet shitbaggery".

It also has a major problem with the far right, this the government is very reticent to confront and is perfectly willing to glorify and the along with the US is perfectly willing to arm.
Putin is right in one sense that a certain amount of de-NAZIfication is clearly necessary, the issue lies in the methods he chooses allegedly to achieve this laudable goal.

While being a neutral-ish state in-between two opposing powers is often a very good position to be in as you can play one off against the other and get good treatment from both, for one reason or another Ukraine could or would not take much advantage of this.

Ultimately while the regions bordering Russia, for some strange reason wanted Ukraine to be aligned with Russia, the rest of the country for some equally strange reason wanted to align itself with the EU.

Certain Ukrainians seem to have developed a sort of fetish for becoming "European" which is odd because Ukraine has always been in Europe, in fact so has the populous part of Russia.

Of course it is true that central and and western Europe manages it's affairs most of the time a lot better than eastern Europe, but some of this Europeanism seems far too idealised and often overlaps with more far right ideas.

The choice of the Ukrainian government to sign an Association Agreement with the EU was probably an error of judgement, I think that it's fair to say that if you have a very large powerful angry nation right next door to you, it's a mistake to aggravate it more than is strictly necessary, call it realpolitik, or self preservation...

Russia perhaps not unreasonably saw this as infringing on it's interests and responded by blocking all Ukrainian imports causing substantial economic damage in Ukraine.

This caused the ratification of this agreement to be delayed, Putin issuing dire threats may have been another reason.
 
This sparked protests along with many many other grievances against the pretty horrible president, some of these were partly co-ordinated by the far right organisation Right Section.
These protests started off peacefully, but as the police responded more violently, the more violent the protests became and it became vicious cycle, with the protestors becoming less than peaceful and the authorities becoming more brutal.
Eventually the president ran away, and the parliament under the watchful eye of the protestors created a new government.
Some have said that this was a paramilitary coup, I don't think that's true, the president was not exactly forced out of power, he was just a coward who lost control.

But the new government struggled to keep order and alienated the more Russian aligned parts of the country, there was a certain amount of violence between pro-Russian and pro EU activists and paramilitaries.

In this tense atmosphere Putin invaded Crimea, though denying it as he did so, naturally.

Before the invasion, Sevastopol was shared under the terms of an agreement between the Russians and the Ukrainians, surely it would be much more difficult for this arrangement to continue with the new, much more anti-Russian regime and it would probably have ended in civil war just like in Donbass if the Russians had not intervened, so honestly it may have been for the best, normally invading places is not the way forward, but in the face of revolution, unrest and open hostility, then things are less cut and dry.

The vast majority of Crimeans are Russian and want to be part of Russia, Crimea has never historically been part of Ukraine, it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, by Kruschev, apparently because he just felt like it.

The port of Sevastopol is the only port Russia has access to that can be used all year round without being frozen, in the modern day ocean transport is essential to having a reasonable economy, not to mention the need for naval bases.

Should Russia have put it itself of risk of being deeply screwed over and let their compatriots be put at risk of devastating destruction and misery, for the sake of "international law" which everybody else ignores when they want to? Maybe they should...

But either way it is perverse for people who claim to be fighting for things like freedom, democracy and western ideals to demand back territory that markedly does not want to be taken back.
What happened to the right of self-determination?

Then the pro-Russian separatists set up their own republics in Dontesk and Luhansk, this led to a terrible civil war where the Ukrainians acted with probably rather too much violence towards their own people.

Ukraine was engaged in a conflict that was not entirely black and white, basically against Russia, joining NATO would make further escalation much more likely, this does not seem like the way to reconciliation.
It is entirely possible that if Ukraine was more willing to make concessions and did not seek to join NATO, Russia would not have invaded, it is also possible that they would have anyway, God knows how Putin really thinks.
However Putin needs the support of officials and politicians in the Russian government, whatever he does, he still needs some sort of justification otherwise he can be removed, in turn the Russian government to fight a war needs to be able to keep the Russian people more or less on-side otherwise they might start to rebel. 
Ukraine's faults and dubious attitudes provide plenty of grist to the propaganda mill, which Putin needs to stay in power.

So now we come to the current war, Ukraine seems determined not to give up anything that once was controlled by Ukraine, they also want large reparations from Russia.

There are a number of issues with this plan.

One is that Russia is simply bigger than them, it is not always the bigger side that wins, but sometimes it is better to be realistic, another is that it is much more difficult to take and occupy land where the people do not want to be occupied and even if/when they take that land full of people they don't really want to share a country with, how do they settle things, do they just start another civil war? what would be the point?
The most serious point is that while Russia can live without Ukraine, Crimea has major strategic and logistic importance, as often happens in war it is entirely possible that the Russians would just give up fighting in Ukraine, not because they have to, just because they have have been worn down enough it no longer seems worthwhile, this may be Ukraine's best hope, however I do not think it is reasonable to believe Russia would ever willingly abandon Crimea, and while Ukraine is determined to take it back, that is always going to be a reason to fight, even if Ukraine do take back Crimea, I think the Russians will just lick their wounds and gather up their strength to return, even if they were lead by a much more civilised person than they are now.
Then reparations! history has taught us that they are simply a bad idea, after WW1 Germany had to pay massive reparations, the result ended in WW2, after WW2 Germany did not pay reparations, instead in received large sums of aid under the Marshall plan, we have not yet had WW3.
At some point their needs to be reconciliation, this does not help.

So what are we doing? Spending Billions and distributing weapons to fight a basically unwinnable war fought by two incompetent irresponsible regimes, putting guns in the hands of fascist militias as a couple of generations of Russian and Ukrainian men get wiped out and the country gets torn to shreds?

Apparently this will prevent WW3 - according to Zelensky, if Russia takes over Ukraine they will not stop they will keep on going, I don't know how he knows this, I don't see why they would want to really, maybe he's right, but then maybe we could handle it without much trouble, the Russians aren't in the best state.
But I don't think Ukraine really needs our help to survive, it's possible that it could deal with Russians in some respects more effectively with good old fashioned Guerilla warfare and terrorism, though it could prove more costly in terms of life.

On the other hand, funding Ukraine increases the level of hostility between us and Russia increasing the odds of WW3 in another way, the economic damage this war is causing and the money we are giving away weakens us so if we do go to war we are that much worse off, not to mention all those weapons we could be using if they weren't in Ukraine. 

So is it worth it?

I could not say for certain, but I have serious doubts.
The stakes are high, the worst case scenario is nuclear destruction, I wish people paid closer attention to what is happening.

I think this war, more than anything is a clash of ideals, the real battle is in people's minds, that's where the main efforts should be focused, demoralising soldiers may actually be a lot more effective than killing them, and they have a lot to be demoralised about...