Now What?

Gaza is exploding (OK, a tad less as Israeli forces withdraw). Islamic State is conquering. Libya is fracturing. Boko Haram is murdering. Taliban fighters are gloating. Syria is simmering. And Ukraine… well, it’s bracing for a continuation of Russian munitions (some fired from within Russia), Russian soldiers and volunteers and Russian lies about the extent of their involvement in Eastern Ukraine.

Having violated the accord they entered into with Ukraine (the 1994 “Budapest Memorandums” under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a pledge to honor is territorial integrity) and taken Crimea, Russia is hell bent on restoring its hegemony (if not direct occupation) over as much of the former Soviet Union as it can. Applying the same kind of justification that Hitler used to invade the Sudetenland (protecting ethnic Germans) as one of the events precipitating WWII, Putin is pretending to protect “ethnic Russians” in Ukraine (and presumably wherever else he can find them).

Railing against CIS’ nations’ moving decidedly into the Western European camp, shuddering under the humiliation of NATO expansion into its former holdings, Russia is quite prepared to bear economic sanctions – perhaps bringing Europe to its knees by withholding oil and gas upon which most of Europe is now deeply addicted. Putin knows his Security Council veto has emasculated the United Nations and that by fomenting combat in and around the Ukrainian crash site of Malaysian Air Flight 17, trashing the site, removing evidence of the actual missile that brought the passenger plane down, he can continue to fabricate “what really happened” and continue his blame of Ukraine for what is increasingly obviously his rather direct legacy in the tragedy.

To Russians, this rogue policy is wildly popular. Russians seem to have perfected “suffering” under their long and often violent history. While ending unnecessary suffering may settle into the average Russian psyche sometime in the distant future, too many Russians are reveling in the ripples of Russian power, and the cowering Western world that is unable to contain this new, aggressive Russia. If their economy sucks, so what? They are on top of the world, doing whatever they want. Humiliation is over. Perhaps, as the economy remains among the worst performers in the developed world for a long enough period, Putin’s philosophy and grip may release to a more accommodating reality. Perhaps.

But this same Russian aggressiveness may actually be its undoing. Unsurprisingly, Russia seems incapable of inflicting its intentions in Eastern Ukraine with anything less than the heaviest of hands. Hooded and masked “separatists” (with some pretty strong evidence that there are a goodly number of Russian nationals masquerading as Ukrainian ethnic Russians in this mix), pictured above, well-armed with weapons that could only have come from Russia (with tons of supporting photographic evidence) have slaughtered opponents and bullied their way into the cities and Ukrainian government building they have taken.

In Slovyansk, where Ukrainian forces have retaken that city, evidence of callous Russian brutality abound. A mass grave has so far unearthed 14 corpses. Gone is the heady dream of a true and joyful Russian liberation of the region.

“When the rebels first seized Slovyansk in April, they hoisted Russian flags, arrested the elected mayor, hunted down traitors and proclaimed the city a ‘great symbol of the struggle for human dignity.’ Thousands of residents thronged a large square in front of City Hall to welcome the pro-Russian putsch, chanting ‘Russia, Russia’ and posing for photographs with gunmen they hailed as their saviors from the fascists who had seized power in Kiev with the February ouster of President Victor F. Yanukovych, a Russian-speaker from Donetsk.” New York Times, August 1^st.

Lingering now is the memory pure brutality of the pro-Russian militants who seized power. Indeed, the highly edited and filtered news that is the only “truth” the Russian people have received over these events became the gospel in the conquered towns of Eastern Ukraine as well. But now, the locals had the facts parade directly before them, a rather complete contradiction of the official Russian news reports.

Yet as Ukrainian officials attempt to ferret out those locals who collaborated with the separatists, there is an awkward balance between their vision of justice and winning back the hearts and minds of the genuine ethnic Russians to convince them that they would actually be better off under Ukrainian rule.

“As it struggles to secure the consent, if not yet the trust, of Slovyansk’s largely ethnic Russian population, Ukraine has found that its best weapon has been provided by the rebels themselves — a legacy of violent thuggery and chaos that alienated just about everyone… ‘It was a horror, a total horror,’ said Arkady Glushenko, the chief surgeon at the Lenin Hospital, the city’s biggest. ‘Nobody wants a repeat of that.’

“Another powerful tool in the hands of the Ukrainian authorities is the fear many residents have of retribution for their collaboration with the toppled pro-Russian leadership… The new authorities, promising anonymity, have set up a hotline for residents to inform on rebel collaborators, and they have printed fliers warning that a new law mandates up to 15 years in jail for separatism. ‘Of course people are afraid,’ Dr. Glushenko said. ‘They are frightened of being punished.’” NY Times. If Ukraine can indeed avoid replicating that Russian-like brutality with too many reprisals, perhaps Russia’s raw expansionist experiment can be contained. For the United States, it is a time to counsel moderation and forgiveness, a policy that we occasionally seem to have forgotten.

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes hope can spring where desolation and despair once reigned supreme.