If Europe betrays Ukraine, it betrays itself

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The tragedy of Ukraine will fall between two imaginations, the Russian and the European. One has a weapon and a soul, the other does not (to paraphrase Stalin, Ursula von der Leyen lacks divisions). Germany refused to send weapons to defend Kiev and tried to prevent another NATO country, Estonia, from doing so. In a sign of how she sees the crisis unfolding, Berlin has kindly offered to send a field hospital instead.

Historian Timothy Snyder says Ukraine is an “hyper-typical” nation-state that emerged from World War I and struggled for survival. In 2013, when a pro-Moscow regime refused to sign an agreement with the European Union and was overthrown by protests, Ukrainians showed “a strong commitment to the idea of ​​European integration”. We Brits might be surprised. For us, the EU is the antithesis of autonomy, but for many post-Soviet states it is the only basis on which this can be based, as the EU provides a model for development along with institutions often above and beyond a corrupt state apparatus. . The Russians succeeded him. He is ambitious.

Europe saw for itself a strategic role in Ukraine, and nibbled on more than it could chew. In 2014, the Russians annexed Crimea. The Obama administration implemented sanctions, but concluded that Ukraine, as a non-NATO country, would always be “vulnerable to Russia’s military dominance no matter what we do.” Obama in particular summed up his doctrine of “don’t do stupid things.”

Europe, lacking a united army, relies on an America it doesn’t trust for weight, so all the time Ukraine has moved west, the West has responded to this compliment like a coquette – “Maybe we’ll offer you NATO membership, maybe not” – we put Ukraine , in fact, on the fringes of the freedom field. Biden is closer to Kiev than Obama or Trump. However, he even gave up the game at a press conference by acknowledging that if Moscow carried out a “slight incursion,” the diplomatic equivalent of a bit of a load, the United States might not overreact.

The probability of inviting Ukraine to join NATO is still very low – fortunately, because it is a stupid idea. However, Russia is behaving as if membership is just around the corner, and the more it pretends to panic, the more it threatens Ukraine, and the more Ukrainians admire its voice. Reports from the ground suggest that Ukraine has gained a greater sense of itself since 2013, thanks in part to the Russian invasion. The West will not have to send troops. By flying guns and imposing economic sanctions, we threaten to turn that into Putin’s Vietnam, an outcome so horrific that one has to wonder what on earth Moscow thinks it is doing.

Putin wrote a landmark article to explain it. The book “On the Historical Unity of the Russians and the Ukrainians” claims that this region was once under the control of Ancient Rus, and the “throne of Kiev”. Rus scattered and were conquered; The Soviets created the territory of modern Ukraine from the historical Russian lands. Russia was robbed. Westerners and local elites, including the “neo-Nazis” (odd because the current president is Jewish, and a former comedian who gained popularity playing the president on a TV show), have now colluded to lie about Ukraine’s historical “kinship” with Russia which was reflected in its “blood ties.” that unites millions of our families.” Russians and Ukrainians are “one people”.

This is the real substantive conflict. This is why although the idea of ​​the conflict is appalling, and Russia’s treatment since the end of the Cold War has been criminal, we owe Kef something more than a few German pandas.

The West believes in nation-states, which do not consist of many races, though these are often the genesis of those states, but are citizens united by constitutions and principles. Russia is resorting to something older, perhaps ironically called, but spiritual and genetic – a unit that rolls at the frontier and crushes the mind. The analogy is with Taiwan, a country that is ethnically related to China, yet has a right to exist because it wants to exist and which defines itself with ideals the West sees as inalienable rights: to vote, to express what you have in mind, to change those in power. Beijing, the Taiwanese diplomat once patiently explained to me, is no longer communist. It’s back to a former ethno-imperialism. It may be difficult for Westerners to address this because we have been brought up to think of life as a clash of ideas, between basic socialists and leftists and arrogant conservatives, but much of the rest of the world operates on a logic of blood. .

The West has said for years that it is ready to defend the right of new nation-states to exist, but it has not been tested because Russia, below, and China, above, did not feel ready to try. We get there. This may be it. One can hardly blame the Americans, who were wisely veering away from Europe and towards the Pacific, for they saw Ukraine as a little war, far away – but if the Europeans did nothing, especially if they did nothing in order to keep the flood of Russian gas in their markets, they would not betray Newbie democracies are only on their borders. They will betray everything they claim to defend.

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