Ukraine is a warning

I took in the beauty of Maidan Square and that cool, yet warm October air in Kyiv. I walked around the market, just viewing everything and enjoying the fact that there really weren’t any Americans, there weren’t many tourists. It was 2019 and Ukraine had already been at war with Russia since 2014 when Russia invaded, though most people outside of Ukraine were never aware and many that were had forgotten. But the signs of war were everywhere, from the memorials of soldiers – fathers, sons, brothers, husbands – to the history of the Ukrainian military.

Toward the end of the square stood a young man with a bunch of birds. I watched and figured out his scam pretty quickly – he’d come up, engage you in conversation, slowly slip the bird onto you, ask if you want a picture, and then suddenly you’d owe him a lot of money…all while he had your phone in his hand. Pretty genius move. At the time, I was living in New York and had seen this scam played out on other tourists there, so I recognized it quickly. But I saw his scam was different – out of the corner of my eye was a guy with a falcon and he would place the falcon on people’s shoulders while they were talking to the guy and the guy would snap a picture. Boom, now you owe even more money. Brilliant!

I walked up and he engaged me in conversation, starting in Ukrainian and then moving to Polish, purely based on my looks I assume. Once he figured out I was American he spoke to me in perfect English. He told me about his travels to the US, blah blah blah. He was inching closer. I stopped him. I told him I knew what he was up to and sure enough, his friend was coming up behind me. I said I didn’t care and that I wanted photos with the birds, just tell me how much before. He told me the price and I converted it on my phone, $40.

I stood there thinking about if the money was worth it. $40 in US money, but I could get my picture with the falcon on my shoulder. I smiled because I knew a good deal when I saw one. He smiled because he had found a gullible American willing to pay money to have a few pictures taken with a bird on his shoulder. And the entire time I knew he was setting me up for this scam, but I didn’t care because he was nice and was offering me something of value. That’s the moment I fell in love with Ukraine.

Not to say that Kyiv was some utopia. It was, at the time, one of the filthiest European cities I had ever seen, which is to say it was cleaner than what I was used to in the US. As an American I’m simply not used to Eastern Bloc housing and architecture. But that still didn’t prevent Kyiv from simultaneously being one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. Kyiv, like the Ukrainian people, is quite the paradox.

The people are what made me fall in Kyiv more than anything else. Even though my family – my father’s side – has been in the US for a century, there were still a lot of things in the Ukrainians that I saw in my own family. My great-grandfather was forced from the Kyiv-region by the Tsar in the early 20th century, on the eve of WWI. My dad’s side of the family has always been domineering, sarcastic, loud, hyperbolic, and extremely out of place in a very Germanic-English part of country that is so passive aggressive they preach that St. Peter tells Hell-bound souls, “Well, I wouldn’t say you’re going to Heaven.”

No, the people in Kyiv were brutally honest about everything, honest to the point of hyperbole. It reminded me of my family. What got me is when I was purchasing something as a vendor, she pulled out her phone with Google translate and used it to start asking me questions. She was just curious about who I was as a person and why I was walking around Kyiv. That curiosity was something I met in a lot of Ukrainians. Ukrainians, like the land around them, seem cold at first, but spend some time getting to know them and you’ll discover a richness underneath.

When getting on the plane back to Krakow, I remember looking out the window at Kyiv and thinking about how this city would likely be invaded in the next few years. That was the topic of conversation with a lot of people. “What do you think about the war?” “Oh, you are American, you know we are at war, yes? You know you are not currently in Russia, yes?” It was funny at the time – we were all drinking, laughing, making fun of each other’s countries – but on the plane the reality of it all set in. I had been aware of Putin’s ambitions since 2008 when he became a meme to me and I decided to study him. It’s not some mystery. But even then, it all felt incredibly surreal.

This was in 2019. Of course, Russia’s infamous “Three Day Invasion to Take Kyiv” would take place in 2022 and subsequently become the, “LOL, no, no, nvm, not Kyiv, we weren’t trying to actually take it.” Ukrainians are tough bastards (to non-Americans – “bastard” for Americans is a compliment in this context). Ukrainians made up a large portion of the Soviet Army that beat back the Nazi war machine, despite the Russian ineptitude and willingness to sacrifice so many Ukrainian, Belorussian, and other ethnic minorities’ lives.

Ukraine, prior to 2022, had an incredibly imperfect democracy. From 1992 to 2022, it went from Russian satellite to potential EU member, but still struggled with rampant corruption, poverty, and other systemic issues that are a sore spot for a lot of Ukrainians. They’re sore spots because Europeans like to rub this in the face of Ukrainians, ignoring that Ukrainians themselves are extremely aware of this and took to the streets and gave their blood to try and change it in 2014. Hence, an imperfect democracy, but it is a democracy and one that has been improving, or at least was until 2022. It’s kind of hard to improve your democracy when you’re under constant air raid strikes.

For a moment in 2022, it looked as though the world had finally had enough of Russia. Despite their atrocities in the 90s in the Caucuses, their moves toward Georgia in the 2000s, their interference and slaughtering of civilians in Syria and Africa in the 2010s, and their invasion of Ukraine and annexing of Crimea in 2014, Russia enjoyed quite a bit of leeway. For the briefest of moments, it appeared that the world was done and Ukraine would get all the help they would need.

Initially, the help they got helped Ukraine stun the world. They were able to stop Russia in their tracks and even launch a counter-offensive to take back land. But it came at an incredible cost of life and equipment. As the war dragged into a stalemate, it became clear that Ukraine needed more firepower to break the stalemate and take back their land. And that’s where the trouble began.

Without rehashing the entire history, essentially it boils down to this; certain nations in the West, particularly the US under the Biden administration, thought it was advantageous to pin Russia down and that helping Ukraine in earnest would result in Russian escalation. Thus, they never had any intention to give Ukraine what it needed to take back its land, just enough to prevent it from getting run over so that Russia could be bled dry. This was, in so many ways, the dumbest decision to make.

First, from a purely “America first” perspective, this was Biden’s chance to end Russia’s power once-and-for-all. Forget Reagan – bringing down the USSR’s predecessor at the height of its power would have cemented his legacy. And the thing is, he likely would have won the election. While adorning my tinfoil hat, it’s my belief that if Russia had to contend with losing to Ukraine in 2022 or 2023, or were fighting a losing battle because we actually gave Ukraine what they needed then they would have lacked the manpower to continue to interfere in other elections, including the US election. It would have hampered their ability to use and manipulate Musk. Who knows what effects this would have had on the 2024 election? The amount of misinformation that hit Twitter and social media in general absolutely had its origins in Russia. But in a world where Russia loses or is losing to Ukraine, rather than in a comfortable stalemate (comfortable for Russia, not for Ukraine), it's doubtful that they could have done much to interfere with the US elections.

Secondly, and more importantly, supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do. They are a democracy fighting for their right to exist. Forget past claims, forget who the Kyvan Rus are (or that there can’t really be any single “descendant” given the structure of the Rus kingdoms prior to the Mongol conquest), forget any of that. It’s all irrelevant. Ukraine is composed of many ethnic Ukrainians, but other ethnicities as well. Yet, all of them are Ukrainian and all of them are independent, a democracy, a proper modern State. The world isn’t some Paradox game where you can just claim areas on a map and then take them in a war. These are people with complex lives like you and me, all being interrupted by war.

Since 1992 the people of Ukraine, including those in Crimea, have enjoyed independence from Russia. Yes, they were a Soviet Republic under the USSR, but let’s not pretend the USSR was anything other than the Russian Empire 2.0. Part of the reason Russia claimed Crimea was due to the large population of Russians who settled there during the Soviet Occupation. That is called colonization under any other guise. Ukrainians have stated quite adamantly over the years that they do not wish to be a part of Russia. Their resistance to Russia’s invasion is proof that they do not want to be a part of Russia. And who can blame them? Russia is a dictatorship with a government devoid of any concern for its people or for humanity in general.

We should support Ukraine because it’s the right thing to do. We should help them in their fight to get their land back from Russia and to see Russia defeated. Sadly, the US has missed this chance and, even worse, may take actions to loosen up on Russia, which will only help Russia. The US is, of course, losing its status as a democracy and this will become more apparent in the coming weeks. Those of us in the US are going to have to fight for the foreseeable future against our current government and hopefully limit the damage it can do.

It is, therefore, up to the rest of the world’s democracies to band together and defend Ukraine. 2022 proved something – the post WWII order is broken and over. What replaces it is still up in the air. But no longer can we look to national borders or hide behind “national sovereignty.” The era of the nation state is coming to an end. If democracy is to survive, the era of large democratic coalitions is going to have to emerge. Democracies that not only have military alliances, but create economic, trade, and research alliances as well.

And it has to start with Ukraine. It’s not just of interest to European democracies; it’s of interest to all democracies. What happens in Ukraine will have effects on Australia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and other non-European nations. I think the remaining world democracies will realize very quickly that they must band together, because it’s only by becoming democratic amongst themselves can they hope to defeat and overcome the impending tyranny of war. They must put aside national interests and instead pursue international interests between their nations. Approach trade deals as a coalition, as much as they can. It must go deeper than a military alliance because, ultimately, we must do away with the idea of national sovereignty. For true democracy to exist, nations must be accountable to one another. But that’s an idea for another day.

The alternative is that nations will simply begin to seek nuclear weapons to dissuade would-be invaders. Of course, this strategy is a ticking timebomb – literally – because at some point, some dictator will say, “I have more” and decide to launch. In other words, failure to help Ukraine teaches a lesson to the reason of the world, including smaller democracies – no one will help you, so get your own nuclear weapons. A where nuclear weapons exist is a world where nuclear weapons will be used, and the more that exist and the more proliferate they are, the higher chance there is of seeing them used.

So the remaining democracies can unite and use this alliance as a way to deter war or to overcome these nations in a war. But, more importantly, they pave a way forward in the aftermath of whatever is to come. If they’re already united, if they’re already relying on each other, then it will be easier to rebuild something better than the post WWII order.

If the democracies do not unite and pull away from Ukraine, if Ukraine is left to her fate or a compromised peace that leaves her weaker, then most of the world’s democracies will get picked off one-by-one and the world will tumble toward a nuclear disaster. Only in uniting can they stand up to Russia, China, and likely to the United States. And that alliance must be more than a military, it must be economic. And it must start with Ukraine.