Dare Question Support for Ukraine

Question the billions of dollars being sunk into Ukraine that has resulted in a devastating loss of life, an ensuing energy crisis, and mounting fears of nuclear war; and you are politically canceled as a Putin ally.

The real question that should be asked is whether the West is truly fighting for democracy or hell-bent on crushing Russia and whatever it takes to purge Russian President Vladimir Putin from existence. If US President Joe Biden is asked this question, the answer is clear. For the Biden administration, Putin is the scapegoat for everything wrong in America, whether it be claims of Putin’s inflation, Putin’s gas prices, or for aiding President Trump’s win in 2016.

Supporters in America and the EU funding this proxy conflict against Russia should not be blinded to the very serious democratic deficits in Ukraine; knowing a there is long history of territorial shifts in the region. Does Biden really care if Ukraine is destroyed at a great cost to life if Putin is removed? Do the people in the West want their taxes going to prolong the hostilities when they cannot afford to heat their homes, buy groceries for their families, and find ourselves edging closer to a nuclear stand-off?

We know that when political parties are banned, then conformity of the press and social media soon follows, and democracy is suppressed. We have seen this play out last century in Europe. This is precisely what is happening now in Ukraine. Are we to ignore the evidence, trust what you are told and be classed into a subservient citizen that is unwilling to ask why Zelensky’s undemocratic regime continues to reap billions of dollars of weapons?

Question the billions of dollars being sunk into Ukraine that has resulted in a devastating loss of life, an ensuing energy crisis, and mounting fears of nuclear war; and you are politically canceled as a Putin ally.

To be clear, asking questions about the reasons and costs to this conflict is not agreeing with Russia’s military course of action in Ukraine. To see the bigger picture, the financing of Ukraine is not simply advocating for the virtues of democracy, but rather peeling back the layers of history in the region, revealing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky’s regimes crackdown on opposing voices, and questioning the media’s narrative that glorifies Zelensky and vilifies Putin.

Andrey Kortunov:
A New Western Cohesion and World Order

The real question that should be asked is whether the West is truly fighting for democracy or hell-bent on crushing Russia and whatever it takes to purge Russian President Vladimir Putin from existence. If US President Joe Biden is asked this question, the answer is clear. For the Biden administration, Putin is the scapegoat for everything wrong in America, whether it be claims of Putin’s inflation, Putin’s gas prices, or for aiding President Trump’s win in 2016. Biden told the world from Warsaw on March 26 that Putin “cannot remain in power”. When the White House attempted to downplay Biden’s remarks, noting his statements were not calling for regime change in Moscow, Biden stated that he was “not walking back anything”.

Americans, and perhaps Europeans feeling the greatest pain, need to ask if they have become tired of the Putin rant and are they being led down the “democracy at risk” path for a country that is corrupt and far from democratic. Are you prepared to suffer hardship and even die for the politics of this conflict?

First, it is important to understand that the territories of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have historically been characterized by a complex ethnic mix, which emerged over the centuries of war, political upheaval, and shifting control. Nomadic tribes such as the Scythians, Huns, and Tartars once roamed the territory; followed by Cossacks and the Russian Empire populating the Donbas in the mid-18th century with the discovery of coal reserves. By 1897, Russians made up most of the industrial workforce in the cities while Ukrainians dominated the rural areas. In 1918, troops loyal to the Ukrainian People’s Republic took control of parts of the Donbas with the help of its German ally.

WWII witnessed further upheaval when Germany occupied the region for resources and forced labor until the Red Army offensive in 1943 returned the Donbas to the Soviet Union. By 1959, there was 2.5 million Russians living in the Donbas. More recently, the economy has collapsed through the 1990s where divisions have since escalated with Ukrainians seeking closer ties to the West and Russians taking over key government buildings and declaring a republic.

The history behind Russia’s “reunification” with Crimea is not short of its own upheavals. Although Russia lost the Crimean War in 1854 and was not allowed to have a Black Sea fleet, the empire re-established itself as a naval power in the Black Sea in 1871. The Soviet Union reclaimed the peninsula from the Nazis in 1944; and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev handed over Crimea to Ukraine a decade afterwards, in 1954. In 2014, the people of the peninsula made their choice to reunite with Russia.

Since 2014, thousands of people have been killed in the Donbas. Unfortunately, this current crisis in Ukraine is yet another pivotal moment in a lengthy and tumultuous history in the area that will be added to a long list of regional conflicts that now has the West injecting itself to pin Russia in a corner.

Western governments and most media outlets have championed Zelensky as the standard bearer of democracy. Let’s take a closer look at what the West are spending billions of unaccounted funding on for this democracy. Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice suspended the main opposition party, The Opposition Platform for Life and arrested the leader, Victor Medvedchuk. This is the second largest political party, and it would be akin to the Democrat Party in the US directing the DOJ to dissolve the GOP. Zelensky signed a law that bans parties in Ukraine that oppose the government’s approach to the conflict with Russia; essentially removing democracy in the country.

Andrey Kortunov:
Is a Marshall Plan for Ukraine possible?

In a further crackdown on opposing voices, the Zelensky regime is seeking to shut down and extradite critics. Anatoly Shariy, a journalist and blogger with nearly 3 million YouTube followers, has been charged with treason for allegedly acting on behalf of foreign forces. Shariy was arrested in a joint takedown by Spanish law enforcement and Ukraine’s Prosecutor General. Ukraine’s courts have also seized television channels in a further effort to silence opposition to Zelensky’s rule.

Can you imagine these actions taking place in America where Trump is arrested and jailed, Fox News is taken off air, the assets of the New York Post seized, FBI raids on the homes of dissenting protestors, the DOJ issues a warrant for the arrest of Tucker Carlson, and a media that humiliates and smears opposing voices into submission?

Ukraine’s actions to subvert the long history of Communist parties did not raise its head after February 24. The Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) was founded in 1993 and was represented in parliament until the party and communist symbols were banned through an EU-backed decommunization law in 2015. The KPU emerged as the largest political force after each parliamentary election until the Orange Revolution in 2004. The KPU maintained an anti-NATO position, seeking a resolution to the conflict in the Donbas region.

While far from agreeing with communism, the resolution banning political parties can rightly be branded as an undemocratic power grab. When a dictator or rogue regimes silence political opposition, America and the West were known to call it out, yet Ukraine is given a pass. It is becoming more common and perhaps normalized for a party in power to subvert their constitution and use the courts to criminalize ideologies and restrict people’s movements and financial means.

Supporters in America and the EU funding this proxy conflict against Russia should not be blinded to the very serious democratic deficits in Ukraine; knowing a there is long history of territorial shifts in the region. Does Biden really care if Ukraine is destroyed at a great cost to life if Putin is removed? Do the people in the West want their taxes going to prolong the hostilities when they cannot afford to heat their homes, buy groceries for their families, and find ourselves edging closer to a nuclear stand-off?

We know that when political parties are banned, then conformity of the press and social media soon follows, and democracy is suppressed. We have seen this play out last century in Europe. This is precisely what is happening now in Ukraine. Are we to ignore the evidence, trust what you are told and be classed into a subservient citizen that is unwilling to ask why Zelensky’s undemocratic regime continues to reap billions of dollars of weapons?