By Alexander G. Markovsky, AM THINKER
After Russia announced partial mobilization, which effectively doubled the Russian forces to be engaged in Ukraine, politicians, government officials, and analysts proclaimed that the action was a sign of Russian failure, weakness, and desperation. Be that as it may, the West once again has demonstrated aloofness from history and a refusal to face the reality that regardless of the amounts of weaponry, international sanctions, and billions in financial assistance, the West cannot defeat Russia. Hitler couldn’t do it. Embracing unrealistic expectations will inevitably lead to complete distraction and eventual dismemberment of Ukraine.
The war exposed Ukraine to two of her most critical vulnerabilities – questionable legitimacy and extreme nationalism. Legitimacy derives from acceptance and recognition. However, Ukraine’s neighbors Russia, Poland, and Romania do not accept their current borders with Ukraine.
After the Second World War, the borders of artificially created countries such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine were delineated to replicate the geopolitical engineering. So, when Ukraine proclaimed her independence, she did not proclaim her independence from Russia, Poland, and Romania’s territorial claims.
Indeed, the historical provenance of Ukraine is problematic. In a nutshell, before declaring independence in 1991, Ukraine had never been a unified state. What was to become Ukraine joined Russia in 1654 when Bohdan Khmelnitsky, a Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, petitioned Russian czar Alexey to accept the Zaporozhian Host into Russia. The army and a small territory under Hetman’s control that Russians called “u kraine,” which means in Russian “at the edge;” the term originated in the twelfth century to describe lands on the border of Russia that were incorporated into Russia. The Zaporozhian Host administration was recognized as an organ of the Russian state.
After the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin in 1919 created the socialist state of Ukraine on part of the territory of the former Russian Empire. In 1922 Ukraine became Ukrainian People’s Republic with the capital Kharkov within a newly created Soviet Union. The new territory included Donetsk, and Lugansk regions becoming Eastern Ukraine. In 1934 Kiev became the capital of the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1939, as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Stalin annexed the eastern territories of Poland with the city of Lvov and incorporated them into Ukraine. In June of 1940, he annexed Northern Bukovina from Romania and merged it with Ukraine. In 1945 Hungarian Carpathian Ruthenia, nowadays Zakarpattia, was incorporated into the Soviet Union and added to Ukraine. Now these territories are known as Western Ukraine.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine got its borders within which she achieved independence and millions of Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Romanians were trapped in a newly created country. via
The Ukrainian problem is greatly exacerbated by the fact that unlike pluralistic societies such as the USA, Canada, Switzerland, and Russia, which are tolerant of different cultures, religions, and languages, Ukraine is not. Unsurprisingly, devotion to pluralism proved not to be her forte. Even though the Kiev regime had no historical roots in the real estate it inhabited, it imposed Ukrainian rules and the Ukrainian language on non-Ukrainian people after declaring independence. It is worth pointing out that even in the Soviet Union, where Russian was the official language, the Ukrainian language and literature were compulsorily studied by everyone in Ukraine.
As a result, pro-Russian sentiments – ranging from the recognition of the official status of the Russian language to outright secession – have always been prevalent in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Western Ukraine has always gravitated toward its Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian roots. Emphatically anti-Russian, Poland may not miss this strategic opportunity to re-acquire its land and avenge the humiliation inflicted by the Yalta Conference.
During the conference in Crimea in 1945, the leaders of the free world, Roosevelt and Churchill, legitimized the annexations by affirming Soviet ownership over the Polish and Romanian territories.
It was a cold-blooded betrayal for the Poles, who, unlike the Romanians who fought on the Germans’ side, suffered horribly under German occupation and heroically fought for independence. Roosevelt and Churchill destined the Poles to the horrors of Stalin’s mass-murdering tyranny for a half-century.
Hence, every time the Western leaders defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine, they reaffirm the immoral outcome of the Yalta conference. Western Ukraine does not belong to the Kiev regime, just as Eastern Ukraine is not Ukraine.
The West’s insistence on maintaining the status quo of the Ukrainian borders established by Lenin, Stalin and Hitler exposes the disconnect between strategic doctrine and moral principles.
Indeed, Poles make no secret of their ambitions. Polish President Andrzej Duda, recently declared, “For decades, and maybe, God forbid, for centuries, there will be no more borders between our countries – Poland and Ukraine. There will be no such border!”
On May 22, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he would submit to the Rada a bill on the special legal status of Polish citizens in Ukraine. The bill grants Polish citizens unprecedented civil and political rights in Ukraine. It empowers Polish citizens with the right to be elected in Ukraine and apply for the position of judges, including constitutional judges. The agreement provides for integrating the security forces and law enforcement agencies. The Polish press calls it a “soft annexation” of Western Ukraine.
Romania is not far behind, especially in light of many inhabitants of former Northern Bukovina already carrying Romanian passports.
The territory of Ukraine is a mosaic of other people’s lands. If we want to stop this insane war and ensure peace in Europe, instead of calling Russia’s sponsored referendum in Eastern Ukraine a sham, we should conduct an honest referendum in all the disputed territories under the auspices of the UN and let the people decide what government they want.
Woodrow Wilson, the architect of the principle of self-determination, would enthusiastically endorse the populaces’ desire, as he wrote: “National aspirations must be respected: people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent.”
Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think tank that examines national security, energy, risk analysis, and other public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at alex.g.markovsky@gmail.com
@Vivarto Hungarian lives matter. 😀
Mucacevo or Mukachevo was a major center of Jewish religion and was part of Czechoslovakia before WW2. The Hungarians, allied with Hitler, invaded the area and finally the Soviet Union occupied it but incorporated the territory (Ruthenian Carpathia or Trans-Carpathia) into the Soviet Union at the end of WW2.
life imitating art, rather
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/360365
@Vivarto I thought of this after I played a gig in a Ukrainian church years ago which had a children’s Christmas play in Ukrainian with one child dressed as a knight in armor armed with a sword facing another dressed as a Chasid but with horns and tail.
Afterwards, I said to one of the other Jewish musicians:
. 😀
@Vivarto Reminds me of a quip Imade years ago:
3
@Vivarto
@Vivarto
Some so called “Ukrainians” don’t believe that they are a separate nation from the Russians. Others vehemently insist that they are an entirely separate nation.
Ukraine Army morale is reportedly good to very good. That pretty much answers the ‘Nationality Question’.
While most of the important points are correct, it is a sloppily written article, lots of inaccuracies.
The author did not bother to do research first.
No, there are no millions of Poles, Hungarians and Romanians stuck in Ukraine.
It is also misleading to say that Russians were trapped there. Trapped indicates that someone first came to a place and then could not get out. But in this case, Russians were there at least as long as Ukrainians or longer.
But the biggest issue is the very Ukrainian nationality.
Some so called “Ukrainians” don’t believe that they are a separate nation from the Russians. Others vehemently insist that they are an entirely separate nation.
Before Tatar/Mongolian invasion Kievian Rus was a confederation of Rus — East Slavic people who as far as we know spoke the same language, or at least the written documents are in the same language. Old Church Slavic.
Another inaccuracy is about the betrayal of Poland in Yalta.
The betrayal as that Poles became Soviet vassal state. They were not free politically and economically. But the new Polish borders were hardly a betrayal.
Those borders, which Poland still has now, are the best borders Poland ever had in its 1000 years history.
It is true that Poland lost Lvov and other areas in the East. But they got more than compensated with the previously German territories including the Baltic Sea Coast, the beautiful Mazurian and Warmia lake districts, Western Upper Silesia, the entire Lower Silesia including the Wroclaw (German Breslau),and the entire eastern Germany including Stettin / Szczecin.
What’s really great about it for Poland is that the entire Geran population of over 10 million has been chased or murdered.
Before the war, in the eastern provinces cities were mainly Polish and Jewish, but the surrounding countryside was overwhelmingly Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian.
In many Ukrainians hated Poles, and when they got the opportunity they raped them murdered them. In 1943 some 200k Poles were murdered by Ukrainian Nazis. Most of them women and children. Before murder victims were gang raped and mutilated.
So swapping these Polish-Ukrainian territories for previous ly German now Polish Western provinces was a HUGE advantage. And for the first time in History, Poland actually became a sea nation with sea ports.
Also, while it is true that Poles faught heroically against Germans, it must also be noted that they fought stupidly.
Their most heroic and at the same time their stupidest fight was the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
As the Soviet Army was coming close to Warsaw, Poles decided to liberate their own capital city, to avoid being dominated by Soviets.
As they made an uprising, and initially succeeded in chasing the Germans out.
Soviet army reached eastern bank of the Vistula river and took a break.
After 2 months of fighting Poland’s underground army the AK, was finished. Poles surrendered, then Soviets marched in and chased out Germans.
In this way the Poles have lost the military and leadership that potentially could have opposed the Soviets.
So the Polish heroic fight was also strategically counter productive.
It is also important to mention that the Polish underground army was DEEPLY ANTISEMITIC.
Jews who fought in in had to hide their Jewish nationality. If they were discovered, they were shot by their comrades in arms.
After the Polish army was taken prisoners of war by the Germans, Polish prisoners of war abused their Jewish former comrades in arms.
Forgot Hungary.
https://youtu.be/BnxxELn00gk
First statement is wrong: even Russians still believe they won WWII alone, they would never won without help of allies. Soviets lost 20-30 millions during the war mostly because of incompetence of the commanders. Russia will lose hundreds thousands people in Ukraine war, we don’t know who win
All land is stolen.
The current holders are all that matters.
Russia needed significant American help to win WW2. They will not be getting Lend-Lease this time.
Ukraine is corrupt. None the less I oppose Russian Imperialism.