32 - Celebrating Patriot's Day: Freeing Ukraine
As Massachusetts and other New England states today celebrate the shots heard ‘round the world in 1775 and the valiant efforts of a hastily raised assemblage of artisans, yeomen, farmers, and small business owners against formidable regulars in the oppressing British army, we need also to applaud similar courageous ad hoc acts by Ukrainian partisans.
The colonists, fighting within four miles of where I am writing, and using their own muskets, received early morning word from Paul Revere and William Dawes that the dreaded British Redcoats were coming to teach the colonists a lesson, and to stanch the sparks of rebellion. Just as small groups of Ukrainians harry the Russians in their overstretched tank lines, so the colonists in Lexington and Concord fanned out to attack marching British regulars unaccustomed to irregular combat. Likewise, Ukrainian insurgents now rely on intelligence gathered by their kin stranded in Russian occupied areas, or in cities and towns that Russians hope to conquer. That informal intelligence helps Ukraine oppose the Russians successfully, just as it gave Lexingtonian and Concordian musketeers an edge on the serried ranks of the advancing British army.
Our American war was not concluded quickly, and the struggle for the soul of Ukraine may continue for weeks, if not months. By sinking the cruise missile ship Moskva with Neptune ground to sea projectiles, Ukraine – outnumbered and less well equipped than the Russians in so many ways -- demonstrated what a determined collection of freedom fighters could do against a nominally much more powerful, but far less well-motivated, foe. Theirs is the victory of asymmetric warfare over static pre-programmed marching orders. But the broad fields of Donbas may be Ukraine’s undoing; Russia has the advantage of numbers and heavy armaments, just as it does in destroyed Mariupol.
Ukraine, led by charismatic Zelensky, fights just as the bourgeois men and women of the colonies fought nearly 250 years ago to preserve their rights and their human agency. Russian conscripts, and even the mercenaries recruited by Russia from Syria, Central Africa, and Chechnya, are mostly risking their lives for cash, for the opportunity to loot (imagine trying to haul refrigerators and washing machines back from the killing fields!), and, it sadly seems, for chances to rape and kill.
During the Revolutionary War troops committed far fewer atrocities and crimes against humanity than the Russians are daily inflicting on Ukrainian civilians. The weapons of war then were far more primitive, of course, as were medical facilities for the wounded. But what history tells us, at least, is that neither side in the Revolution focused on pillaging. And lofting bombs onto civilian apartment blocs was not possible then – fortunately
The Nordics to the Rescue
French assistance was critical in the colonists’ defeat – eventually – of the British army and navy. Fortunately, Finland and Sweden seem ready to join NATO, a process of affiliation that could take a year. Their accession to NATO would add helpful military heft even if their added arms and persons will not decisively tilt the current struggle. But their seeming determination to join NATO gives Russia one more notification of its global pariah status. Since 1917, Finland has had abundant experience coping with Russia as a dangerous neighbor; their 800 mile border and their two small hot wars testify to special knowledge and wariness.
Slovakia is proving a solid supporter of Ukraine from within Europe, in stark contrast to neighboring Hungary. Slovakian Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad is unconcerned by political opponents who fault his government for helping Ukraine. “Russia is killing thousands of people in Ukraine,” he asserted, “and I am not going to count the votes that I would lose –or gain – based on decisions of the government to help. The only thing I am counting is the lives we can save in Ukraine.” So he has shipped an air defense system, MIG-29 aircraft from the Soviet era, and self-propelled howitzers.
Additionally, Slovakia is the transport corridor for war materiel from elsewhere in Europe, and from as far afield as Australia. US equipment largely enters the theater of war via Poland. That country, joined by Slovakia and the Czech Republic, is also refurbishing Russian tanks and other equipment left behind or damaged on the battlefields near Kyiv. All of that is helpful, but hardly apt to be decisive.
Kaliningrad
There has been little talk, at least in public, about Russia’s exclave between Lithuania and Poland. Kaliningrad, once the Prussian Konigsberg and the headquarters of the medieval Teutonic Knights, is a strategic port on the Baltic Sea, cut off from mother Russia by 225 miles of Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus. Russia places parts of its navy there, and employs arrays of listening devices, spying as best it can on Europe, NATO, the Baltic nations, and the U. S.
Until the invasion of Ukraine, Kalingrad was a very profitable producer of chickens, but it cannot now import eggs from the Netherlands and the U.S.; the chicken business has largely vanished. In normal times, too, the exclave is a large producer of vegetables and grains for European market, but that trade is also ending because of the absence of seeds, usually imported from Europe. A large auto assembly plant, manufacturing Hyundai and BMW cars, will shut and 30,000 workers be without jobs because it can no longer obtain parts from Europe. Nor can it pay for them now that the value of the ruble has fallen and payments are forbidden.
The war in Ukraine has effectively isolated Kaliningrad much more than before. It no longer has many commercial dealings anywhere, and where it once took hours to reach Russia by road, now it takes multiple days. The people of Kaliningrad, too, know that they are vulnerable and insecure.
U. S. naval forces might begin to position themselves near the exclave, ready to take control if and when Putin tries to employ tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine or, terrible thought, armed atomic-tipped missiles. Washington and Brussels should prepare their forces to occupy the exclave when they need further to tighten the noose on Moscow and its extended military machine.
On Hindering Oligarchs
Mostly to keep readers apprised as to the fate of Putin’s oligarchic cronies, and related matters, we learned this week that France seized valuable paintings owned by Petr Aven, a Russian banker close to Putin, and Moshe Kantor, a Russian fertilizer magnate. Their art works had been a part of a major Russian collection of Impressionists, post-Impressionists, Picassos, and nineteenth-century Russian art on display in Paris. But it is not going back home anytime soon.
Jersey, the semi-autonomous British tax haven near the northern French coast, last week seized $7 billion dollars from Roman Abramovich that have been sheltered there through a chain of paper companies. Antigua said that it would help Britain hold his yachts, even those docked in Istanbul but owned, nominally, by Antiguan shell companies. A Boston sports firm is trying to buy the Chelsea Football Club, which Abramovich owns but is not now allowed to operate.
Washington has not yet sanctioned Abramovich the way Britain and Europe have, conceivably because he might provide a bargaining entrée to Putin, his patron. Yet, Abramovich may have less influence on Putin and Putin’s plans, nowadays, than before the war. William Browder, an American investor in Russia who is now one of the many knowledgeable former insiders whom Putin would like to eliminate, believes that no one like Abramovich as the ability to shift Putin. He doesn’t care what they think, but sanctioning them means seizing Putin’s criminalized holdings – keeping him from money that oligarchs launder on his behalf.
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As patriots all, we must stand today with the last brave defenders of Mariupol, of Kharkiv, and of all of the other towns now threatened by Putin and his followers. Let us pray that the battle for Ukraine is of shorter duration than the revolution to oust our British overlords. And let it conclude with a similar victory for freedom and humanity.