Good morning Hank, it’s Tuesday. So to understand the unfolding catastrophe
in Ukraine, I think it’s really important to have some historical
and political context. First, a quick snapshot of Ukraine:
it is the second largest country in Europe by area; at least as of
three weeks ago, it was home to over 40 million people.
The national languages are Ukrainian, the first language of around 2/3rds
of Ukranians, and Russian, which is the first language of around 30% of
Ukrainians. Russian is most commonly spoken in the east and south of the country,
but gentle reminder that language is not nationality.
Ukrainian history and cultural identity stretch back a very long time,
but its history as a nation-state really begins– like a lot of countries–in World War I.
Beginning in 1917, Ukraine was for a time an independent nation
called the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which had this flag and is seen as the
forerunner of modern Ukraine which has this flag.
But like the borders and even the existence of this new country were
always contested. From 1917 to 1921, there was a war between the Ukrainian
People’s Republic and the Bolsheviks, who were just coming to power in Russia.
In January of 1919, just after the end of World War I the Bolsheviks
invaded Ukraine in full force, and eventually defeated the
Ukrainian People’s Republic among other factions, wars are
complicated, and Ukraine became one of the Soviet Socialist Republics
of the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
One of the generals who led that Bolshevik invasion was Joseph Stalin,
who cemented himself as the leader of the Soviet Union in 1929. Stalin
wanted to crush any Ukrainian independence movements, which for him
also meant discouraging Ukranian language and cultural identity through a
variety of strategies, many of them horrific. But we’re going to focus today on just 2
Stalin policies that continue to reverberate: First, the holodomor as it is known in Ukranian.
In 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainians starved to death because of Stalin’s
agricultural policies, wherein food was taken from Ukrainian homes and Ukranian
fields and sent elsewhere in the Soviet Union, especially to industrial centers.
This period is sometimes known in English as the Terror Famine to emphasize
that it was not the result of blight or weather but of human choice.
So to be clear, the Stalin regime knew what it was doing. The policies
were designed to punish Ukrainian peasant farmers, who were seen to be
resistant to Stalin’s ideal of the Soviet Union. It is hard to overstate the horrors
of the holodomor–perhaps one out of every eight Ukrainians died
in a two-year period. Another Stalin-era policy that
continues to reverberate was Forced deportation. So because Stalin wanted to
discourage independence movements, he forcibly moved
millions of people. Almost the entire indigenous population of Tatar people
was deported from their home in the Crimean peninsula; many Ukrainians
were forced to leave Ukraine including for prison camps in Siberia, and many
Russian people were moved against their will to various areas of the Soviet Union
as well, including Ukraine. This had a significant, llasting effect on the ethnic,
cultural, and linguistic makeup of a huge swath of Eurasia from Lithuania to Kazakstan,
and it’s worth noting that many Ukrainian people today see parallels
between Stalin-era policy and what the Putin’s regime is doing to
Ukraine right now. So Putin is attacking humanitarian corridors
people are trying to set up to allow safe passage of civilians from
besigned cities into western Ukraine or other countries in Europe,
but Putin has said “I will guarantee your safety if you come to Russia.”
Basically saying, you can’t stay safely in Ukraine and you can’t go west,
but you can come to Russia, which feels to a lot of people fairly
close to forced movement. Ok let’s move ahead to 1991,
when the Soviet Union is breaking up, Ukraine holds a referendum to
vote on whether to become an independent nation. And 92% of people
vote for independence. In every region of Ukraine, a majority of people
vote for independence. And as a result, for the last thirty years, Ukraine has
been a globally recognized independent nation.
Now it has not always gone great, as I explored in my previous video
about Ukraine. But also, independence is complicated in a global world, especially
when the name of your country literally means “borderlands” as Ukraine does.
Partly due to cultural and historical connections, like millions of Ukranian people
have family in Russia, and partly because of economic necessity, Ukraine has
had to maintain somewhat close ties with Russia while also trying to
remain, you know, a country. Economically, Ukraine has been in a
complicated relationship with Russia for the same reason the rest of Europe has
been: which is that Russia has a lot of oil and natural gas. Like fossil fuels amounted
to about sixty percent of Russia’s exports in 2019. That figure is similar to like, Iran
or the UAE. And Ukraine has been very reliant on imports of Russian energy
sources, not least because at times those imports have been heavily
subsidized by Russia to try to curry favor and influence in Ukraine.
But here’s where we arrive at the crux of the matter: for a country like Ukraine,
it is really difficult to have a good relationship with Russia, because Russia’s
leader, Vladimir Putin, has long maintained that Ukraine should never have existed.
I said earlier that for the last 30 years Ukraine has been a globally-recognized
independent nation but I realize now that’s not quite true because there is
one place where Ukraine is not recognized as an independent nation, which is
inside of Vladimir Putin’s head. Putin, who has directly or indirectly
been the leader of Russia for over 20 years, does not view Ukraine as a legitimate nation–
and that’s not, like, an accusation; it’s a statement of fact. Putin has written
repeatedly that he considers Ukraine to be lacking in “real statehood,” and that Ukraine
“was created entirely by Russia.” He thinks all Ukrainians should speak
Russian and understand themselves to be part of “what has historically
been Russian land.” So despite whatever the talking points are in
Putin-friendly media, Putin himself has repeatedly acknowledged exactly what
this war is about. He does not believe Ukraine is a legitimate nation, and he
believes, quote, “the true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible
only in partnership with Russian.” This is not about, as some have claimed,
protecting Ukrainians who speak Russian as their first language–in fact, in the first 2
weeks of the war thousands of such civilians have been killed by Putin’s regime.
It is not about the denazification of Ukraine, a nation with a democratically elected
Jewish president. And while I don’t doubt that Putin feels pressure from
the NATO military alliance and I don’t want to minimize the complexities
there, I simply don’t think it makes Russia more safe to have Russian
soldiers closer to NATO missiles. Again, this is about what Putin has
said it’s about: He believes when the borders of Ukraine were drawn,
“Russia was robbed.” He is seeking to rectify that perceived injustice
through violence, including the mass killing of civilians and the
destruction of infrastructure that serves them. I mean, just before the invasion,
Putin addressed Ukraine by saying, “Whether your like it or not, take it,
my darling,” which was widely recognized to be a quote from a song about
sexually assaulting a corpse. Vladamir Putin told the world what he
was going to do. And now he is doing it. I made a video about Ukraine eight
years ago that ended, “The arc of history is long;
let’s hope it bends toward peace.” That was tragically naive.
I don’t know how this war will end, only that it has already caused
tremendous suffering. Less than three weeks into the Putin’s regime’s invasion
of Ukraine, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes, and thousands
have been killed, including many children. I hope there is some way forward other
than more suffering, but I don’t know what it is. What I do know is that no
war will crush Ukrainian language or identity. When I made a tiktok about
Ukraine recently, a young person commented: “As a Ukrainian i would
like to add one thing, that I recently understood myself: Ukraine became
Ukraine by never giving up on fighting for its freedom.”
And that’s a good reminder that this war is not about conflict between east and
west or whatever; it’s about the right of Ukraine and its people to exist in freedom
and independence. Putin does not believe Ukraine has that right, but he is mistaken.
Ukraine does not need to be a Russia-friendly country or a Europe-friendly country;
it should be able to be its own country, to make its own choices secure in the
knowledge its borders and sovereignty are protected. I believe that day will come,
but I fear for every day until it does. Hank, I’ll see you on Friday.