X-Captive Nations Understand Danger of ‘Russian Partnership’

The murderous rampage by ISIS and the free world’s so-called coalition to defeat the Islamic scourge has again brought to the surface the former captive nations’ distrust and hatred of Russia.

Consequently, Moscow’s erstwhile colonies are not hurrying to join any posse that includes Russia to chase down and destroy ISIS.

Russia’s crimes against each one of them and specifically its current war against Ukraine have convinced them to steer clear of Moscow. The chasm that Russia has dug with its crimes against the former captive nations cannot be filled in even by a global humanitarian or punitive mission.

Indeed, the x-captive nations regard Russia as a terrorist like ISIS.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, a consistent and unambiguous advocate of Ukraine, in 2014, became the first European leader to speak frankly about the Russian aggression in the Donbas region of Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea. Grybauskaite said candidly in an interview with The Washington Post that she saw both the Islamic State and Russia as terrorists.

“Russia is terrorizing its neighbors and using terrorist methods,” the Lithuanian president was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris, French President Francois Hollande and some other leaders expressed the idea that Russia should be included in a broad coalition against the ISIS. However, not all EU members support this proposal, noting that Russia is an exporter of terrorism and has violated all international norms by invading sovereign Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and then continuing its aggression in the eastern oblasts of Ukraine.

According to the Baltic Times, at a meeting with the presidents of Latvia and Estonia, Grybauskaite asserted that Lithuania “will not be participating in any new coalitions that Russia is or wants to be a part of.”

“Russia still occupies the territory of one country and is carrying out direct military actions in another, even two countries – Georgia and Ukraine,” Grybauskaite pointed out.

Estonian President Thomas Hendrik Ilves said: “With all the focus these days on terrorism and on Daesh, we have to still keep in mind that the largest act of aggression since the end of World War II is a continuing process with the annexation of Crimea.”

“And I would say that I think we are all concerned about this sort of falling behind or some kind of development in which we stop paying attention to Crimea, or we even forgive the annexation because of the newer threats. We cannot allow that to happen,” Ilves said, according to the Baltic News Service.

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis emphasized that the situation in the European Union and on its southern borders should not distract attention from Ukraine, Delfi news agency reported. “Our common task is to keep the issue of Ukraine high on the EU agenda until the full resolution of the Minsk Agreements,” he said.

The Baltic trio, together with Poland, are insisting on utmost firmness regarding Russia. They fear that the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine will be lumped together as some pundits have also suggested by writing that Putin hopes to use Syria to deflect attention from Ukraine.

“These are different crises and we must not link them, we must assess them separately,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told AFP. “It is unacceptable to talk about some kind of trade, concessions or spheres of influence.”

The Latvian Ministry for Foreign Affairs suggested last week Friday that “the Baltic countries should continue to constantly remind the world about the illegal annexation of Crimea. The fight against terrorists and resolving the conflict in Syria should not be at the expense of Ukraine.”

Polish lawmaker Marcin Kierwinski from the liberal Civic Platform (PO) opposition party observed that “The need to settle the IS issue shouldn’t change our position regarding Russia.”

“Even if it’s not officially on the table, Moscow hopes that if the anti-IS coalition sees the light of day, pressure in the case of Ukraine will lessen and a certain number of countries will say, since we’re fighting together, the sanctions shouldn’t be renewed,” Polish analyst Wojciech Lorenz told AFP. “That's what we have to fear.”

The x-captive nations broad unity was accentuated by Eiki Nestor, the president of Estonia’s parliament: “Even now after the tragedy in Paris, this understanding of new democracies, what the three Baltica and Nordic states (have), we’re trying to help Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova to develop, it's very important, especially in Ukraine's case.”

Separately, newly elected Polish President Andrzej Duda observed recently in the website http://www.ji-magazine.lviv.ua that contemporary Russia has nothing to do with democracy.

In addition to violating its own constitution every day, Duda said Russia “is the first European country which has committed military intervention in the affairs of other independent European state, taking away part of its territory” referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia should not be the focus of any negotiations, he said, adding that the Minsk discussions involving Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France reminded him of Yalta of 1945, at which the free world surrendered parts of Europe to Soviet Russia.

“We cannot accept the fact that Russia should swallow Ukraine by pieces. We are responsible for the integration of European states and the integrity of borders in Europe. Stopping this decaying process will be a triuimph for Europe. To accept a rotten compromise will defeat it,” the Polish president said.

Since the start of the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-15, the former captive nations have proudly and bravely defended Ukraine against the Russian invasion and warned that Russia’s appetite for conquest has not abated. They have also cautioned that the free world shouldn’t betray Ukraine for the sake of an ersatz greater good. They rightly fear that including Russia in the anti-ISIS coalition could lead the free world to halt sanctions against Russia, which would unleash a major backlash against it.

Predictably, France’s Holland is rounding up countries to track down the ISIS killers. However, the x-captive nations have not forgotten his and France’s current offenses. France maintains an honorary consulate in occupied Donetsk which would be akin to the US supporting a consulate in Vichy during WW2. Hollande suggested to Kyiv to negotiate with Russian terrorists in the occupied territories but wouldn’t even consider following his own advice.

I have advocated that the x-captive nations must revive the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the World Anti-Communist League or the Captive Nations Week Committee for their common defense. They should form global, regional, academic and UN coalitions to defend democracy, liberty and human rights as bulwarks against Russian aggression.

What Ukraine and the former captive nations have experienced in the Russian prison of nations has convinced them that Russia can’t be trusted today – despite the need to destroy ISIS. Their counsel should not be belittled by Islamic terrorists’ victims.

Holodomor, Revolution of Dignity and War

Ukrainians around the world took a moment on Saturday, November 21, to reflect on three significant events in their history that contributed to defining who they are as a nation.

The oldest of the three events is the Russian murder by starvation of 7-10 million Ukrainian men, women and children in 1932-33 – known as Holodomor. This heinous premeditated crime against Ukrainians caused by man-made design is considered an act of genocide by governments and scholars around the world, including Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide for the United Nations soon after it was established.

“Genocide is the crime of destroying national, racial or religious groups,” Lemkin wrote. Certainly Moscow’s intentions with regard to Ukraine over centuries can be similarly explained.

Lemkin further observed about the Holodomor:

“What I want to speak about is perhaps the classic example of Soviet genocide, its longest and broadest experiment in Russification – the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.”

“This is not simply a case of mass murder. It is a case of genocide, of destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation. Soviet national unity is being created, not by any union of ideas and of cultures, but by the complete destruction of all cultures and of all ideas save one – the Soviet.

“It is difficult to imagine the calculated death of millions, but history is filled with similar atrocities, of which the Jewish Holocaust is another example. In both cases, the victims were annihilated merely because of their nationality.”

Today, non-Soviet Russia continues to deny the Holodomor as it does all of its crimes against humanity committed against Ukrainians.

Fortunately, since independence, Ukrainians have uncovered numerous additional Russian records that bear witness to Moscow’s guilt. This evidence has supplemented the scholarly research on the subject and added a historical background to the abundant monuments and memorials that have been dedicated to the famine victims around the world. The latest one was unveiled two weeks ago in Washington, DC.

On Saturday, Ukrainians filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City for the annual observance, at which Ukrainian diplomats and US officials paid tribute to the martyrs and pointed an accusing finger at Moscow.

William Paul of the US Permanent Mission to the United Nations read a statement from the White House, in which President Obama said he joins Ukrainian Americans and Ukrainians everywhere to mark the catastrophe of millions being starved to death by Stalin’s regime.

Recently appointed Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Valery Chaly likened the Holodomor to the 18-month long Russian war against Ukraine and added the 8,000 killed to the famine figures. He said the Ukrainian nation is facing another attempt at being destroyed by Moscow, but he expressed confidence that Ukraine will persevere but with aid from Washington, DC.

Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, reflected on the validity of remembering the Holodomor. In reply to numerous questions from fellow diplomats at the UN, Sergeyev pointed out that Ukrainians recall the Holodomor and other brutalities against their nation for the sake of “our children and grandchildren.” He said the incredible figure of millions killed can only be attributed to a concentration camp and, poignantly clarifying, that place of forced confinement was called the Soviet Union.

Archbishop Antony of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church urged his fellow Ukrainians never to forget the horror of the Holodomor because if its memory disappears from the memories of people – all people – then the occasion for the crime to be repeated will arise.

“God forbid,” the Archbishop intoned repeatedly.

Yesterday was also the second anniversary of what has become known as the Day of Dignity – the start of the national revolution in 2013 that sought to rid Ukraine of Russia and in the end ousted its corrupt lackey Viktor Yanukovych. Enraged by Yanukovych’s last-minute decision not to sign the European Union accession documents, Ukrainians from across Ukraine, lead mostly by young people, descended on Kyiv and occupied the capital for weeks until Yanukovych finally read the writing on the wall and fled to Russia out of fear for his life. His cronies also hightailed it with him.

What the crooked oligarchs left in their wake was a treasure trove of gaudy and not-so-gaudy stolen and accumulated wealth as well their Russian patron who was left wondering how such a buffoon of a president could have been allowed to lose Ukraine for Russia.

According to satellite photographs, 2 million Ukrainians filled the center of the Ukrainian capital, displaying their disgust with Yanukovych and Russian subjugation, while expressing support for a Ukrainian Ukraine, one that is aligned with Euro-Atlantic structures. The astounding, historical number of peaceful demonstrators could not be disregarded by friend and foe.

As revolutions go, Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity that began on the Maidan had its share of bloodshed before victory was finally claimed and peace restored. More than 100 defenders of Ukraine were killed by uniformed traitors, who shot at unarmed civilians from rooftops. Ultimately the nation was victorious and all of its denominations – men and women, senior citizens and youth, professionals and workers, Ukrainian and Russian speakers, Catholics, Orthodox, Jews and Muslims – could unite under one Ukrainian flag, one Ukrainian spirit and one Ukrainian cause.

The only casualties on the enemy side were the numerous statues of Lenin – symbols of Russian oppression – that were torn down by the people like the Germans that demolished the Berlin Wall.

As has often happened in Ukrainian history, this triumph was short lived. Putin and his Russian band of imperialists in the Kremlin couldn’t stomach losing Ukraine and their henchmen in Ukraine. Barely two weeks after the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and before the triumphant cheers of Ukrainians fell silent, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine by storming the Crimean peninsula and imposing a reign of terror against the local Crimean Tatar population, outlawing their culture and heritage. Within a few weeks, Russia expanded its invasion of Ukraine by attacking the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

Even though Soviet Russian communist domination of Eastern Europe and Ukraine came to an end a quarter of a century ago, Moscow’s desire to rebuild its empire and re-imprison the now x-captive nations is avaricious. Russia is still seeking to repair the iron curtain separating free men from slaves.

The Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-15 has raged since then, with some 8,000 soldiers and civilians killed, according to the United Nations. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, National Guard and independent battalions, mobilized in an Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) have been heroically defending their country from Russian air and ground attacks in eastern Ukraine. Three distinct sections of Ukraine are currently occupied by enemy forces: Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.

There seems to be no end in sight to the war despite the free world’s mixed support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, which is as culpable of terrorism as is ISIS.

How have these events defined the Ukrainian nation?

The Holodomor shows that Russia will not be restrained in its tactics to destroy the Ukrainian nation – even resorting to starving to death men, women and children.

The Revolution of Dignity shows that the Ukrainian nation will mobilize to defend itself against homegrown and foreign enemies.

And the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-15 shows that Russia’s quest to restore its reprehensible empire is insatiable.

Throughout hardships and sacrifices, Ukrainians have remained undaunted in their commitment to the nation. Ukrainians have learned that freedom and independence aren’t abstract terms. They have been compelled to experience it, live it and defend it every day. They’re really left with one recourse. Thomas Jefferson, among other philosopher-statesmen who have said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, wrote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Keep faith in Ukraine.