The latest jerk to claim that Ukraine should give up territory in exchange for peace is noted war criminal Henry Kissinger — invited to speak at Davos for some reason, in a long and noble tradition of the continued legitimization of important psychopaths.
I’d like to propose that we give up Henry Kissinger in exchange for peace instead and throw in noted genocide denier Noam Chomsky, who also doesn’t believe that Russia should be soundly defeated, to sweeten the deal. Sadly, these two bitter old men are only useful to Russia when they remain far from the Putinist paradise, confusing and demoralizing the Western public.
Whenever I engage Kissinger’s (or Chomsky’s) deranged ideas, real people, not bots, inevitably show up to tell me how I’m wrong and how appeasement is actually a good thing. “Why don’t you send your family to fight?” they say (I have several relatives on active duty, fighting in Ukraine, and most of my family remains in the country). “Prepare for more Ukrainians to die” (many have already, including friends of mine, but some of you would make sure their sacrifices were made in vain). “You go fight instead” (to be honest, if I wasn’t a single parent, I would have had to volunteer — as such, I seek to remain useful beyond Ukraine’s borders).
Real people make statements like that mostly out of ignorance. For one thing, many aren’t even familiar with Ukrainians as a concept. The idea that millions of Ukrainians died in WWII is alien to them, for example, because they assume the Soviet Union was mostly Russian. Ukrainian traditions, Ukrainian history, Ukrainian language, and the Ukrainian struggle for self-determination have largely passed them by. They see a bloody conflict and it makes them uncomfortable. They remember that Putin has nukes, and they get more uncomfortable.
Cowardice fills the void created by ignorance. “Just let the despot with the nukes do what he wants” suddenly seems like a reasonable position to them.
People who know what they’re talking about understand that appeasement doesn’t work. Not only does it embolden the enemy — let’s be clear about this, Putin views the entire Western world as his enemy, and he is clear on this — it strengthens the despot at home. Our best chance of ending the conflict is humiliating Putin so completely that he is deemed a liability by his own people. That’s not going to happen if you hand him a win.
If Russia gobbles up more territory, it will only come back for more. It’s not going to stop. The Russian dream was to take Kyiv in a few easy days. As those days have turned to months, the Russians have changed their strategy, re-focusing on the Donbas, but that doesn’t mean they’ll look at their thousands of dead and give up should they be appeased. Soldiers’ lives are meaningless to an intel guy like Putin. His megalomania takes precedent.
It’s not fair that Ukraine is bearing the brunt of Putin’s maniacal rage. It’s horrifying. There are no words to do justice to the horror, it simply is. If you’re like me, connected to Ukraine, your life will never be the same now. This is a grief that we will carry, collectively, until we are dead.
“Carry” is an important word. It’s a heavy weight, but you take the steps you need anyway. There is little doubt in my mind that more people I care about are likely to die in this war. It’s not something that I can “accept,” not really, how do you accept a thing like that? Instead, it’s just there, a rock around your neck, and you make sure to keep breathing until your breaths run out. We owe the dead that much — and much more.
I console myself with the knowledge that the Russian economy is in the anaconda grip of sanctions and things are going to get much worse later in the year. One of the smartest people in the Russian government, Elvira Nabiullina, says as much — and we have every indication that the Kremlin is not listening. Good.
Other smart people, ones I know, are predicting a massive Ukrainian counter-offensive, though it will not come immediately. The feverish news cycle has people changing their opinions every day, but my method is to keep steady. Keep breathing.
The atrocities uncovered in places like Bucha should tell you everything you need to know about this war. It’s a war of survival. If Ukraine loses, there will be no more Ukraine, and other countries will be doomed as well.
Putin’s pet toad, propagandist Margarita Simonyan, croaks about a nuclear apocalypse on Russian television. “Either we win, or this ends badly for everyone,” she recently said.
Should we be worried? Sure. It’s good to worry. Not good to panic or give up. Simonyan has always been a cynic, and her words are meant to upset people. It’s bad to allow yourself to be manipulated by a wealthy propagandist. You really think that Simonyan, who has a ton of money, and a family to think about, believes that Putin should launch nukes? No, she just wants you to believe that he will.
Today, the people urging Ukraine to appease the madman are not invested in peace. Certainly not for all. They just want to not be bothered. They don’t want to have to be brave.
Everyone I care about is tired of being brave today as well — but that only makes their cause more just now than ever.
Image: @UK Dokumentarfotografie