Not since 9/11 has an unprovoked hostility been so clearly defined as good versus evil. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has, if nothing else, sidestepped the usual vagaries of who started what or who is the victim and who is the aggressor. On the one side is Ukraine, a sovereign nation. the second largest in land mass in Europe. On the other is Russia’s authoritarian ruler, Vladimir Putin, with an enormous military and an unbridled desire to return his country back to the Soviet Union days.
Even his cover story for this extraordinary military action — including a claim of “peacekeeping” support for “breakaway” regions of Donetsk and Luhansk — was so flimsy one wonders why he bothered. The absurdity peaked when Putin explained in a Feb. 24 televised speech that his goal was the “denazification” of Ukraine, a country currently led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Jewish grandson of a Holocaust survivor.
In Baltimore, as is the case across the United States, the only serious questions people are asking themselves today is how best to support Ukraine and punish Russia and whether economic sanctions announced by President Joe Biden are tough enough. The appetite for engaging in a direct military clash and putting U.S. troops in the line of fire, meanwhile, is appropriately low. And while there’s certainly been some finger-pointing over whether the U.S. had done enough to support Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, as both of the last two presidents withheld military aid from that country, this sort of second-guessing is like fretting over U.S. military preparedness prior to Pearl Harbor. Let the historians pass their judgment. What people really want to know is, what happens next?
Putting the economic squeeze on Russia has much appeal. The threat of sanctions may not have initially deterred Putin, but it’s clear that he’s made some serious miscalculations. First, that the level of resistance within Ukraine would prove as lethal as it’s been to date but secondly, that NATO members and others would be willing to impose sanctions far beyond anything considered after Crimea. Surely, top of that list is kicking Russia out of the SWIFT global bank payments system which has already sent the ruble and that country’s stock market into a steep decline. Even Germany, a country with an understandable post-World War II aversion to military spending and a dependence on Russian energy, has decided to toss at least 100 billion euros at its armed forces.
But make no mistake, imposing sanctions against Russia will not be painless for the rest of the world. It will not be as simple as pouring Russian vodka down the drain or bemoaning recent vandalism at the St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery in Dundalk, as heinous as the topping of 49 headstones last week might have been. And certainly it will require more than posting on social media blue and yellow messages of support that symbolize Ukraine’s flag. Isolating Russia means harming the buyer of Russian goods are hurt as well. And that could include oil and gas, a major Russian export.
Certain Republicans, including the 45th president, would have Americans believe that the U.S. could pump the world out of harm on the energy front. But the reality is far more complicated. While U.S. energy production, particularly natural gas, has certainly increased over time, this dream of energy “independence” is largely a mirage. And draining U.S. resources to the last drop as quickly as possible isn’t much of a long-term solution to anything, especially given the threat of climate change. Better to do exactly what President Biden seeks to do: inflict the most harm possible on the Russian economy and on Putin and his allies while sparing other nations the most collateral damage possible; support peace talks but do not be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling.
Symbolic actions have their place (and cemetery vandals richly deserve prosecution). Americans might also donate to the various charities that are helping Ukrainians (the International Committee of the Red Cross, Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children among them). But what may be needed most is to reflect the sort of determination that Ukrainians are demonstrating each day in fighting this invasion. If it means higher prices at the pump, worsening inflation or an economic slowdown, so be it. We are all Ukrainians now.