Putin's Criminal Invasion of Ukraine

 

A month and a day after Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, I presented this topic to a highly interactive audience of nearly 100 people at the Philosophy Club of The Villages, FL. This Blog posting outlines some of the highlights of my talk.

Philosophy Club Announcement

A few hundred people are on the Philosophy Club email list. They received the following description of my talk: 

"Friday, 3/25    Ira Glickstein         Putin’s Criminal Invasion of Ukraine 

"The unprovoked attack on the people of Ukraine by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is a serious threat to the United States and our European allies.

"The US/NATO response needs to be finely tuned. Overly aggressive action could result in direct confrontation between American and Russian forces, escalating to World War Three. Insufficient action, allowing the forceful incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian Federation, could embolden China to military action against the independence of Taiwan.

"My interest in this topic is based on my European heritage. My parents and I were born in the United States, but my grandparents immigrated from Europe. Of my four grandparents, I was closest to my mom’s dad, Louis Leibowitz. He came from a city called Ekaterinoslav (named after Empress “Catherine the Great”). That city (renamed Dnipropetrovsk and now called Dnipro) is in the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine. It also happens to be the area where the current heroic leader of Ukraine, President Zelenskyy, was born! (See Leib-owitz: Putin Killing Our Cousins in Ukraine for more.)"

This is PERSONAL for me!

As noted above, my maternal Grandfather, Louis Leibowitz, immigrated to the US from Ukraine in the early 1900s. (He said he came from "Ekaterinoslav, RUSSIA", but that city, now renamed Dnipro, is in the Russian-speaking part of UKRAINE.) "Ekaterinoslav" translates to "Catherine City" named to honor Catherine_the_Great who ruled the Russian Empire from 1762-1796.

  

Louis was one of 13 siblings born to Dina and Isaac Leibowitz. He, and four of his siblings (Fanny, Dora, Max, and Zelda) were fortunate enough to make it to the US. The other eight brothers and sisters remained in "the old country". 

Louis worked as an upholsterer in the US and did well enough that he could afford to take his wife, Lena, and his youngest daughter, Ruth (my future mother), to visit relatives in Ukraine and Azerbaijan. That visit took place in 1929. 

Louis sent packages of clothing and exchanged letters and photos with family members there up till his death in the 1970s. (I remember my father wearing the shoes, shirts, and pants for a few days so they would qualify as "used" and spare our foreign relatives the punishing tariffs that would have been due if the items were brand new.)  

According to my 23andme DNA test, I have DNA relatives who have indicated that they have Ancestors from the following countries:   

United States (328) Poland (277) Russia (209) Ukraine (186) Romania (89) Belarus (78)   Germany (70) Austria (69) Hungary (67) Lithuania (59) United Kingdom (38) Canada (28)   Latvia (26) Moldova (19) Slovakia (16) Israel (11) Czech Republic (10) Argentina (7) South Africa (7) France (6). Please note that Russia and Ukraine rank 3rd and 4th. 

Thus, it is very likely that I have cousins who have been directly involved in Putin's criminal invasion of Ukraine. I believe that Putin has killed (or at least seriously threatened) a number of my cousins.

What are Putin's Motivations?

I'm not a psychiatrist (nor any kind of mental health expert), and my knowledge of Russian/Ukranian history is relatively superficial. Therefore, the following is simply my opinion based on reading and viewing Internet and press reports.

Putin, now in his fourth four-year term as President of the Russian Federation, has been the top leader of Russia since 1999. It seems he cannot get over the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the breakup of the Soviet Union, which, although it started a few years before he took national office, continued during his terms as President. (Putin was the top leader of the Russian Federation from 1999 to the present. The decline of Russia started about 1985, in the middle of President Ronald Reagan's two terms in office. It continued through the Presidencies of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.)

It seems as if Putin is determined to go down in history as some weird amalgam of Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin!  Catherine, in the late 1700s, conquered Ukraine, and raised the Russian Empire to a pinnacle of power and glory. Stalin, following WWII, expanded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and, via the Warsaw Pact, dominated Eastern Europe.

Putin could take credit for the amazingly successful growth of the Russian energy sector during his years as President. According to Wikipedia the petroleum industry in Russia has grown to be "one of the largest in the world. Russia has the largest reserves and is the largest exporter of natural gas. It has the second largest coal reserves, the sixth largest oil reserves, and is one of the largest producers of oil. It is the fourth largest energy user. ... Russia is by far the world's largest natural gas exporter. Most, but not all, authorities believe that Russia has the world's largest proven reserves of natural gas. ..."

The Nord Stream pipeline, from Russia through the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine to Germany, has been operational since 2012. Nord Stream 2 is now essentially complete. It could have added further to the Russian economy.

Putin's Threats and Aggressive Actions Against Ukraine 

In 2014, during President Barack Obama's second term of office, Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine. Apologists for this violation of International Law point out that Crimea had been gifted to Ukraine (by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954), that the vast majority of Crimean residents are native speakers of Russian, and that Russia has major military installations in Crimea. NATO, and the US voiced their opposition to Putin's actions and imposed some weak financial sanctions.

Things were pretty quiet on the Russia/Ukraine front during President Donald Trump's term of office (2017-2021). However, upon the election of President Joseph Biden, Putin, sensing weakness, massed weapon systems and troops on their border with Ukraine. 

According to this Timeline of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: 

"Shortly before 06:00 Moscow Time (UTC+3) on 24 February, Putin announced that he had made the decision to launch a 'special military operation' in eastern Ukraine. In his address, Putin claimed there were no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory and that he supported the right of the peoples of Ukraine to self-determination. Putin also stated that Russia sought the 'demilitarisation and denazification' of Ukraine. He said that 'all responsibility for possible bloodshed will be entirely on the conscience of the regime ruling on the territory of Ukraine.' ... 

"Within minutes of Putin's announcement, explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and the Donbas. Ukrainian officials said that Russian troops had landed in Mariupol and Odessa, and had launched cruise and ballistic missiles at airfields, military headquarters, and military depots in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. Military vehicles entered Ukraine through Senkivka, at the point where Ukraine meets Belarus and Russia, at around 6:48 am local time. A video captured Russian troops entering Ukraine from Russian-annexed Crimea."

Amazingly Effective Response by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US/NATO

As I wrote back on March 1, 2022, (see Leib-owitz: Putin Killing Our Cousins in Ukraine):

During the last week in February 2022, Russian Dick-tator Vladimir "Putz-Punim" Putin unleashed hordes of barbaric killers in a brutal, unprovoked, criminal attack on neighboring Ukraine. 

Virtually everyone thought it would all be over in a matter of days.

Yet, under the amazingly skillful leadership of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the brave citizen soldiers of Ukraine have, so far, effectively resisted the invasion, shooting down several Russian aircraft and killing thousands of hapless Russian invaders.

To his credit, US President Joe Biden provided lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine and moved American forces to NATO countries in Eastern Europe. However, he said “Our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine.” He explained, “Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine, but to defend our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the East.”

My parents and I are “Americans by birth” having been born in the USA. 

My grandparents are “Americans by choice” having immigrated to the USA from Austria (on my father’s side) and Russia Ukraine (on my mother’s side).

The Brighton Beach Connection 

My "hometown" is Brooklyn, NY --- more specifically Brighton Beach, which is on the bottom of Brooklyn between Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay. (See The Brooklyn Bungalow) 

During my elementary school years, I lived with my parents in a three-room apartment on the second floor (rear) at 283 Neptune Avenue. My brother and I slept in the single bedroom and my parents slept on a fold-out couch in the living room. My father was a letter carrier, but he was also handy with tools and did odd jobs around the neighborhood. 

My grandparents lived nearby in a basement apartment at 3058 Brighton Sixth Street, close to the main commercial street. Brighton Beach Avenue. My grandfather worked as an upholsterer and my grandmother ran a Knitting Store out of the first room of their apartment. My mother worked as a knitting instructor at that store. 

When I was about 11 years old, my father, with some financial help from my grandfather, paid $5,000 for a bungalow at 21 Brighton 5th Lane. It needed a lot of work. The building was 30' x 30'. It sat on a 40' x 45' lot. It had a full basement.

There were three small bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a single restroom crammed into less than 900 square feet of living space on the first floor. (Up to 1800 square feet if you include the basement laundry room, recreation room and woodshop.) Six people lived there: my grandparents, parents, and my brother and me. (By comparison, my apartment at Freedom Pointe Independent Living is over 1100 square feet. It has two bedrooms, two restrooms, a living room and a kitchen.)

I remember the first time I entered the bungalow and experienced the 6" hump in the floor of the centrally located living room. Fortunately, my father knew an Italian guy who knew about floor beams and joists and posts and such. He also had floor jacks to lend us. My father, with some help from me, installed new floor beams and jacked them into place, supported by wood posts on the concrete floor. That flattened the Living Room floor, but also cracked much of the plaster drywall, which had to be repaired and/or covered by wood panels. We also learned a lot about plumbing and electrical work as we got that house in shape.

I was fortunate enough to qualify for admission to Brooklyn Technical High School, one of the four special high schools in New York City at the time. (The others being Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science, and the High School of Performing Arts.) So, instead of walking to nearby Abraham Lincoln High School, I got to ride the BMT (Brooklyn Manhattan Transit) train about six miles to the top of Brooklyn, within sight of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan.

When I reached college age, I qualified for admission to the City College of New York. So, I got to ride the BMT train all the way into Manhattan! If my first class was at the North Campus, I'd change for the Interboro Rapid Transit (IRT) at 42nd Street and get off at 137th Street. If my class was at the south campus, I'd get off at 34th Street and take the Independent Transit (IND) to 125th Street (the "Main Street' of Harlem). 

When I reached the age of 13 (in 1942) I could get "working papers" and a job selling Good Humor Ice Cream and Orange Drink on the beach. (Of course, I worked prior to that age, helping my father at his odd jobs, my fraternal grandfather at his news stand, as well as at a neighborhood shoe store.) 

The photo below shows the boardwalk at Brighton Beach as it exists today. Facing towards the water, it appears very much as it did when I was a kid.

However, facing away from the water, it is quite different. The first thing I notice is that there are more high-rise apartment houses than there were when I was a kid.  The second thing I see is that some of the signs are in Russian!

Here, close to Brighton Beach Avenue, is a more startling example! 

And below, a recently published news account from The Times of Israel. Brighton Beach is now called "Little Odesa" after the city in Crimea. And Brighton Beach has been overrun by Russian-speaking immigrants. "NY's Brighton Beach seaside neighborhood is a thriving enclave of Jews who moved to the United States in the 1970s, '80s and '90s as refugees from the former Soviet Union."

Oh, and that Brighton Beach bungalow my father bought for $5,000 back in the early 1950s? I checked Zillow and it is currently valued at $540,000 !!! 

What does that bungalow have to do with the topic at hand: Putin? Russia? Ukraine? Why did I mention what it is worth now?

Well, it is because of the Russian-speaking Jewish refugees from Ukraine noted above. Over the past few decades, they have flooded into Brighton Beach, sparking a demand for luxury apartments. The old buildings are worthless, but the land they sit on, when converted to apartment buildings, is worth over half a million dollars for a 40' x 45' foot lot!

Unfortunately, my parents sold the bungalow in the early1980s, when they moved out to San Francisco, so they missed most of the increase in land value. 

How Does This Tragedy End?

Many different endings may be imagined. 

The best would be a return to the status quo anti-bellum. A scenario where some combination of Russian oligarchs and rational military leaders depose Putin or force him to call off the offensive military action and return Russian troops to their bases. Perhaps, this would include the return of Crimea to Ukraine as well as a requirement that Russia pay for the destruction wrought on Ukraine. 

The worst would be for Putin to continue this awful war, and using some combination of inhumane military tactics and, perhaps, tactical nuclear or chemical/biological weapons, take complete control of Ukraine. Putin would set up a Puppet Government. 

A further terrible consequence of this type of success for Putin's criminal invasion of Ukraine would be to encourage other evil players on the world stage to follow suit. China’s Xe Jin Ping, watching closely, might emulate Putin’s tough stance that worked against Ukraine. Xe might forcibly challenge the independence of Taiwan.

Most likely, some compromise will be struck, returning Ukraine to a status that will end the active fighting for some number of years. 

Any such compromise will have to take the follow "ground truth" into account, namely the percentage of the population which speaks Russian natively in each area of Ukraine, see the map below.  Furthermore, all sides would have to agree to an internationally supervised referendum in each Oblast (district) on whether to remain in Ukraine or become independent.

One possible "compromise" that Putin might accept is depicted in the following map. Russia would get to keep Crimea plus all (or the major part) of the Donbass, as well as a "land bridge" between that part of Ukraine and Crimea. 

 President Zelenskyy has pleaded for a "No Fly Zone” to prevent Russian aircraft from continuing their airborne attacks on Ukraine, He would also like to have the MIGs offered by Poland.

Much as I would like the NATO/US to provide this type of aid, I'm concerned that if any US or NATO aircraft shot down a Russian airplane, that could trigger WWIII.

A Final Word From 19-year-old Ira in 1958

During the Discussion period following my talk at the Philosophy Club, I put the following image on the screen. It is a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times (the self-proclaimed "Newspaper of record") dated September 5, 1958, from Brooklyn (actually typed by me in our Brighton Beach bungalow).

The only thing I would change is to replace "Formosa" (meaning "beautiful island" in Portuguese) with the more current "Taiwan".