(Dobbs) If Putin Conquers Ukraine, He'll Have An Appetite For More
Right-wing Republicans who won't help Ukraine are on the side of Putin, Xi, Khamenei, and Kim.
Ukraine has been pushed to the back burner. As one analyst put it, Ukraine “is slipping from public consciousness.” And I’m as guilty as anyone. On October 6th, the day before Hamas attacked Israel, I wrote a column with the title, “If You Aren't Aligning With Ukraine, You Are Aligning With Russia.” But that was 111 days ago. Since then, I’ve written 19 pieces about the implications of the war in the Middle East… and just four about Ukraine.
It’s not as if Russia hasn’t continued its ferocious attacks. Since winter started, it has bombarded our beleaguered ally as fiercely as at any time since it invaded, which will be two years ago next month. On one day alone, December 29th, drones and missiles killed 44 people across the country, 16 of them in the capital, Kiev. There was only one night that whole month without an attack somewhere in Ukraine. Just two days ago, 40 more Russian missiles hit two more Ukrainian cities. More people killed, more buildings flattened.
But in the West, Ukraine is out of sight, out of mind. Allied governments aren’t focused like they used to be. Western journalists aren’t focused like they used to be. When the war broke out in Israel, many war correspondents were pulled out of the European war zone to cover the one in the Middle East. They’re still there. Israel’s war with Hamas has sucked the air out of the war in Ukraine. And as the air is depleted, so is some of Ukraine’s support.
It leaves Ukraine fighting not just against the Russians, but against the perception of irrelevancy. If it loses that fight, it’s not just the Ukrainians who are the victims, it is us. It is everyone who abhors the authoritarian path down which Vladimir Putin has taken his nation, and would take any other nation he controls.
That’s not alarmist. It’s not as if he has kept it a secret.
I’ve told the story before about hearing Putin tell a crowd at an election rally many years ago in Moscow, “We were a superpower once, we will be a superpower again.”
Ukraine is how he starts on his quest for superpower status, and that’s where he must be stopped. The prime minister of Estonia told CNN last month, “We can’t talk about war fatigue right now because if we do and give in, then Putin wins and that will mean a catastrophe to everybody. That will mean more conflicts, more wars, more scarcity of food supply… so that’s why we have to make an effort now.” His nation, once a part of the Soviet Union, shares a border with Russia. He’s worried. And with good reason.
So we have to make the effort for the sake of Ukraine, for the sake of Estonia, for the sake of every free nation in Putin’s sights.
A Ukrainian journalist named Nataliya Gumenyuk, who co-founded an organization called The Reckoning Project which documents Russian war crimes, wrote last week, “In the territories controlled by Russian troops since 2022, we have recorded hundreds of testimonies describing enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention. A number of people who were arrested have since been found dead; among the survivors of detention are widespread patterns of both physical and psychological torture, including beating. sexual violence and electrocution.”
President Zelensky told political and corporate leaders earlier this month at Davos, “Anyone thinks this is only about us, this is only about Ukraine, they are fundamentally mistaken.” The message is, if Putin conquers Ukraine, he’ll have an appetite for more. Estonia? Poland? Who knows what else?
But if Ukraine is the bulwark against further Russian expansion, it needs more support than it is getting right now. Western arms supplies have diminished, which means Ukrainian troops have to ration their ammunition. The Russians, with willing suppliers like Iran and North Korea, don’t. In fact, according to The New York Times, a million rounds of North Korean artillery is starting to show up in Russian hands.
An Associated Press headline on Tuesday told the appalling story of our failure to level the battlefield: “U.S. out of money for Ukraine.” Think about that: the U.S.— the leader of the free world— is out of money for an ally under attack. We have it in the bank of course. It’s just that the right-wing won’t release it.
This is the epitome of dysfunction in American politics. Aid to Ukraine— as well as aid to Israel— is blocked by the domestic debate about security at the border with Mexico. Shortsighted Republicans act as if immigrants who cross into the U.S., armed with nothing more than hopes and dreams, are as dangerous as Russian tanks that cross into Ukraine, armed with shells and bullets.
Between the Iranians and the Houthis and Hezbollah, we have reason to worry about the Middle East war spilling over the borders of Gaza and inflaming the Middle East. But we have equal reason to worry about Ukraine’s war spilling over its borders and inflaming more of Europe. Putin has implied that he might let that happen.
Supporting Ukraine, giving it the means to keep fighting, is an imperative of deterrence. If Putin pursues his greater ambitions, it will cost us and our allies a lot more than the cost of stopping him now.
If I were sending out that October 6th column today, I would make the title longer: “If you aren’t aligning with Ukraine, you are aligning with Russia…. which also means with China, Iran, and North Korea.” You’re aligning with the likes of Putin, Xi, Khamenei, and Kim. Apparently that’s the side these right-wing Republicans who are holding up American help have decided to support.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Greg thank you. Excellent reminder of the stakes. Yesterday McConnell declared that Ukraine aid is dead in this Congress because T needs the immigration issue to whip his support. Regrettably this moment is too believeable.
The US can only protect itself if it is engaged in the world. Isolationism is not an answer in today’s world. It is shortsighted and foolish to think that what happens to Ukraine or the Middle East is not any of our concern. Since when does Putin’s stated goal of reestablishing the Soviet Empire and the Chinese wanting to be the supreme leader of the world and Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons not endanger the US? Those on the right and the left calling for isolationism are the ones threatening America.