Ukraine and the Anglosphere

This document is specifically intended for people in the anglosphere - especially the US - concerned about the situation in Ukraine and is hence written as if you’re someone in the anglosphere.

Before I begin and in case you don’t know me: my parents are from two different countries that both border Russia, one of which (Poland) borders Ukraine and has been invaded or held by Russian-lead empires, the other (Norway) is a member of NATO and is essentially constantly doing its utmost to show that it is not a threat to Russia. I can’t quite put into words the unease I heard in my mother’s voice when talking about the situation.

Hence, nothing in this document supports Russian imperialist actions against Ukraine. I want Ukraine to remain a sovereign country (even though I don’t like the concept of states as they exist today) and I think it is okay that various countries around the world (including the US) lend their support to this. This is Russia doing imperialism.

I’m also not blaming ordinary people in any country mentioned. Do not attack individual Russians over the actions of the Russian state.

Fuck Putin.

First of all: take it easy

If you’re worried about the situation in Ukraine beyond being concerned about people’s safety, please know that you will be fine. It is rather unlikely that there will be any consequences for you coming out of this conflict. Nuclear war is incredibly unlikely even though Putin has ordered readiness (Russia often does this as a scare tactic). He does not have any reason to launch them unless foreign armies start taking Russian land, which no one is interested in doing anyway.

You are at least an ocean away from this situation and if you’re struggling, please do not follow this situation.

Anglosphere pundits

I want anglosphere pundits - especially US ones - to cover this less. Edit (2024.06.17): just going to add some emphasis here and say that Ukraine should still be funded, perhaps even getting way more support. Perhaps even sending in third nation troops to secure backlines.

The US is currently involved in some way in several conflicts that are not in any way getting the amount of attention that the Ukraine-Russia conflict is getting, where withdrawal of US support would mean effectively an end to bombings and murder of civialians. Two easy examples today (2022.03.01) would be Yemen and Palestine.

I’m not saying that one shouldn’t care about the situation, far from it, but what strikes me here is the fact that this situation is getting way more attention than all other wars combined and what seems to be a major driving factor for this is the the closer-to-porcelain skin colour of the people involved compared to the other places mentioned.

I do not wish to blame all the people in the anglosphere for this (especially since you’re obviously not all white, but there’s definitively a white majority), so if you can, try asking others the hard question of why other conflicts are not being covered, if there’s an opportunity to call in to a show somewhere to ask questions, consider doing it.

I’m not saying that US aid to Ukraine should stop, I’m asking if one could perhaps focus on stopping conflicts where stopping the supply of weapons would halt it.

Regarding the Azov battalion and claims of Ukraine being a nazi country

Absolutely fuck the Azov battalion. The fact that they’re currently a part of the Ukrainian military is despicable and it should be dismantled the moment fighting dies down (and should’ve been dismantled ages ago).

The Azov battalion however does not make a compelling reason to invade a country. By the same logic, Russia and the US should’ve been invaded a long time ago and we know that this is not how to solve a far-right extremism issue.

Ukraine is not some nazi-lead country. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the current president of Ukraine, is Jewish. The most generous estimates in terms of votes for far right parties during the 2014 election seem to be about 2%.

On top of this, war usually has two effects:

• Far right people are drawn to violence. An armed conflict allows them to get training and real-world experience.
• Far right radicalisation is much more likely to occur when the nation you’re in is under military attacks.

Claim: “Russia didn’t send their best and they didn’t want all of Ukraine”

Yes, they did send their best and yes, the goal was to take all of Ukraine. They dropped paratroopers onto airfields day 1 and the did a wide attack basically over every single part of the border they could.

The reason it all went so wrong for Russia is because Ukraine saw the writing on the wall and spent the last eight years preparing. Destabilising by encouraging regions to separate from a country (or doing so by force) to gain influence is something that Russia has done before. An invasion is not so far fetched.

This is an act of imperialism.

Why did the invasion happen?

It is most likely a combination of factors. These are things I think may have contributed to the decision to invade, however, I need to stress: I’m no expert.

• Putin might want a legacy in conquering Kyiv. It is an important city in both Ukraine’s and Russia’s history. It needs to be mentioned that Russia as a name can be interpreted as a threat to conquer all of the area that was historically a part of the Kyivan Rus’, especially when someone says “Greater Russia”. He is also comparing himself to Peter the Great.
• It might be literally petty revenge for a trade deal not going through, quoting from The Guardian in 2013:

  “We don’t want to use any kind of blackmail. This is a question for the Ukrainian people,” said Glazyev. “But legally, signing this agreement about association with EU, the Ukrainian government violates the treaty on strategic partnership and friendship with Russia.” When this happened, he said, Russia could no longer guarantee Ukraine’s status as a state and could possibly intervene if pro-Russian regions of the country appealed directly to Moscow.

• Russia felt that Ukraine was slipping out of its sphere of influence and hence felt it would be better to capture and hold it to have a smaller border (with better terrain) to actually man against countries that are not pro-Russian.

What it definitively isn’t

• Defending the separatist republics - this could’ve been more easily achieved by focusing specifically on Eastern Ukraine, instead they stretched thin and have now risked everything. On top of that, activity in that area had been rather low recently as most deaths were in 2014-2016, with most recent casualties being primarily Kyiv side. Many, many more people have died since the invasion than between 2014 and 2022 in the siege.
• Denazification - please check Wagner Group, named such due to Wagner being Hitler’s favourite composer and do search up pictures of Dmitry Utkin (who uses “Wagner” as his callsign). Charity could’ve began at home. This is not the only neo-nazi group in Russia.

Treaty violations?

While digging through the Minsk-agreements can be difficult, lack of clarity of who shot fired first when, looking at a previous treaty between Ukraine and Russia paints a much clearer picture.

Letting the separatist republics happen and annexing Crimea were violations of this 1997 treaty between Ukraine and Russia. What little I can glean from this is that Russia should’ve in fact helped Ukraine deal with the separatist republics, let alone what a grave violation it was to enter and annex Crimea. Russia never signalled its desire to end the treaty (just that it would consider declining a trade deal a violation) prior to failing to meet its obligations.

As such, treaties with Russia are worth less than the paper they were written on.

Additional notes

Please be careful about who you listen to.

People who say “The Ukraine” rather than just “Ukraine” (saying “the Ukraine-Russia-situation” is still fine) are usually uninformed or are trying to push for Ukraine being a part of Russia (especially if they don’t correct themselves or object if corrected). People who self-describe as marxist-leninist have also been dropping the ball when it comes to this situation as they’re behaving as if Putin is going to bring socialism to Ukraine.

Try to listen to European voices, especially ones that are close to the situation by connection and especially if they’re literally there.

Final thoughts

I’m rather white and I find this situation is frustrating. However, I don’t think I have it too bad with this.

This may seem incredibly banal to people of colour, but I feel I need to acknowledge this: I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re feeling right now.

Pundits talking over people in the area, all the masks slippages happening while people talk (“this kind of war is not supposed to happen between civilised countries”), injustices perpetrated against evacuees that aren’t white, and just the general blatant obviousness of the fact that the coverage of this situation is very much inversely proportional to the melanin in the skin of those affected.

It is incredibly gross.

Long-term consequences in Ukraine

I think Ukraine will get out of this as a sovereign nation and I feel like various politicians that aren’t great (from my perspective: anyone on the right) will be able to brand themselves heroes by sticking through the conflict.

The cleanup will be an utter mess.