The Anti-War Right’s Misguided View of Putin

For many, he’s simply an avatar for a wholesale critique of America.

By
88

It’s an article of various faiths—both secular and religious—that misunderstanding is the cause of conflict.

This sort of insight is generally true for individuals, so it’s often considered equally true of nations. Hence vast amounts of anti-war activism and state-level diplomacy rest on the assumption that nations are like people and if we can just get adversaries to talk to each other, and thereby to understand each other’s perspective, the bloodshed will end or be avoided in the first place.

The only problem: It’s not true.

Consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Vladimir Putin, Ukrainians are Russians. He’s long insisted that they are “one people.” In 2021 he issued a 5,000 word manifesto on this theme. I have only revulsion for Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, but Ukraine and Russia do have a deeply intertwined past. That connection doesn’t justify Putin’s attempted annexation of Ukraine any more than it would justify Ukraine in attempting to annex Russia. But it does illuminate how mutual understanding isn’t a safeguard against war.

Keep reading with a free account
Create a free Dispatch account to keep reading Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
88
By
Comments (88)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Clarity

    Respectfully, the idea that people who are fighting each other understand each other is totally nuts - at least in many cases. If Putin understood the Ukrainian people, he clearly would have adopted a less-risky strategy for attacking Ukraine that wasn't based on the assumption that resistance would collapse. Putin deeply believes in reuniting the former Russian empire - or as least the parts with a significant population of ethnic Russians. In the unlikely case that any of Putin's advisors would have the courage to tell him the truth about Ukraine today or in the past, confirmation bias would make it difficult for him to assimilate any facts that contradict with his deeply held beliefs. Even worse, for the entire pandemic, Putin cut himself off from almost all face-to-face contact with his advisors.

    To understand the Ukraine people, Putin needed to understand the tens and hundreds of thousands who twice occupied the Euromaidan for three months in winter: the first time to protest (eventually successfully) an election stolen by the pro-Russian party, and the second time (also successfully despite violent suppression) in support of an EU trade deal that would provide help with the Ukraine's biggest problem, corruption. Before Zelenskyy, Ukrainian politics was a choice between being ruled by the corrupt pro-Russian oligarchs from the Donbas or the corrupt pro-Western oligarchs from Kiev. Despite historical ties with Russia, the people of Ukraine turned towards the West at great cost, because they wanted nothing to do with Russian "democracy" or corruption, not because they were Nazis or because CIA paid them to do so. They only took steps to increase the importance of the Ukrainian language - which is the native language of most Ukrainians, but not of the urban and former Soviet elite - after Putin recently began asserting that Ukraine wasn't a real country completely independent from Russia.

    Ukrainians deeply resented the opportunistic theft of Crimea, and parts of Eastern Ukraine at a moment when they couldn't defend their territory. Many considered Stalin's failure import food after collectivization and famine to be genocide and they (mistakenly) welcomed the Germans as liberators in 1941 and some continued to fight for independence until 1952.

    Putin's history manifesto is meaningless: Kievan Rus' was a MIDDLE AGES kingdom (with a proto-Slavic language) that is little more relevant to Ukraine, Russia and Belarsus today (which speak three similar, but mutually unintelligible, languages today) than the slightly older Carolingian Empire (which spoke Latin and had a capital in Aachen) is today to the idea that the French and Germans are a single people (even though today both look to Charlemagne as the founder of their nations). A little more than 200 years ago, half a millennium(!) after the Mongols ended Kievan Rus', Catherine the Great annexed and RUSSIFIED Ukraine into the expanding Russian EMPIRE at the same time if was partitioning Poland with Austria and Prussian. During that half-millennium, only rarely were the people of Ukraine - sometimes known as Cossacks - voluntarily aligned with Russia, though the history of Western and Eastern Ukraine is often different.

    The Neo-Nazis, while important a decade ago, don't hold a single seat in the Parliament today.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Rob.Kandell

    I am agreeing with Jonah? Damn. What’s the world coming to?

    Tyrants resonate with their own. Our far-left goofballs resonated with the USSR because that was their thing. Now that Russia has shifted to the far-right (they’ve always been ruled from the extreme), our far-right dipshits are licking Putin’s boots.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Narwhal

    That Putin is an avatar of Christianity to some is profoundly weird to me, but I’m nearly as confused by how some view Constantine. So, maybe I’m the weird one.

    Collapse
  4. linda

    "We hate BLM and Antifa" cuz they are anti-American or something something. "We love the Jan 6 rioters because they are patriots." Jeez. They are both a group of nutter rioters.
    "We root for Russia!" said every very left wing dem group since forever. "We root for Russia", MAGA. Both hold these views because at their base it is anti-American grievances.

    Collapse
  5. BadgerBill

    Not to be pedantic, but the DoD report does not say up to 60,000 Russian soldiers have died. It says 60,000-80,000 have been lost. Usually, “lost” in military terms means dead, wounded, or missing. The number dead is likely around 15,000.

    Collapse
    1. Ken Motamed

      What's your source for the 15,000 figure?

      Collapse
      1. BadgerBill

        KM, it’s really difficult to get figures. If you investigate, the answer differs, depending on source (eg-Ukrainian government says 51,000+ Russian dead, US government estimates are in the 15,000-20,000 range). If you assume 3 wounded to every dead soldier, the Ukrainian estimate would mean over 200,000 Russian casualties (including dead, wounded, and missing/captured). That’s not very likely. US estimate would put total Russian casualties at 60,000-80,000. I was merely pointing out Jonah has equated “losses” with dead. That’s not correct. I occasionally see writers say 53,000 dead at Gettysburg because sources will say 53,000 casualties at Gettysburg. That’s why I said I feared being pedantic.

        Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Brad Thor

    Very well said.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Tim Murphy

    Weakness is provocative and invites a response. The United States committed to the territorial integrity of Ukraine as a condition for it giving up its nuclear weapons when the USSR disintegrated. Had we responded to the annexation of Ukraine by Russia with any measure of military force, we wouldn't be dealing with this issue now. Its easy to forget that Putin took a risk, but initially hedged his bet by claiming that Russia was not invading and the forces were indigenous to Crimea. Those who like to point to the complex history of the region or the imperfect democratic government of Ukraine as reasons for doing nothing like to ignore that the price we are paying now is directly related to our failure to stand with Ukraine-as we were obligated to do-- in 2014. They also forget that like it or not,

    Collapse
  8. rc4797



    Not only is it a fantasy, but Putin knows what appeals to these "conservative" dopes and actively courts their bigoted support. He couldn't care less about Christianity, "family values" and anti-wokeism beyond what he can do to exploit them for totalitarian ends.

    Collapse
  9. Brocka121

    This coincides with the latest from David French so well. Hate from within

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Cogitatio

    "They like him because Putin is “strong,” anti-gay, anti-woke, and a Christian nationalist."

    I saw some of this nonsense months ago, and I initially thought it was either intended as humor, or it was merely a few radicals. When I realized it was more common than I initially thought, I was dumbfounded. It seems rather like the Trumpian Right is looking at the Left and pulling every bad idea they can from them. Add in a bunch of their own bad ideas, and you have a potently toxic mixture.

    *shakes head*

    "When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools”

    Collapse
    1. Gerald Cuesta

      I saw it happening around 2014, when former friends of mine — historically classically blue collar republicans — began stating that they would prefer a man like Putin to Obama, because Putin fights for the right things. Of course these people went full trump. Called Jan 6th a nothing burger and would still vote for the man. After their Putin love was expressed, nothing in their continued self abasement surprised me afterward.

      Collapse
Load More