Ukraine is Defeating Russia: Why this Matters

I argued earlier in the month that Russia is desperate to get NATO involved. This still stands because there is a long history here. This is a history of colonization, Russification, and not recognizing Ukraine as a nation. In many ways, Ukraine, with a lot of weapons from the West, defeating Russia is far preferable to NATO openly fighting Russia.

It’s not just the danger of this quickly escalating to a nuclear exchange. This is one that would be a very bad day for life on earth. But quite frankly Russia facing defeat at the hands of Ukraine is beyond embarrassing.

Russia sees Ukraine as southwest Russia. It is Little Russia. It is not a nation with a right to exist. It does not have its own history or culture. This is why Russian troops are burning books, destroying libraries, and denying agency to Ukrainians. This is not new. They did it during the 1920s and the Holodomor. They did it after World War Two. They did this during the time of the Tzars. They forbade the teaching of Ukrainian. It was, at best, the language of peasants. This in short is Russification.

There is a continuity of ideology from the early musings of nationality in the nineteenth century, to Alexander Dugin. Russia is deeply threatened by nationality, especially one that does not embrace being Russian first. Yes, yes, the Soviet Union…