Aggressors and Defenders

The Netherlands and Denmark have pledged to give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine (42 from the Netherlands, 19 from Denmark). Remember the downing of the Malaysian airliner by Russian-controlled forces in 2014. The Dutch do. On that day, 196 Dutch citizens were killed.

• For a long time, the following line was common: “Russia has Europe over a barrel.” The picture has changed.

• People in the Baltic states are remarkably free of illusions. Frankly, they can’t afford them. Here is the Lithuanian foreign minister:

https://twitter.com/GLandsbergis/status/1694286803073638539?s=20

• The Swedes do not have the luxury of illusions either. An interesting report from the Associated Press begins,

A Russian-born Swedish citizen was charged Monday with collecting information for the Russian military intelligence service GRU for almost a decade.

Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said Sergey Skvortsov, 60, was accused of “gross illegal intelligence activities against Sweden and against a foreign power.” Prosecutor Henrik Olin later identified the foreign power as the United States.

Sure. The report continues,

Skvortsov was arrested in November together with his wife in a predawn operation in Nacka, outside Stockholm. Swedish media reported that elite police rappelled from two Black Hawk helicopters to arrest the couple.

We will need more of that — a lot more of that — in coming months and years.

• Of interest is a report from the Wall Street Journal: “U.S.-Made Cluster Munitions Fuel Ukrainian Counteroffensive.” The subheading reads, “Bombs are destroying Russian trenches and artillery systems in an area where Kyiv’s troops had struggled to advance.”

• This is the way Vivek Ramaswamy, a rising star in the Republican Party, talks:

The combination of ignorance and malice is extraordinary — particularly in someone who wishes to lead the United States (and therefore the West, presumably).

• Ever since the Kremlin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, I have noticed that many Republican politicians like to say “Zelensky.” They like to say “money to Zelensky,” rather than “money to Ukraine” or “the Ukrainians.” They are making a hate-figure out of Zelensky.

I wonder what they would have done in Zelensky’s shoes, when Russian missiles flew and the United States offered him safe passage out of his country. I think I know.

• Get a load of this:

Mitt Romney is a Republican utterly out of step with his party. All honor to him.

• From CNN: “Newly declassified US intel claims Russia is laundering propaganda through unwitting Westerners.” (Article here.) Sure. As in Soviet days, however, a lot of Westerners — including Americans — simply feel an affinity with the Kremlin. They constantly defend, excuse, or perfume Putin and fault the West. They “blame America first,” as Jeane Kirkpatrick put it.

(She “ought to be woven into the flag as the 51st star,” said WFB.)

• Here is the secretary of state, on August 24:

What does that word “our” mean? The administration’s? America’s? Surely not the latter. There may well be a new president come January ’25. During the Republican debate last week, did you hear Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis? And you know about ex-president — future president? — Trump.

• A note — a “thread” — from the Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent:

Oh, geez.

• Of interest, from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: “Zelenskiy To Propose Legislation Equating Corruption With Treason During War.” For the article, go here.

• From the Ukrainian defense ministry:

Is it true? Maybe.

• You will have noted a phenomenon of our time: If you support the Ukrainians in their struggle to fend off invasion, mass murder, mass rape, and subjugation, people — leftists and rightists — will call you “bloodthirsty” or “warmongering.” Two special adjectives apply (adjectives that should be used very sparingly): “Orwellian” and “Kafkaesque.” Russia is the aggressor. The Ukrainians are defending themselves. I admire them a great deal, and I hope they succeed.