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Independence, Still

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A woman visits a makeshift memorial with Ukrainian flags, bearing the names of fallen servicemen, at Independence Square during the country’s Independence Day celebrations in Kyiv, August 24, 2024. (Gleb Garanich / Reuters)

Pause for a second to think of this: Two and a half years ago, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, expecting to subdue that nation in a few days. We heard all the propaganda in the West: “Ukraine isn’t a real country. They really want to belong to Russia, especially in the east. In 2014, the CIA engineered a coup.” Etc., etc.

Well, the Ukrainians stood and fought. They are still standing. They have even gone into Russia and taken territory (for leverage). Putin is clearly rattled.

I am full of admiration for the Ukrainians and their example: an example of courage, patriotism, and sacrifice.

After all this is over, I imagine that most people will say they had admired them.

• August 24 is Ukraine’s independence day. On that day, in 1991, Ukrainians declared their independence from the Soviet Union. Their independence from Moscow.

Here is something that is interesting and illuminating:

• A message from the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine:

I believe that Americans can take satisfaction in our country’s support of Ukraine. Obviously, this is a divisive issue.

• Here is the vice president, and the Democrats’ nominee for president:

This is the way American leaders should think and talk, in my opinion. It is the way Republican leaders thought and talked, short years ago.

There are a few such Republicans left. One of them is Senator Roger Wicker, of Mississippi. He is the ranking member on the U.S. Helsinki Commission. He is a throwback.

Obviously, the GOP is represented by Donald Trump and J. D. Vance. Both have said remarkable things about Ukraine and Russia’s assault on it. For instance, Vance told Fox News, “The profit motives of the defense contractors are motivating our posture in Ukraine.” He further said, “We need to stop supporting the Ukraine war effort.”

“Ukraine war effort” is an interesting way to describe a people’s struggle to save itself from invasion and annihilation. But focus on what Vance said about why our country has supported the Ukrainians: “the profit motives of the defense contractors.”

I am reminded of the far Left of my youth — people who said that America was in Vietnam at the behest of Dow Chemical. We have heard such talk in every generation, or most of them.

• Bianna Golodryga, of CNN, says, “A senior Israeli security official tells me that the IDF destroyed 2/3 of the munitions Hezbollah had planned to launch against Israel.” Good. I wish it were 100 percent. This is what Ukrainians want to do, by the way: destroy munitions before they are launched to kill them.

• Both Israelis and Ukrainians are contending with Iranian drones. Here is something of note:

• Who would behead POWs and display their heads on pikes? ISIS, yes. And also “the Armed Forces of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,” as Yaroslav Trofimov puts it. (He is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal.)

• Something else — less gruesome — noted by Trofimov:

• For reporting on Russia, Meduza is well-nigh indispensable. (It is a Russian news organization in exile, as all independent Russian news organizations must be.) A report from Friday is headed, “Parents of Russian conscripts who disappeared amid Ukraine’s cross-border assault say pro-war activists are pressuring them to keep silent.”

• Also invaluable is our own Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Here is a headline, also from Friday: “Moscow Orthodox Priest Defrocked over Prayers for Reconciliation with Ukraine.” (Article here.) That priest is Andrei Kudrin — a brave and good soul, it seems to me.

• In the bad old days, we conservatives talked a lot about “moral equivalence” — a false moral equivalence, and we decried it. There has been a great deal of moral equivalence in the current era.

We heard it from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as he allied himself with Trump-Vance:

“President Biden mocked Vladimir Putin’s 88 percent landslide in the Russian elections, observing that Putin and his party controlled the Russian press and that Putin prevented serious opponents from appearing on the ballot. But here in America, the DNC also prevented opponents from appearing on the ballot.”

Blah blah blah. (For a transcript of Kennedy’s remarks, go here.)

A reminder: Alexei Navalny, widely recognized as the leader of the Russian opposition, died, or was killed, in the Gulag last February.

• Now, a word from Alex Jones:

As a rule, I favor parsimony with taxpayer dollars. But I think the federal government should buy one-way tickets to Putin’s realm for the likes of Jones. Don’t let the door hit you in the . . .

• A comment from Garry Kasparov, followed by a comment from me:

That is an unhappy, dreadful truth — “People imitate winners” — but no less a truth for that. “Strong horse” and all that . . .

• For the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan has written a column titled “The fall of Vladimir Putin is now only a matter of time.” May that time come very soon. It would save a lot of lives, chiefly Ukrainian and Russian.

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