Adrian Karatnycky is the guest on my Q&A podcast, here. How do you pronounce that name? Carrot-NIT-ski. He has been on the scene for a long time — the scene of freedom, democracy, and human rights, particularly in Eastern Europe. From 1993 to 2004, he was the president of Freedom House. Today, he is affiliated with the Atlantic Council and other organizations. And he is the author of a new book: Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia. This is a history of modern Ukraine, so to speak. And Karatnycky was exceptionally well equipped to write it. He has been immersed in the relevant issues his whole life.
He is a New York kid, as he relates in our podcast. He grew up in the East Village. He is mainly of Ukrainian extraction, but of Polish extraction as well. The East Village, he says, once had as many as 12,000 Ukrainians. Now that number is down to 3,000 or 4,000. “But the cultural landmarks are still there,” he says.
From earliest days, he was aware of Russian imperialism as “a great menace,” he tells me. He was aware of “the dangers of russification” and of “the need to preserve one’s own culture.” He was made to understand “the evils of totalitarianism,” as his family lived under both Soviet and Nazi occupation, before fleeing westward.
We talk a fair amount about identity. Even now — even after all the Ukrainians have demonstrated since February 2022, and before — there are people who deny Ukrainian identity. The Kremlin does, of course, but so do its echoers in the West.
Karatnycky and I talk about the Orange Revolution (2004) and the Maidan Revolution (2014). Every day, you hear that these were CIA plots. Ukrainians can’t have democratic aspirations of their own. They have no volition, no agency (except for the Central Intelligence Agency). They are simply manipulated by Washington. Again, you hear this not just from the Kremlin but also from its echoers in the West.
Karatnycky is remarkably patient in answering false claims, and of course he is deeply informed.
“Corruption!” “Nazism!” These are among the charges that Karatnycky takes up on our podcast, with his patience and thoroughness. Cool heads such as his are invaluable in wartime — always, of course, but maybe especially in wartime.
Ukraine has been independent since 1991. It went through terrible growing pains, as old Soviets had the controls. Step by step, Ukrainians gained in democracy (and some paid with their lives). Then Putin invaded in 2014 — to be followed by a full-on assault in 2022. His aim: to wipe out Ukrainian democracy, to wipe out Ukraine altogether.
I am glad Adrian Karatnycky has written this book, this modern history. And I’m glad to have talked with him on Q&A — again, here.