Ukrainian Independence

Attention

Americans are notorious for a short attention span.  It’s always been that way, even from the founding of the Nation. Five short years after the ratification of the Constitution, when everyone warned of the dangers of partisanship, the Washington Cabinet split into Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.   To put it in the best light – Americans are more interested in looking forward, into the future, than back to the past or even at the present.

Remember Covid?  It’s still here, over 300 Americans dying each day.  But we’ve learned to live with, or ignore, the crisis that shut our Nation down only two years ago.  Sure, there are still masks in the top of the Grandfather clock in the dining room, and there’s still tests in the medicine cabinet.  But Covid no longer controls our lives – until we get it. The pandemic is honored by ignoring it.

And Americans are easily “distracted”.  Think about the last five weeks:  the span from the Uvalde school massacre to today.  Since then, there’s been more shootings, protests, and even legislation passed.  And there’s the “discovery” that our Supreme Court is radically right of the mainstream of the Nation, that the President tried to overthrow the Constitutional process, and our passenger rail system is vulnerable.

Zelenskyy

President Zelenskyy of Ukraine knew that the world would leap to his support when the Russians invaded his nation.  He gave dramatic speeches from the streets of Kyiv, as Ukrainian troops held off the Russian attack in the northern suburbs (remember the eighteen mile convoy, stalled for days along the road?).  American cable news networks went 24/7, some from the borders in Poland and Hungary, some with greater risk from inside Ukraine.

But Zelenskyy also knew that a long, protracted battle would ultimately fade from the front pages.  The network news anchors would go back home, the lead stories would move to the next world “crisis”.  Most importantly, Americans would be distracted, and lose interest in the daily missile strikes and artillery barrages.  

And here we are.  It’s been four months since the Russians smashed across the Ukrainian border like some black and white World War II documentary.  But this attack was in “living color”,  the color of thousands of lives lost.  The estimated “Butcher’s Bill” today:  33,000 Ukrainian troops killed, 25,000 Russian troops killed, as many as 28,000 civilians killed.  But on the smoke filled battlefields, it’s really too soon to know.

Zelenskyy’s forces were able to hold off the first Russian thrusts at the major cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv.  The “vaunted” Russian tank forces were stopped literally in their tracks.  Putin demanded his generals go to front and “fix” the problems.  Eleven of the them were killed, including a Corp Commander and the Chief of Electronic Warfare.  

Russian Strategy  

So Putin changed strategy, from decapitation of the Ukrainian regime, to expanding from the already Russian controlled portions of the nation.  And that’s where we are today, a constant grind of artillery and attacks across a broad swath of Eastern and Southern Ukraine.  The Russians are forcing Ukrainians to defend a long border, and the Ukrainians are making the Russians pay dearly for every foot of Ukrainian soil they take.

Since the early failure to overthrow the regime, Putin’s  strategy also changed to waging war against not just the Ukrainian military, but against the morale of the civilian population.  No one is safe,  even in a shopping mall in Kyiv, more than three hundred miles from the battlefield.  Two Russian missiles slammed into the crowded stores.  Twenty were killed, fifty-nine wounded, and forty more are still missing in the burned out wreckage.

Putin believes that the world will not “step in” as long as he doesn’t use chemical or nuclear weapons.  The European Union and NATO nations increased the sanctions against Russia, causing the Russians to default in their international bond payment of $100 million, the first default since the end of  World War I.   Sweden and Finland are now in NATO.  And the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad (a piece of Russia surrounded by Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea) had fifty percent of its trade cut.

But, for the short term, Putin is willing to accept the economic losses.  His bet is that the famous American attention span will shift away from a protracted fight in Ukraine.  He believes Americans will be more concerned with rising gas prices, the prime “driver” of the American inflationary spike, than the civilian casualties in Kyiv shopping malls or Mariupol theatres.  

Independence Day

It’s coming on the Fourth of July.  There’s a great deal at the local gas station – $4.79 a gallon.  Eleven million Americans are travelling by air in the next few days – even though ticket prices are up, and the number of flights are down.  The cost of toilet paper, chicken, peanut butter (not Jif), and almost everything that gets shipped to the store is up.  There’s a whole lot going on in American life that doesn’t include missiles landing on Ukrainian shopping malls.

But we shouldn’t forget Ukraine, or grow tired of their struggle.  We are celebrating our 246th year of Independence.  Our obviously flawed democracy is still trying to grow “more perfect”.  But one way to celebrate that independence and honor our own history, is to support another nation’s battle to maintain their national sovereignty.  Ukraine isn’t going away – and neither should we. 

Ukraine Crisis

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.

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