Russians bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine on Wednesday during what was to be a cease-fire. Three people died, including a child. Seventeen suffered wounds. Vladimir Putin’s two-week-old invasion has killed hundreds of civilians. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky declared the bombing a “war crime” and “proof that the genocide of Ukrainians is taking place.“
The New York Times this morning tells the story behind the now-infamous photo of a Ukrainian family hit by a mortar attack as they fled Kyiv. Serhiy Perebyinis survived, but lost his wife, Tetiana, and his two children. The dead are not simply statistics. Nonetheless, they grow in such numbers that, amid shelling in Mariupol, Ukrainians have no option but to push bodies wrapped in carpets or bags into mass graves.
More than 2.3 million people have had to flee Russian bombardment.
As the world reacts in horror, Rev. William Barber II reminds crowds in this country that violence comes in many forms. On Sunday, Barber paraphrased a speech by Coretta Scott King made just months after her husband’s assassination (via Charles Blow):
“I remind you that starving a child is violence,” King said in 1968. “Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her child is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical needs is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence. Even the lack of willpower to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence.”
King ended the passage by saying that “the problems of racism, poverty and war can all be summarized with one word: violence.”
Violence doesn’t always involve blood. But it does in Ukraine. Right now. Violence is violence. More is coming. And perhaps chemical weapons, human pesticides, one tool of genocide (The Guardian):
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that Russia had been making “false claims about alleged US biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine”, and added that the allegations had been echoed in Beijing.
“Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them,” she tweeted.
Her comments came after western officials said at a briefing “we’ve got good reason to be concerned about possible use of non-conventional weapons” by Russia, reflecting the experience of chemical weapon use during the Syrian civil war.
The concern arose partly because Russia’s foreign ministry had been engaged in “setting the scene” by making “false flag claims” about a biological weapons programme operating inside Ukraine.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will have Ukraine. Zelensky and his constituents will submit or die. Perhaps both. Fierce resistance by Ukraine likely means Putin, now “angry and frustrated,” will double down on slaughter with extermination.
Washington Post interviews with 17 administration officials, diplomats, policymakers and experts indicate the Biden administration sees no end in sight. Experts see an overthrow of the government followed by a prolonged occupation by Russia as untenable and costly for Russia, painfully so. If Putin has an endgame, few know what it is, perhaps not even Putin.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan offers a model for how Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of us end this horror show and stop the largest humanitarian disaster in our lifetimes. “The challenge is that the deal must give Putin something that he can tout as a victory, without rewarding him for starting the war and shelling civilian targets. At the same time, Zelensky can’t (and shouldn’t) look as if he’s surrendering; he has to be rewarded for being in the right and heroically holding out.”
1. Ukraine agrees not to join NATO (Putin takes a win). But can form military alliances with neighboring NATO nations, buy their weapoins, etc. It will not install or host any missiles capable of reaching Russia. “Since Ukraine has no intention to do either, this would be no concession on Zelensky’s part; since Putin claims that Ukraine is doing both, he can take it as another win.” EU membership remains an option for Ukraine.
2. Ukraine concedes Crimea. This simply recognizes reality. Most residents “regarded themselves as Russians already,” Kaplan suggests.
3. Russia withdraws all military forces, not just from Ukraine, but back to their original bases. On a timetable. Noncompliance voids the ban on Ukraine joining NATO.
4. Ukraine holds a UN-supervised referendum on whether the Donbas region want to remain in Ukraine, become an autonomous republic within it, or be annexed to Russia.
If Russia wins Donbas in this referendum, it would actually be something less than a victory. Keeping Donbas inside Ukraine, as an autonomous region with representation in the government, would give pro-Russia delegates an outsize influence over the country’s policy, including its foreign policy. To the extent that Ukrainians want to move the country westward (as most of them do, especially since Russia’s brutal invasion), it might be best to let Russia peel Donbas away.
5. Western sanctions are lifted gradually as the West sees Russian compliance.
There are a couple of issues here. Ukraine’s constitution includes a commitment to joining NATO (as well as the EU). That cannot be waived away. Putin has already declared his intent to see a full dismantling of Ukraine’s military. Putin is not likely to accede to leaving it in place and strengthened by alliances with neighbors.
But if the slaughter and exodus is to cease, some flexibility must be found to stop it before Putin’s invasion exhausts itself by flattening Ukraine’s cities. Putin shows no sign of relenting.
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