Ukraine and the slow-motion coup

I am having a serious attack of cognitive dissonance. It stems from listening to Republican calls to support Ukraine, while at the same time they continue to parrot Russian disinformation about Ukrainian and U.S. democracy. I address in this column three myths Republicans are spreading about Ukraine, but first let’s review the key happenings of the past decade that have led Ukraine into its current war with Russia.

In President Barack Obama’s second term, starting in 2013, the fragile peace in Ukraine between political forces pushing for closer economic ties to Europe and those pushing instead for closer economic ties to Russia came completely undone. It started when the pro-Russian Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, suspended an evolving association agreement with the European Union. This decision unleashed a wave of protests throughout the country. The protests turned violent in January 2014, leading over the following months to the overthrow of Yanukovych, the election of a new pro-Europe President, Petro Poroshenko, and the election of a new government. Meanwhile, Russian separatists in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, who were not supportive of the revolution, formed their own breakaway republic with support from Russian troops, unleashing a civil war in Ukraine between the new central government and the separatists in Donetsk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in response to the Ukrainian revolution, moved first to send under-cover Russian troops (that is, army troops in uniforms that were stripped of identifying insignia) to take over Crimea, a large peninsula that juts into the Black Sea from the southern coast of Ukraine. Then, Russia organized a popular referendum for Crimea’s residents to approve Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The formal annexation was completed on March 18, 2014.

Myth #1: The Russian invasion of Ukraine, then and now, is all the fault of Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Fact: This is a classic logical fallacy, created by Russian amplification of Q-Anon conspiracy theories, which mischaracterize Democrats as really a secret cabal of pedophiles, responsible for all evil in the world. The Russians spread this nonsense because they mistakenly believe that it is only Democrats who have pushed for the expansion of NATO and sanctions against Russia. Indeed, the United Nations, the European Union, and the U.S. all declared the annexation of Crimea illegal and invalid, and called for restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Not only was Russia diplomatically isolated as a result of the annexation; economic sanctions were also imposed on Russia, most of which were still in effect when the Russians invaded in February.

Myth #2: Obama and Biden did nothing to support Ukraine militarily during the civil war in the Donetsk region.

Fact: While Russia militarily supported the separatists, the U.S. has been supporting the Ukrainian government since 2014. U.S. support to Ukraine has included the supply of weapons. It was Donald Trump who put that supply at risk in his now-infamous phone call to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in 2019, in which he threatened to withhold congressionally approved military support unless Zelenskyy would agree to give him dirt on Joe Biden’s son. This action led to his first impeachment. Given Trump’s continued trashing of NATO and U.S. alliances with our European partners, and his dismissive attitude toward the Ukrainian government while continually praising Putin, it is easy to see how Putin could think that ratcheting up his military pressure on Ukraine would be met by lack of resolve in the U.S. and Europe.

Myth #3: The Ukrainian government is run by corrupt fascists and neo-Nazis.

Fact: This is Russia’s stated justification for the current invasion. Yes, Ukraine does have a problem with right-wing extremists, but it is nowhere near as serious as the extremist problem in Russia and in the U.S. when Donald Trump was elected President in 2016 largely because of his appeal to the TEA party base of the Republican Party. The TEA Party emerged after Obama’s election in 2008, and then gained major influence in the Republican Party and then the House of Representatives in 2010. It was, and still is, a loose and fluid confederation of libertarians, free-market radicals who oppose government intervention in the operation of the market (so they are generally opposed to taxation, government regulation, and government spending on social welfare programs and health care); an odd assortment of white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, anti-government militias, and other far-right fringe groups who felt they were going to be further marginalized by the election of America’s first African-American president; and Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists, many of whom feel that progressive Democrats are a threat to conservative Christian values.

Trump gave legitimacy to all these anti-democratic extremists, and even appointed some to staff positions in the White House. These are the same folks who staged the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, who continue to undermine the structures of democratic governance in the U.S., who are organizing the slow-motion coup to return Trump to office in 2024, who are making a major attack on voting rights, and who think that the main threat to democracy comes from Democrats, not authoritarians on the right. Given their anti-democratic behavior at home, their cries about the threat to democratic governance in Ukraine ring hollow.

Jeff Colvin is a research physicist and resident of Gettysburg. He is co-chair of Gettysburg DFA and chair of its Government Accountability Task Force

This post originally appeared in the Gettysburg Times.