Historian Heather Cox Richardson summarized Secretary of State Anthony Blinken‘s address to the U.N. Security Council Ministerial Meeting on Ukraine Sovereignty and Russian Accountability. We must never forget that Ukraine is a sovereign nation, and it is irrelevant that it belonged to Russia in the past or during the repressive era of the Soviet Union. Ukraine belongs to the people of Ukraine. I have highlighted sections of his speech that touched me. Open the link to read the footnotes.
She wrote:
“One year and one week ago—on February 17th, 2022—I warned this council that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations Security Council Ministerial Meeting on Ukraine Sovereignty and Russian Accountability today.
“I said that Russia would manufacture a pretext, and then use missiles, tanks, soldiers, cyber attacks to strike pre-identified targets, including Kyiv,” Blinken continued, “with the aim of toppling Ukraine’s democratically elected government. Russia’s representative—the same representative who will speak today—called these, and I quote, ‘groundless accusations.’
“Seven days later, on February 24th, 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion.”
When Putin’s initial attack failed to give him control of Ukraine, Blinken continued, “he called snap referenda in four occupied parts of Ukraine, deported Ukrainians, bussed in Russians, held sham votes at gunpoint, and then manipulated the results to claim near unanimous support for joining the Russian Federation.”
“Over the last year,” Blinken said, “Russia has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children; uprooted more than 13 million people from their homes; destroyed more than half of the country’s energy grid; bombed more than 700 hospitals, 2,600 schools; and abducted at least 6,000 Ukrainian children—some as young as four months old—and relocated them to Russia.
“And yet, the spirit of the Ukrainians remains unbroken; if anything, it’s stronger than ever.”
Blinken’s remarkable speech told the history of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, then highlighted that the world community has come together to stand behind Ukraine and the principles of the United Nations Charter that make all countries safer and more secure: “No seizing land by force. No erasing another country’s borders. No targeting civilians in war. No wars of aggression.”
He noted that the war had caused hardship around the globe, but the “vast majority” of states in the United Nations have condemned Russia’s violations of the U.N. Charter, including 141 who voted for a resolution along those lines just yesterday.
When Putin tried to use hunger as a weapon to end sanctions, more than 100 countries stepped up to bring down world grain prices; when Putin tried to use energy as a weapon, the rest of the world redirected national gas supplies so that the countries he was targeting could keep their people warm, and Europe worked hard to end its dependence on Russian energy.
Blinken said that if we do not defend the basic principles of the U.N. Charter, “we invite a world in which might makes right, the strong dominate the weak. That’s the world this body was created to end.”
While everyone—especially Ukraine—wants peace, he said, that peace must be durable, not simply an excuse to let Russia rest, rearm, and relaunch the war. As Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has outlined, any peace must honor Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. Putin has rejected this condition out of the box, saying that Ukraine must accept his “annexation” of Ukraine’s territories.
Blinken reminded his listeners that not everything in the world has two sides. “In this war, there is an aggressor and there is a victim,” he said. “If Russia stops fighting and leaves Ukraine, the war ends. If Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. The fact remains: One man—Vladimir Putin—started this war; one man can end it.”
When Russia and its defenders say the ongoing war is diverting resources from others in need, Blinken said, “look at Moscow’s actions” and look at the numbers. Last year, the U.S. contributed $13.5 billion in food aid and funded more than 40% of the World Food Program’s budget. Russia pays less than 1% of that budget.
Blinken went on: “Based on the latest UN figures, the United States donates over nine times as much as Russia to UN peacekeeping. We donate 390 times as much as Russia to UNICEF. We give nearly a thousand times as much as Russia to the UN Refugee Agency.”
Blinken reminded his listeners that the atrocities we are seeing Russians commit in Ukraine are not normal. “Bucha is not normal,” he said. “Mariupol is not normal. Irpin is not normal. Bombing schools and hospitals and apartment buildings to rubble is not normal. Stealing Ukrainian children from their families and giving them to people in Russia is not normal.
“We must not let President Putin’s callous indifference to human life become our own.”
Today, the leaders of the international Group of Seven, known as the G7, met virtually with Zelensky. The G7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the European Union.
The statement they issued echoed Blinken’s speech, then went on to pledge to continue food and humanitarian aid as countries suffer from the war, and to continue to design sanctions to make sure those countries continue to have access to food and fertilizers. The G7 leaders expressed “profound sympathy” for those affected by the “horrifying earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria” and pledged continued support.
“Above all,” they said, “our solidarity will never waver in standing with Ukraine, in supporting countries and people in need, and in upholding the international order based on the rule of law.”
The Biden administration today announced $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including drones, communications equipment, HIMARS rockets, and 155-millimeter artillery ammunition, while the G7 has increased its 2023 support for Ukraine to $39 billion, and both Germany and Sweden committed to sending more Leopard 2 tanks.
The deputy chair of Russia’s security council, former president Dmitry Medvedev, said today that Russia planned to “push the borders of threats to our country as far as possible, even if these are the borders of Poland.” Poland is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), meaning an attack on it would be an attack on the rest of NATO, including the United States.
At a press conference in Kyiv today, Zelensky said: “Victory will be inevitable. I am certain there will be victory.”
“We have everything for it. We have the motivation, certainty, the friends, the diplomacy. You have all come together for this. If we all do our important homework, victory will be inevitable.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I hope we can make it through this stage of the end of the Russian Empire. You can make an argument that the political history of the Twentieth Century was dominated by the end of three old world empires and the emergence of democratic ideals. The last of these empires, Russia, now breathes on the Twenty-first Century in a menacing way.
The old Empires, the Ottoman, Austrian, and Russian, had vied for power in the space of Eastern Europe for centuries. There were some great traditions that came from those cultures, but democracy was not among them. The breakup of these empires largely produced the world wars, the first of which brought an end to the Romanov phase of the Russian Empire, but it re-birthed itself under a Stalin who behaved much as the Czars had done (if you believe George Kennan).
Now we are engaged with a philosophy that suggests the moral superiority of Russian traditionalists. They see the West as morally bankrupt, and they see hegemony as the solution. Meanwhile, the West must once again struggle to fight against tyranny without becoming tyrannical itself.
Ukraine is a member of the United Nations. Putin invaded a sovereign U.N. member state on ridiculous pretexts. This is a MAJOR violation of fundamental international law (Bush Jr., aka Shrub, committed this same war crime when he invaded Iraq in the second Iraq War). And, of course, since that sickening invasion, the Russians have piled on the war crimes and crimes against humanity–theft of natural resources such as grain, theft of private property belonging to civilians, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets (including of buildings full of children), widespread rape of girls and women and grandmothers, destruction of cultural landmarks, destruction of essential civilian infrastructure, targeting of hospitals, forced deportation of civilians, torture of civilians, genocide. I very much hope that the pig most responsible for these horrific crimes, Tsar Vladimir, ends up in the dock at the Hague, charged with all these crimes. This is what evil looks like, folks.
“Ukraine belongs to Ukraine” is an easy argument to accept, on the surface. But isn’t that the same argument the eleven states of the Confederacy made? I’m no expert, but I believe “Russia” as we know it began in Ukraine, as we know it today. The Soviet Union was dismembered by Gorbachev and others with the understanding that NATO and EU would not move further east, right up to Russia’s borders. And if we’re honest, we know the US was heavily involved in overthrowing the pro-Russian government of Ukraine in 2014. We also know for a fact that US and NATO forces have “trained” very close to Russia, in Norway for instance. (Would we feel threatened if Russia trained in right across the Rio Grande or in Ontario?) Finally, we know that while Russia has never invaded us, our armies landed in Archangel and Vladivostok in 1917-8 in an attempt to force Russia to continue to stay in WWI and to stop the turn to socialism.
We can ignore all this if we want. We can also ignore all the socialist governments we have overthrown–such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Guatemala, Chile, etc.–up to our efforts to overthrow Assad in Syria and two successive governments in Venezuela. This is not a complete list. But most of the governments we’ve undercut or tried to overthrow were allies of Putin’s Russia. It gives me zero pleasure to recite it, but it is well that we are aware that our hands are not clean in these matters, and what we don’t want to do is miscalculate our actions in dealing with Russia–and China–who have enough nuclear bombs to destroy civilization.
Wars end with negotiations and treaties. We need to get to that.
Jack,
Regardless of past history, Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It is recognized as such by the UN and other international agencies. As such, it has a right to exist.
If you look to history to decide which land belonged to another nation, then we should give Texas back to Mexico and give Florida back too Spain. Not that I want to start a movement but that’s historical fact.
Right. Please read, if you will, the rest of my comments. I’m not suggesting we agree with Russia’s invasion. I’m suggesting Russia has reasons for paranoia in their own history and in ours. We have a horrible record of trying to run the world. I’m in favor of a negotiated peace–it’s what ends most wars. I’m also suggesting, though, we drop the holier-than-thou attitude and back a peace process. We have overthrown and imprisoned–or had killed–various leaders from “Latin” America to the Middle East. Most of the rulers/dictators removed were allies of Putin. He’s right to be worried about our intentions. It isn’t just paranoia. Hussein is dead. Allende is dead. Gadhafi is dead. If Putin gets scared enough, he might just turn to nukes–he has slightly more than we do. Why do we assume we can control Russia’s neighborhood? We know how we felt when they tried to put missiles in Cuba–although we later learned the Cuban Missile Crisis was in part a reaction to our missiles in Turkey, pointed at Russia.
And, yes, Ukraine IS a sovereign nation, so what were US agents and officials from our State Department and the US Senate (McCain) doing in Ukraine at the time their elected government was being overthrown in 2014? Our hands are not clean. We cannot run the world. Let’s get a settlement we can sell to the UN Security Council. That is the agency we established in the 1940’s to settle such disputes. Peace, Jack
Jack,
I don’t know the answers to all your questions. I had not read that US officials were in Ukraine when a popular uprising ousted the president. That president, by the way, fled to Moscow and has been living there since 2014. It would not be unusual for US officials to be in any country at any time.
I think the most compelling reason to believe that Ukrainians don’t want to be pulled back into Russia’s orbit is their amazing resistance to the invasion.
Think how Afghanistan collapsed within days with almost no resistance. The Afghan people didn’t support their government.
But Ukraine could not have survived for this long, given the vast superiority of Russian numbers and Russia’s ability to fire on targets from Russian soil knowing that Ukraine is not supposed to strike back.
The people of Ukraine have carried the burden of this war. Without their will to remain free of Russia’s yoke, the government would have fallen in days, as it did in Kabul.
The war is tragic, as all wars are.
The devastation to Ukraine’s schools, hospitals, homes, apartment houses, infrastructure, libraries, museums, parks, universities—has been catastrophic. Yet they continue to fight.
Why?
Putin is not pursuing a just cause. No one invaded or threatened Russia.
He thought he would divide NATO, but NATO is stronger: even Traditionally neutral Finland and Sweden asked to join NATO.
Why do you think Finland and Sweden made this decision?
Why are the Baltic states so fearful?
Your questions all imply US culpability, but why don’t Finland and Sweden agree with your point of view?
Is it possible that many European nations fear Russia’s ambitions to regrow the USSR?
Seriously. This is not a challenge. It’s honest questions. Why are the Ukrainians opposing Russian domination, even as their country is being mercilessly destroyed?
Thank you, Diane, for letting me share my views. Victoria Nuland (Undersecretary of State?) was in Ukraine in 2014, discussing who should be installed at various positions in the next Ukraine government. Sen. McCain was recorded making speeches in public as the revolution was unfolding. These kinds of incidents seem clearly of a part with our long list of “overthrows” from Hawaii to now–most of it in service to the profit motive. “Assad has got to go,” has seemingly been said as often at the US State Department as in Damascus. And several of Putin’s allies lost their lives in our actions, including Hussein & Gadhafi. Attempts were made on the lives of Chavez as well. For a longer list, stretching back to Hawaii in the 1800’s, see “Overthrow,” by Steven Kinzer. For the baiting of Iraq’s Hussein, see “Desert Mirage,” by Martin Yant.
I’m suggesting we should not corner Putin. He does have good reason to fear assassination, overthrow, or whatever. We did have NATO exercises going on just a few miles from his border–including Norway, near where we invaded in 1917–just before he invaded Ukraine.
I don’t have a clear answer to why the people of Ukraine would fight so hard and suffer so much to be free of Russia. Patriotism is probably a big part of that. I’m not suggesting Ukraine should be part of Russia again. (Nor am I suggesting our Southwest be returned to Mexico–or the Indians).
I’m suggesting we find a way to end this conflict before it gets a lot worse. China (whom we also seem to want to have conflict with) has offered a broad plan at the UN. Our corporate media, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem interested in covering it. (And we can’t get RTV anymore). We authored the UN, in one of our greatest moments. Let’s now use that mechanism to bring the world back from the brink. Let’s consider what a lot of this is really about: Corporate profit. The money we’ve spent trying to control the Middle East alone could have sent every young person in America to college, free. On this last day of Black History month, let’s remember the words of ML King: “The bombs we drop abroad, explode at home in poverty and unemployment.”
Instead of fueling this war in Ukraine–if we really care about the people there–let’s help bring the parties to the table and settle it in a civilized and humane way.
Jack Burgess
former Chief of Arbitration, State of Ohio
and former teacher, America & Global Studies