By Trudy Rubin
TORKIV, Ukraine — At the entrance to the village cemetery, where they buried Vasyl Pushkar, stands a tall, gray stone marker.
The stone is engraved with an Orthodox cross and the words “Holodomor, 1932-33,” a memorial to the four million or more Ukrainian peasants who were starved to death by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin when their farms were collectivized and their harvests seized.
Ninety years later, Vladimir Putin is sending food prices for poor nations soaring by blocking Ukraine’s grain exports, which come from black earth villages such as Torkiv, a community of a thousand people about 200 miles south of Kyiv. Meantime, on Monday, village residents gathered to bury their latest casualty from Moscow’s current genocidal effort to erase Ukraine from the map.
No wonder the pain and the defiance here run deep.
Mobilized in March, the 42-year-old Pushkar died from wounds sustained in a mine explosion on the war’s front lines in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. After four weeks in the hospital, he fell into a coma, shortly after speaking with his 3-year-old daughter for the last time.
The village turned out the day before the funeral to line the narrow road and kneel as the body was delivered to his parents’ tidy cottage. When I entered their living room, a picture of a handsome man in uniform held pride of place on the mantle. It bore little resemblance to the torn and reassembled face in the coffin nearby.
Bent over her son, Pushkar’s mother constantly rearranged the surrounding bouquets of flowers, as his father wept by her side.
The skies were deeply overcast, and rain spattered the road as soldier colleagues carried Pushkar’s body the last two miles from his parents’ home to the burial ground. The coffin had been carefully wrapped in the Ukrainian flag.
Elderly female mourners, bent over walking sticks, trudged up the road without assistance. A local band, with tuba and bass drum, played funeral music along the route. Police officers knelt by the roadside as the cortege passed.
At the cemetery, the coffin was opened one more time. Pushkar’s wife, who had stood like a black-clad statue throughout the religious service, threw herself onto the casket and kissed her husband’s face, chest, and feet. His mother and father sobbed uncontrollably.
Then the coffin lid was carefully screwed on once again, the flag was folded and handed to the widow, and the body lowered into the grave.
The village’s anger at Putin’s brutal war exploded when the crowd gathered to hear a senior officer from Pushkar’s 59th Brigade eulogize the sacrifice of their fallen son.
“Give us a promise,” a woman shouted at Major Andre (identified here by his military call sign). “Give us a promise that when this war is over, you will build an alley of heroes for all the sons who have died from this village.” The major swiftly responded, “I promise not only an alley but also their portraits will be in the school where they studied. These heroes never die. They go on living in our hearts.”
I caught up with a visibly moved Major Andre as the crowd dispersed. He has been to 20 such funerals of men from battalions within the 59th Brigade. He would have attended many more had his military duties not made that impossible.
“This is the answer to why we have to move slowly,” he told me bitterly, pointing back at the grave site. He was referring to critiques from U.S. officials that the current Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russians has not moved quickly enough. But lacking air cover (given the long-delayed delivery of U.S.-made F-16s, and possessing only limited numbers of old Soviet-made planes), Ukraine’s military leaders have slowed their attack lest their infantry be slaughtered.
“What [Ukrainian military commander Valery] Zaluzhny is doing is absolutely correct, respecting the life of every soldier,” the major continued, vehemently. “Of course we will win, but it is about the amount of losses it will take.”
What eats at Major Andre, and at so many soldiers and officers I met on the front lines, is that their losses could have been slashed if Washington had not delayed the arrival of F-16s until next spring. And the number of Ukrainian dead still could be cut if the White House would finally green-light the long-range ATACMS missiles that could destroy Russian bases and supply depots far behind fighting lines. “It will cost too many losses without ATACMS,” the major said.
He then took out his iPhone and showed me photos of the bodies of two of his men who were captured by Russian troops in the Donbas region. They had been tortured, with tongues cut out and throats slashed. He flicked through more shots of distorted bodies, dead from the fumes of old chemical shells the Russians periodically fire.
The Ukrainian military takes great risks to recover the bodies of their fallen, he stressed, while the Russians leave many of their dead and wounded behind and even booby-trap the bodies.
“How can we negotiate with such people?” the major demanded — a query I have heard repeatedly on this trip.
What grieved this officer even more is that many Americans and Europeans don’t seem to grasp that this is not a war about NATO. It is a battle for Ukraine’s very survival that affects all of Europe and the United States.
“Now Ukraine stands on the border [in Europe] between good and evil, between darkness and light. We are defending the values of the whole civilized world. The West should understand this,” he said.
As we drove away from the cemetery, the clouds lifted. We passed a stretch of golden sunflowers whose ubiquitous presence in Ukrainian farmlands always lifts the spirits. I believe Ukraine could drive the Russians out in the coming months if it gets the weapons it needs now for this counteroffensive.
Yet, on leaving Torkiv, it was painful to realize how many more Ukrainians will be grieving their dead in villages and cities if the U.S. doesn’t act decisively to help end this war.
—
This originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer
It’s time to stop Pus&^%y -footing around and give Ukraine the weapons they need.
Absolutely.
Did we not learn a thing from the run-up to WWII? Send the planes, Mr. Biden!
👍
“Vladimir Putin is sending food prices for poor nations soaring by blocking Ukraine’s grain exports, which come from black earth villages such as Torkiv, a community of a thousand people about 200 miles south of Kyiv.”
The reasons the grain-deal is off are because the West did not keep its promise to take sanctions off of Russian grain (and fertilizers, which has driven up the price that the EU must pay for poop through third parties). And Ukraine, contrary to the agreement, has not de-mined the areas around Black Sea ports.
Russia claims that only 3% of the grain was going to poor countries, whereas 40% of Ukraine’s grain WAS going to Europe – so one group will be happy about this disruption. From Euronews, May 23: “Central and Eastern Europe farmers took to the streets in Brussels on Tuesday to protest against Ukrainian grain imports, which they say are affecting their livelihoods.”
I can find no reference to the West promising to take sanctions off Russia. Please provide a link to a credible news outlet.
From the (empire-supporting) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
First, what I forgot to add. Putin was pissed:
“. . the current deal’s expiration on July 17, it seemed that it would be extended once again, but that all changed when the bridge built by Russia to annexed Crimea was attacked for the second time, killing two people” – [killing two people (parents) and injuring a third (their daughter].
To your question:
“The second part of the deal exempted Russian agricultural and fertilizer exports from U.S. and EU sanctions.”
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/90225
Read your own sources? You say, “the West did not keep its promise to take sanctions off of Russian grain…”
Carnegie says they did, but “despite the EU and United States introducing sanctions exemptions for Russian agricultural exporters, Western companies have proved reluctant to return to business as usual with their Russian counterparts.”
So the West did keep its promise. Your actual claim is “Who knew starting a war might be bad for business? Not fair, so Russia can break its promise.”
I’m sure your argument sounded better in the original Russian, but since you get all your information from RT, you might occasionally try a fact check. In Russia, journalists get arrested, or worse, for writing the wrong thing.
Now I don’t doubt that Putin is pissed that Ukrainians had the temerity to fight back when he wanted to take over their country from the elected government as part of his dream of reinstating the Russian empire–but good leaders act rationally, not out of anger.
Finally, I’ll listen to Canada more than Russia. It’s site says that “Developing nations have received 57% of exports shipped through the BSGI, while European nations have received 39% and the U.S. none. Furthermore, 725,000 tons of grain have gone to the United Nations World Food Programme, feeding 3.3 million people for one year. https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/response_conflict-reponse_conflits/crisis-crises/ukraine-fact-fait.aspx?lang=eng
I’ll leave you with the introduction to that website:
“The Kremlin has long spread disinformation and propaganda to achieve its objectives. It continues to disseminate lies to justify its unprovoked, unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine. Below, you will find a sample of the many lies by the Russian regime about its invasion of Ukraine, along with the truth. This information is based on Government of Canada intelligence. You can limit the spread of disinformation by knowing how to identify it and being critical about what you read.”
Good advice, that you seem desperately in need of.
👍
@Tom A:
In the late ’40s to early ’50s, the neocon Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) would accuse (usually Dems and liberals) of being communists or communist sympathizers. He’d allege that the federal government, Hollywood, the universities were infiltrated with commies. In every closet, under every bed. Writers were censored (“blacklisted”). This reign of terror was labeled as “McCarthyism.” In the 60s and 70s, if people (mostly liberals and libertarians) protested the Vietnam war, they were called commie stooges. In 2003, if you protested against invading Iraq, a country an ocean-and-a-half distant from us, you were called a Saddam apologist:
“I’m sure your argument sounded better in the original Russian.”
Meet the new McCarthyite. Same as the old McCarthyite.
“Despite the EU and United States introducing sanctions exemptions for Russian agricultural exporters, Western companies have proved reluctant to return to business as usual with their Russian counterparts.”
Therefore it is not the Russians fault. It’s the empire that doesn’t lift a finger to reassure international bankers that they won’t be penalized.
One more thing about sanctions. We put them on many countries (and people). We say food and medicine are exempted. But that’s not true. In Iran people were dying because they couldn’t get medical supplies. That also happened in Cuba during Covid.
One thing you neocons hate is immigrants coming to our southern border. But sanctions are part of the reason they arrive. Our sanctions make the living conditions in these places unbearable. Obama put sanctions on Venezuela (calling them a security threat). Then Trump added more sanctions. And of course (Republican-Lite) Biden, the neocon, didn’t remove the sanctions.
Maybe “reluctance” on the part of international bankers is the reason for the lack of food and medicine. We, the greatest, bestest country in the whole-wide-world could remedy this, but we’re kind of sadistic – as you now see we’re using Ukrainians, down to the last person – to help us to weaken Russia.
“Your actual claim is ‘Who knew starting a war might be bad for business? Not fair, so Russia can break its promise’.”
First off, this war was started by the US in 2014 (not Russia), when we conspired with neoNazis to overthrow Ukraine’s president Yanukovich, which emboldened the Ukrazis to shell the ethnic Russians in the East for the last nine years.
Secondly, as far as “bad for business,” the ruble is worth more now than it was before Feb 2022. And since we sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline, cutting off cheap natural gas to Germany, they now buy imported LNG from the USA at four times the Russian price.
Germany is being deindustrialized. Businesses are closing.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, with its tax-breaks for companies to move here, is causing angst in Germany as businesses are looking to relocate.
The IMF’s “Real GDP growth” in 2023 – Germany MINUS 0.1 / Russia PLUS 0.7 – and it will just get worse in 2024.
And by the way, since we are sending gas to the EU, that’s less domestic gas and raising prices here. Remember when Biden called inflation, “Putin’s price hike?” That’s Biden’s price hike. The sanctions have hurt the West and helped Russia. They have very little inflation and there’s now a lot of building inside Russia since the oligarchs can’t spend money elsewhere.
“In Russia, journalists get arrested, or worse, for writing the wrong thing.”
We let the UK arrest a journalist (Julian Assange) for us.
Ukraine has banned all opposition TV stations.
Ukraine arrested an American journalist, Gonzalo Lira, because they didn’t like the tone of his reportage. Journalist Liam Cosgrove asked State Department spox, Matthew Millar, this question: “And so I’m wondering, if this is true, given the State Department knew of his arrest and his detention, how has this been allowed to occur? We have a U.S. citizen being – being detained and perhaps tortured in the prison of one of our strongest allies.”
Here is how Millar (the banality of evil) replied: ”Well, you lost me with the ’perhaps’ and the ’if this is true.’ I think I’d want to verify those reports before I commented on it.”
How’s that for “protecting journalism?”
“. . Putin . . as part of his dream of reinstating the Russian empire . ..”
This is a Big Lie. Up there with Saddam has WMD. If Russia wanted to conquer Ukraine, they would have “Shock & Awed” (a/k/a “blitzkrieged”) them. They’d bomb every government facility, railroads, cell-phone towers, bridges, highways. Russia’s first incursion was a show of force to get Ukraine to negotiate – and the show of force worked. In April 2022, there was a tentative peace-deal worked out between Russia and Ukraine. Russia wanted an end to the Donbas being shelled and wanted Ukraine to declare neutrality. That’s all.
But then we sent our lapdog, Boris Johnson to tell Zelinsky, “No, keep fighting. We have your back.”
We are the most responsible for this bloodshed.
“Developing nations have received 57% of exports shipped through the BSGI”
You know who are considered “developing nations?” India and China.
From CNBC: “China’s the top importer of Ukrainian grain.” The “developing nation” China now has the same percentage of its citizens in the middle class as we do.
You put this up from our Canadian servants: “The Kremlin has long spread disinformation and propaganda . ..”
Jeez, are you kidding? You never heard that before? That’s just the banality of blatant Western propaganda.
WE are the biggest liars on the planet. And ‘mericans are the most propagandized people on the planet. The difference between the Russians during the Cold War and Americans (who are victims of “Manufacturing Consent”) – is that the Russians KNOW they are being lied to.
“Good advice, that you seem desperately in need of.”
I have forgotten more about politics/history than you will ever learn.
Um, “neocons” didn’t exist in the 50s. How was McCarthy a “neocon”? All you have convinced me of is that you “have MADE UP more history than I will ever learn.” And, hello, Biden is a “neocon”? Not according to neocons. Obama (and me!) are neocons as well. Is there anybody in the US who isn’t a neocon, or in your wonderful Soviet era Russia-speak, not a “lapdog” or “servant” of neocons?
Couple of other tidbits: “First off, this war was started by the US in 2014 (not Russia), when we conspired with neoNazis to overthrow Ukraine’s president Yanukovich”
(If you are so knowledgeable, how did you misspell Yanukovych? Oh, wait–the “i” is the Russian spelling, and the “y” is the fake Ukrainian nationalist spelling, because in your view, Ukraine really isn’t a country at all, and is not even entitled to its own language. Did I get it right?)
But anyway…We cleverly tricked Yanukovych into the unpopular move of rejecting an EU agreement against his parliament’s wishes to sign with Russians and forced him to kill scores of demonstrators protesting his regime during Euromaidan, and then forced the Ukrainian parliament to remove him–after he fled to Russia. Then, the neo-Nazi’s elected the Jewish Zelenskyy to further their agenda? (Sure, sure, just clever misdirection by Nazis).
So, your argument boils down to the notion that because the majority of Ukrainians preferred a trade deal with Europe to one with Russia, and by majority ousted a corrupt and murderous leader who broke his campaign promise to sign with Europe and defied the will of his parliament, the U.S. “started the war.” In other words, “look what we made Putin do!”
Almost as bad forcing Hitler invade the Sudetenland–what other plausible choice did poor mistreated Putin have? I mean, if a country decides they don’t want to sign a trade deal with you, what other choice do you have but to invade? Who wouldn’t?
And, seriously, Putin’s desire to reestablish empire is a “lie”? As he himself said, “Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War… On the face of it, he was at war with Sweden taking something away from it… He was not taking away anything, he was returning…The same is true of the western direction, Narva and his first campaigns. Why would he go there? He was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing….Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well.” Putin, 6/9/22
Crimea, Georgia and now Ukraine. Not taking, “just returning.” Just like Peter the Great and Narva. But, no Putin has no expansionist intentions. Who could reasonably think that? Please to call it “return.” Much simpler than “manifest destiny” doncha think?
I also like the juxtaposition of the arguments “sanctions justified Russia’s actions” and “sanctions aren’t hurting Russia, just Europe.”
But beyond that, I love the “Great Russian army could crush Ukraine like flea! Only humanitarian big heart of Putin prevents immediate conquest of puny neighbor! Thank stars Putin not seriously attempting conquest of Ukraine.” Putin tried the “blitzkrieg” that was supposed to take Kyiv in days. It went over like a poorly planned Bay of Pigs.
Then, in response to Putin’s control of the press you give me…Assange, and a former “red-pilled” misogynist pick-up artist blogger arrested by Ukraine? Really? That’s all you got? The nice Canadians don’t do any of that. I’ll believe them.
I’ll give you “Manufacturing Consent” even though it is sooo 20th century and hasn’t fully adjusted to the internet; but even that paradigm breaks down when elites are split, and you got Tucker Carlson, Trump and other GOP pols & pundits sputtering the pro-Putin stuff for all to hear, while the so-called MSM is more distrusted than ever. (Maybe you should become a Trumper, or join the Proud Boys. Chomsky voted for Nixon, after all). And of course, it was never pretended that the system was watertight, or that everything in the media was non-factual. After all, it was the media that helped end Viet Nam. And, of course, even broken clocks are right twice a day.
And seriously, I’m not trying to McCarthy you. Disagreement, and even ridicule isn’t persecution. I will defend to the death your right to these opinions, however lugubrious and counter-factual I believe them to be.
Actually, your little screeds make me nostalgic for my days on campus in the 70s. The new, new left is no longer all about corporatism, capitalism and the hegemonic sins of the US; its overarching theme is white supremacy and race. Not much application to Ukraine, which might not be much more than white-on-white crime in some folks’ view. Theories of monopoly capital just don’t get the interest they used to. Rather than trying to shut you up, let me encourage you to keep posting. I haven’t had a good discussion about the mobilization of middle-class bias or the virtues of anarchism in decades.
Biden has ruined the global enconmy and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. In my opinion this war would have never started under President Trump. Since he’s been in office everything world wide has gone down hill. And you have to be brain dead if you don’t see it.
Please explain, briefly, how Biden has ruined the global economy — Biden, not Covid — and how Biden, not Putin, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
When he ended our energy independence the price of a barrel of oil went thru the roof causing world wide inflation. And I believe Biden could have prevented the war before it started. Funny how Putin goes to war in Ukraine when Obama and Biden are in office but did nothing when Trump was President.
Your explanation is simplistic. Here is a more realistic explanation: The past year and a half of high inflation likely has roots in both supply- and demand-side factors. On the supply side, there were the shipping snarls and worker shortages caused by Covid-19, combined with the spikes in energy and food prices caused by the invasion of Ukraine.
Blaming Biden for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is political and without merit. Do you blame Biden for the coup in Niger?
Inflation, at its core, is too much money chasing too few goods. Printing all those Covid checks, one for every one of the 300 million plus Americans, dumped billions of unsupported dollars into the economy. Not surprising, inflation followed rather quickly. The USA continues to print paper money, completely unsupported by anything but the goodwill of the USA, inflation continues to soar, the dollar continues to sink, the USA credit rating is lowered, and the band plays on. The whole house of cards will come crashing down — sooner rather than later. I don’t blame Biden, I blame ALL in the US government who refuse to face reality, no matter the party affiliation.
The price of a barrel of oil affects everything. I agree there are other things that cause inflation but Biden triggered it when he got rid of our energy independence. And the democratic governors shutting down our economy added to it.
The price of a barrel of oil affects a lot and that is set by OPEC, not by Biden.
(I really dislike being forced to defend a yardbird I did not vote for. But facts matter.)
Um, according to Forbes, “2022 marked the highest level of US energy independence since before 1950.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2023/05/02/us-energy-independence-soars-to-highest-levels-in-over-70-years/?sh=a7db030977fd
So Biden actually increased energy independence over Trump. Guess now you have to change your vote to Biden in 2024.
Your misconception is that “energy independence” insulates us from global markets. It doesn’t. At the simplest level, if oil companies can make more money exporting American oil than selling it here, they will. So we have to pay more to keep it on shore. It’s economics 101.
Because of Biden’s policies are energy costs are soaring. Inflation is the highest in decades and everyone is paying dearly for it. It’s economics 101.
Nice pivot from the false “energy independence” argument.
In 2018 I was paying $1.85/gal for gas. Trump’s friends at ExxonMobil, Texaco, etc were crying they weren’t turning a profit. The price of oil was negative. Well Trump cut a deal with Putin and Saudi Arabia to CUT PRODUCTION so prices will rise. When will you brain- dead Trumpicans realize Trump is for big business and himself, not for little people like you!
BTW Bidenomics is working. Unemployment down, jobs and wages up, Fed predicts soft landing, no recession.
Trudy Rubin is one of the handful of Inky columnists worth reading.
P.S. Give Ukraine whatever they need. Russian arms killed 50,000 Americans in Vietnam. Paybacks are a bitch.