Nuclear Threats & the War in Ukraine
Part VII in a Series
Nuclear Threats Any thoughtful person worries about nuclear threats. The proliferation of nuclear arms and the expansion of nations with aspirations to obtain and wield nuclear warheads includes Iran and North Korea. Yet in 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the multilateral nuclear agreement of 2015, an agreement that constrained Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions. Withdrawing from that agreement was viewed as dangerous and counterproductive by many, including the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan think tank.
On another front, Russia’s cynical, irresponsible attacks on nuclear power plants in Ukraine are numerous. Our own US assessment, by the National Nuclear Security Administration, states that
From the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, disregard for the principles of nuclear safety and security has been a persistent feature of Russia’s misconduct. In particular, Russia has threatened the safe operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, raising the risk of a nuclear emergency whose effects would be felt far from the borders of Ukraine.
Those who have watched the war in Ukraine closely know this very well. The same assessment continues:
On March 4, 2022, Russian military forces attacked and seized the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe and the scene of profound Russian irresponsibility before and after its capture.
The threats continue as the war continues.
A Brief History of Ukraine & The Crimea
To understand the history of Ukraine, one needs to look at a map of the Black Sea. This body of water enables six surrounding countries—Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Georgia and Russia-- ready access to the Crimean Peninsula and Ukraine’s shores. And of course, other countries have attempted to conquer Ukraine via land.
The earliest known settlers of Ukraine were the ancient Cimmerians who arrived in Crimea circa 1000 BC. Ukraine and the surrounding regions have been colonized and ruled by diverse peoples, including the Scythians who conquered the steppe area, and the Greeks, who established colonies along the coast starting in the 5th century BC. Although medieval Prince Vladimir I of Kievan Rus claimed Crimea in the 10th century, by the latter 11th century it had fallen to Turkish nomads from the steppes known as Kipchas; later it was invaded by the Tatars of the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan’s empire, who burned the city of Kiev in 1247. Yet two centuries later, by 1475, Crimea was a khanate subject to the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire of the Turks. The cultural and religious legacy of this long history contributed to a diverse population with a significant Muslim Tatar segment, which would eventually be targeted by Russia.
Some say that geography is destiny, and it was a very different story in the northwestern and central regions of Ukraine. By the mid-14th century, these regions were under the rule of the grand duchy of Lithuania; Poland and Lithuania initially competed over control of Ukraine, but in 1569, they merged into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Ukrainian territories were annexed by Poland, which would continue its domination for another century.
Russia shares centuries of cultural and political ties as well as territorial disputes over Ukraine dating back to 1654 when the council of the Cossack army in Ukraine rebelled against Polish rule and pledged allegiance to the Russian Tsar, Alexis. In the late 17th century, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, claimed Ukraine. For two centuries, the Ottoman Empire and and Russia warred over control of Ukraine; in 1774 the Ottoman Turks signed a treaty with Russia, and an independent Crimean Tatar state was created. Yet the rivalry between Turkey and Russia continued, and a wider conflict, the Crimean War (1853-56) drew in European nations along with Britain, who sought to curtail Russian expansion and sided with the Turks. In 1783, Catherine the Great of Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and initiated a campaign to colonize it with Russians. During Catherine’s reign, a major port was built at Sevastopol, which became the homeport for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
After the Communist Revolution and Russian Civil War (1918-20), Crimea was organized as an ‘autonomous region’ of the USSR in 1921. Stalin’s brutal system of forced collectivization of farmlands in Ukraine translated into harsh deprivation and starvation known as the Holodomor, a man-made famine between 1932 and 1933, in which millions of Ukrainians perished.
World War II Like other countries of eastern Europe, Ukraine was fragmented during World War II, with part of the populace believing the Russian propaganda of ‘liberation,’ and other segments embracing the Germans in a bid for independence from Russia. After the war, under Stalin’s repression of ethnic minorities, the surviving Crimean Tatars— about 200,000, most of whom were Muslim-- were accused of collaboration with the Nazis and deported to Central Asia and Siberia.
In the mid-20th century under the Soviet leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the Crimean Oblast (Region) was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, a strategy to strengthen Soviet control over Crimea. After the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, Ukraine voted to become an autonomous democratic nation, and Crimea was included within its national boundaries. In the early 1990s as the central control of the USSR disintegrated, many expelled Tatars returned to Crimea after five decades of internal exile. Today they number about 250,000
The Annexation of Crimea in 2014 Under Putin, Russia has tried to exploit the ethnic diversity of Ukraine, to wit: the Putin regime’s years of covert destabilization in Ukraine’s Donbass region. The Maidan Revolution in November 2013 began with widespread outrage over endemic corruption within the government coupled with the decision of then-president Viktor Yanukovych not to sign an agreement to integrate Ukraine more closely with the European Union. Citizen protests grew exponentially as the government attempted to repress civil society and freedom of expression. The protests turned violent in January 2014, when some civilian demonstrators were killed in Kyiv; the violence continued into February, and ultimately, over 100 citizens were killed. Yanukovcych fled Ukraine, the parliament voted to hold new elections in May, and a new government was formed by December 2014.
Meanwhile, Crimea’s complex history and ethnic unrest made it a ripe target for political subversion, particularly since by this time, Crimea had an ethnic Russian majority of about 60%. When corruption and manipulated national elections didn’t work to install and maintain a puppet government in Ukraine loyal to Russia, Putin resorted to deception and force to take Crimea. In February 2014, unidentified military combatants took over key government buildings in Crimea. The takeover was incredibly swift, and Putin initially claimed innocence, although everyone concluded it was a coup. * A referendum was called, which was widely viewed as a sham election; the supposed results: Crimean leaders petitioned to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. No one believed the political maneuvers had legitimacy or validity, but under the veneer of democratic election and at the point of a gun, it was done, and the world stood by helplessly.
According to Steven Pifer of Stanford University, “Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine violated, among other agreements, the UN Charter, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances for Ukraine and the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and Russia.” And yet, the violent overthrow and annexation of Crimea went largely unchallenged by the Western governments, despite this flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.
The War in Ukraine Today The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a blatant act of aggression, and a threat to the stability of Europe at large. Moreover, it has caused unspeakable suffering and death in Ukraine. As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum explains in her latest book, Autocracy, Inc.,
“Russia plays a special role in the autocratic network, both as the inventor of the modern marriage of kleptocracy and dictatorship and as the country now most aggressively seeking to upend the status quo... [In Ukraine] They arrested public officials and civic leaders: mayors, police officers, civil servants, school directors, journalists, artists, museum curators. They built torture chambers for civilians in most towns they occupied in southern and eastern Ukraine. They kidnapped thousands of children, ripping some away from their families removing others from orphanages…”
And Crimea? As many as 140,000 Crimean Tatars have left the peninsula since 2014, according to the Brookings Institute. An influx of Russians has poured into Crimea, many of them military troops and sailors, part of a huge Russian military buildup.
Trump’s Role? Trump’s long campaign to undermine the NATO alliance was a transparent attempt to support Putin and the Russian government’s agenda to destroy the old-world order and to establish an updated version of the Soviet Union. It has backfired, thank heaven; NATO is no longer so dependent on US military force. When he was running for President, Trump claimed he would end the war in Ukraine on day one; of course, this was typical Trumpian delusion— he hadn’t a clue how to deal with the war. We all saw the shameful treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski when he met with Trump in the Whitehouse a few months ago. But not long after Trump sneered that Zelensky ‘doesn’t hold the cards’ to resist Russia, the Ukrainian military stunned the world with its bold and effective drone attack on enemy airbases deep in Russia’s interior. To expect President Zelensky to relinquish Ukraine’s sovereign right to territory illegally seized by Russia (as has been floated by Trump) flies in the face of international law and common decency.
On Monday July 14, Trump issued a so-called ultimatum to Vladimir Putin to ‘ceasefire in 50 days’ or ‘face serious tariffs’. Please, try not to laugh… But here’s a positive bit of news: Trump and NATO Secretary General Rutte announced a deal to send US weapons to Ukraine.
The Situation Now: Displaced Persons & Refugees Since the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that over 7 million people have been displaced, with almost 5 million seeking refuge in other parts of Europe. This is the largest refugee crisis since World War II, a humanitarian disaster with impacts on economies (rising inflation and shortages of food and goods) across Europe.
Donor support is critical for relief and recovery efforts, and you can help.
Please: Go to CharityNavigator.com where you will find a range of accredited charities that are focused on sending practical aid to Ukraine.
Notes
Daryl G. Kimball, “Trump’s Failing Iran Policy”, Arms Control Association.
US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration.
https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/russias-disregard-nuclear-safety-and-security-ukraine
According to the CIA, in 2001 Ukraine’s ethnic groups were as follows: Ukrainian (77.8%) Russian (17.3%), Belarusian (.6%), Moldovan (.5%), Crimean Tatar (.5%), Bulgarian (.4%), Hungarian (.3%), Romanian (.3%), Polish (.3%) and Jewish (.2%). Crimea’s complex multi-ethnic population has a majority of Russians (65%), Ukrainian (15% ) and Crimean Tatars (12%).
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/crimea-%C2%A0six-years-after-illegal-annexation
* Putin took a page from Lenin’s playbook of 1918, when Lenin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in disguise, a successful strategy that took advantage of the domestic turmoil in Ukraine.
An excellent history lesson! Thank you!🙏
Vital information for understanding Ukraine's current situation. It is far more nuanced than current discussions.