Ukraine's Never-Ending DemandsTipp Insights, Feb 10, 2023
Nothing in the news is ever constant, but there is one exception: Ukraine's president Zelenskyy and his senior members requesting, urging, and even cajoling world leaders to give more and more and ever more. Weapons, missile systems, aircraft, fast-track entry into the EU, training, money for reconstruction - the list never ends.
Senior Ukrainian officials have cleverly usurped President George W. Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" line. Speaking to a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush said that many countries had offered sympathy and support to the United States. The rest, he said, face a choice. "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Zelenskyy often refers to Russian fighters as "terrorists" for all the gruesome civilian casualties and war crimes in which President Putin has engaged.
But there are profound differences. America was attacked on its soil using everyday objects, such as planes, by terrorists on a suicide mission. The actors were stateless, and at the time of Bush's speech, there was doubt about who orchestrated the attacks. The world was shocked not only at the terrible killing of innocent people; there was substantial worry that if this could happen to America, it could happen to them too.
And this fear, as it proved later, was entirely justified.
Russia attacked Ukraine in a
conventional war. President Putin began amassing his soldiers on the Ukrainian border for months. Interested parties, led by the United States, met in Geneva two months before the war to dissuade Putin from attacking. The sides couldn't agree to settle Putin's grievances. When peace talks fail, human history tells us that war is often the result.
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Ukraine has also extended its demands into other areas, continuing to build pressure on the world to act in ways Kyiv prefers. The country has been feverishly lobbying the International Olympic Committee to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paris Games in 2024. Never mind that such a move could be a public relations nightmare for the IOC.
On February 3, a Ukrainian official, Vadym Guttsait, said that if Ukraine failed to persuade international sports officials to bar Russian athletes, the country would, in his opinion, have to "skip the Olympic Games." Not falling for this propaganda, IOC president Thomas Bach told Ukraine that Kyiv’s calls for a boycott of the 2024 Paris Games over possible participation of Russian athletes goes against Olympic "principles," and such pressure by Kyiv on other nations was "extremely regrettable."
Ukraine has become so used to getting its demands met that it never stops making new ones. War strategists agree that when Elon Musk offered Starlink technology for free to the Ukrainians, it made a significant difference to fighters in the field to stay connected. But when Musk refused Ukraine's request to use the technology for offensive warfare because Starlink was never meant to be weaponized, Ukraine immediately attacked the very benefactor that has been helping it.
According to the New York Times, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that companies are either on the side of Ukraine and "the right to freedom," or they are on Russia's side and the "right to kill and seize territories." Starlink, he said, "should choose a specific option."
At this rate, President Zelenskyy and his team’s guilt-inducing pressure tactics may soon lose their sting.
https://tippinsights.com/protecting-ukraine-protecting-democracy/
