Later this week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark up S.Res.623, an initiative to designate the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism, and we are asking Congress and members of the public to support it.
Historically, Russia has been trying to control more than just Ukraine. Russia’s military involvement in Chechnya, Georgia, Abkhazia, Ossetia, Transnistria, Tajikistan and Syria had showcased Russian aspirations in colonialism and imperialism. When Russia asserts that it has never been a colonial power in Africa, remember Russia has been in the imperial business for over half a millennium. The brief period of nonassertive Russian foreign policy in the early ’90s was an anomaly, quickly reversed by the war in Chechnya. As we speak, Russia is trying to force neighboring Belarus to fight and die for Russia in Ukraine.
You are probably aware of Russia’s genocide in Ukraine — there is no shortage of evidence that Russians not only support the war to wipe Ukrainians off the earth but are eagerly getting to the act. There have been multiple intercepted calls from Russian soldiers bragging about their looting and murder of civilians to mothers and wives. There have been numerous intercepted calls between Russian soldiers and their wives casually joking about “permission” to rape Ukrainian women and girls, suggestions to just “kill them all, even children.”
The Ukrainian identity is at stake — Mariupol filtration camps (a modern Russian take on concentration camps) and removal of civilians. The Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported, citing the Russian military, that more than 1.9 million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia since the start of the invasion, over 307,000 of them children.
All the evidence points to the fact that Russia wants to erase Ukraine. A recent article from the New York Times calls out Russian use of the prohibited cluster munitions (over 2,000) that can pose risk to civilians for several decades even after the end of the war.
Russia left Ukraine with a choice between obliteration and existence, using any cease-fire and humanitarian corridors it offers to further strengthen its positions to erode Ukraine’s sovereignty. However, Ukraine has a chance to win. With proper military aid, Ukraine would be able to prevent consolidation of Russian gains and liberate the rest of the territory. The only question is “at what cost?” Faster assistance is essential to reducing the number of lives it takes to preserve Ukraine’s independence.
History rarely gives us black and white choices, but this is truly one of them. The alternative to a world in which Ukraine is free and independent is a world with a dragged-out war, numerous lives lost and destroyed, ruined cities and infrastructure, and many more millions of refugees to host. Make no mistake: Given an opportunity, Russia will dig in and establish a military foothold in Ukraine directed at Europe and, more important, the ramifications will not be contained just in Europe.
Russia’s war is already blocking substantial wheat and corn exports from Ukraine and Russia, which particularly affects the African continent. Russia is not hiding that they are using famine across the poorest countries in the world as a bargaining chip. This is much bigger than the genocidal war in Ukraine, this is a war against the developing world and the basic values of the free democratic world. Just listen to the Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan:
“The famine will start now and they will lift the sanctions and be friends with us, because they will realize that it’s impossible not to be friends with us,” – said Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan during the Petersburg Economic Forum. #StopRussia pic.twitter.com/48f1dHnfaC
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) June 20, 2022
All in all, this war is also about our values as humanity. Vladimir Putin’s victory would mean a world where dictators can redraw borders by force and states would need to justify their right to exist. Today, we are asking the United States to be on the right side of history and recognize the Russian state as sponsor of terror and help provide Ukrainian forces with all the necessary tools needed to win this war.
Maria Doan is a local activist of Stand with Ukraine MN.
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