almond & dandelions

The vast majority of civilian victims and destruction in Ukraine is from air attacks. US, UK and European politicians take great care to avoid answering questions about preventing air attacks — mainly, because it’s very possible, even without the direct interference of NATO. Below are explanatory links.

(1) The international aid that is needed to protect civilian lives in Ukraine: https://twitter.com/KpsZSU/status/1509619177656619013 The US administration previously blocked plane transfer from Poland; jointly with NATO officials blocked S-300 transfer from Slovakia; also rejected an idea of Patriot system transfer long time ago, since it takes more than a month to train a user — it’s been more than a month since…

(2) Why the argument «if we do less, we will stay safe from Russian nuclear attack» is wrong: https://twitter.com/kamil…/status/1504103672019513345

This thread also explains why, since 2014, I twitch every time when I read in BBC news «Russian-backed separatists in Donbass». (There was no real grassroot separatist movement there before Russia implanted a fake one, operating in top-down style.)

And on another issue: The US remains one of very few democratic countries in the world that still has not provided a clear visa/document procedure for Ukrainian refugees or visitors, even for those who simply want to visit family and stay with them for a few weeks or months at this tumultuous time. There were related promises both by Biden’s administration and by governors of some states, but after more than 40 days of war this did not yield anything real. All current immigration rule changes have only been aimed at those Ukrainians who are already in the US, and not at those who need to get here. Non-immigration (i.e. a visit) is also impossible unless you already happen to have a visitor visa obtained more than two years ago (and those visas tend to expire). Since March 2020, the US embassy in Ukraine did not process any US visitor visas. The official reason for that was Covid-19, and yet the US border was formally open for vaccinated, tested and otherwise safe travelers from Ukraine. But getting visa was impossible. Now the US embassy in Ukraine is closed, and in any other US embassy in Europe there is a 6-month or longer wait for any Ukrainian just for a visa interview. If you are from Latvia, for example, the US embassy in Latvia will schedule your interview in under 10 days; but if you are from Ukraine, it will take many months. And US embassy in Estonia will not consider your case at all, despite the rule allowing Ukrainians to apply in any country in lieu of their own embassy during the war.

A reminder that you can (and perhaps should) contact the federal government about all this, for example, here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Сегодня опять на английском. Можно смело «шарить» и посылать ссылки англоязычным друзьям — я думаю, то, что ниже, имеет значение для понимания населением США, Канады и других стран агрессии России.

NATO no fly zone (NFZ) is a restriction of air traffic above a certain territory, with certain types of aircrafts not permitted, e.g. with a ban on certain military aviation. It can be declared to save civilians lives or historic monuments. Russian government, facing a military failure, has been destroying civilian infrastructure, bombing residential neighborhoods and historic monuments, and so there is legal basis for this. Below I want to add some details.

1) There is a fear that such a zone enforced by NATO will pull NATO into war. This stems from misunderstanding of Kremlin’s imprint. The ambitions that Putin claims (Russia being one of top world powers, continuously expanding its territory) are not supported by any material base. Russian military is numerous but incompetent; Russian weapons and aircraft are not up to date (many experts doubt that even their nuclear weapons still work); the majority of Russian people do not adore, but simply tolerate their government and would not do anything for their country if requested; lastly, Russia is weak and undeveloped economically and, in recent years, is severely behind in science and education. That perhaps was not so evident if you visited Moscow or St. Petersburg in the past, as lots of gas and oil cash flow goes there, as well as lots of imported goods. But this becomes evident once you travel even a short distance from large cities into Russian countryside: it is poor and grim compared even to Ukrainian countryside. The only reason Putin can claim any expansion or dominance is because he has been allowed to do so by the international community. This has been his narrative since 1999, with devastating wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and now Ukraine. The more modest is the reaction of the international community, the wilder Putin’s plans grow. While it is hard to predict his actions, two things are clear: (1) he is an opportunist, and opportunities to destroy or capture nearby countries keep presenting themselves due to the lack of action by NATO; (2) he is not suicidal, despite the crisis he created. Pushing a nuclear button would be a suicide for him.

Hence, unless Putin meets a strong international response (NFZ above Ukraine would be such a response), he will keep the expansion and destruction, most likely spilling it into NATO territory very soon.

While I tried to shrink all this into one paragraph, people who study politics, history and war have written theses about this with similar conclusions. For expert opinion see, for example, this article or this open letter.

2) A no-fly zone is not a once-in-a-century event. NATO declared NFZ many times since 1990’s in Libya, Bosnia, Iraq. This is the most gentle way to interfere and protect civilians or monuments anywhere. It does not involve sending ground troops or doing anything on land in that territory. It also will not involve any fighting on or above the territory of any country other than Ukraine.

3) International law might not be worth much these days, but without it, it is impossible to build a thriving global economy. We know that Putin is violating international law by his actions in Ukraine, but so do many developed countries now, including UK, France, USA, by not interfering. Indeed, you can read about Budapest memorandum here: https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Budapest_Memorandum_on…

In brief, in 1994, Ukraine yielded its nuclear arsenal in exchange for guarantee of protection by these countries of Ukrainian territory from any military threat.

4) If NFZ is not declared, Putin will continue killing civilians. The events of the last few days, including shelling of humanitarian corridors, artificially creating blockades of non-military objects, bombing of small towns without any military objects clearly show that his war has changed purpose. Since Russian troops cannot capture large cities, they will now try to kill everyone and destroy everything they can. Most likely, Kremlin will try to remake a failed rapid invasion of Ukraine into a slow-burning terrorist operation, aiming to yield as many victims and as much destruction in Ukraine as they can. Even if one sets aside the human cost, this will be very costly for Europe and the world, given how embedded Ukraine is in European and world economy, with many threats arising as a result: potential ecological catastrophes (Ukraine has 16 nuclear reactors and Chernobyl zone, and many chemical plants), refugee crisis of the scale never seen before (Ukraine has 45 million population, and about 2 million have fled in the last week; additionally, people from Russia and Belarus will try to flee too, and that is 155 millions more), long term loss of access to Ukraine’s rich natural and agrarian resources, etc.

5) No one wants to hear about this, but as of yesterday more than 50 small kids have been killed by Russian troops, and about 70 more were injured. All of them were killed in either their homes, or civilian cars, or in “humanitarian corridors” that were agreed with Russian government in advance. In every case it was clear that Russian troops knew they were killing civilians. There were at least two boys the age of my son, who is 18 months. There were several girls the age of my daughter, who is 7 years old. In some cases, all family members were killed, while in others, their parents were nearby, but survived and are grieving. Yesterday, in an artificially created blockade of Mariupol by Russian troops, a child died from dehydration; this has not happened in Ukraine since the second world war. Most of the civilian losses result from either Russian missile strikes (that will be eliminated by NFZ), Russian bombings from the air (same), and Russian use of ground-based artillery. Once the artillery is not defended from the air by Russian air force, the Ukrainian army is likely to deal with it rather quickly.

Сегодня на английском.

News from Ukraine are more and more grim every day. BBC has a good coverage, even if it is somewhat late. Dozens of hospitals, more than a hundred of schools shelled or destroyed by «valiant» Russian troops, killing civilians in humanitarian corridor, when they tried to walk out of a destroyed town, with kids among victims… These are not «just some people» for me — Ukraine has a large territory, but its population is tightly connected, and almost every town and city shelled and bombed so far had one of my relatives, friends, classmates, groupmates, roommates, friends of my relatives… And yet, these should not be «just some people» for anyone else — I hope we all can be more than silent observers.

In the US, in addition to contacting your US senators, you can also contact your representatives in House of Representatives. This is done by «find my senator» or «find my representative» and filling a form, with a letter from you. Below is the letter I sent recently.

I am writing about the devastating war that Russia started in Ukraine. In his daily speeches, Putin calls it «the war with the West». Russian troops are now carpet bombing Ukrainian cities, with Russian missiles hitting schools and residential building. There are many civilian victims among Ukrainians, including kids. I believe the US government is not doing enough to stop the war and Putin’s aggression.

We need to do the following.

1) Introduce embargo on Russian oil and gas. The money that comes from sales of oil and gas by Russia goes directly to mass killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russia. As a voter, I do not want a cheaper gas or electricity if I know that money goes to funding violence. I want more expensive gas (that is not Russian!) and no war. It is absolutely criminal to buy Russian gas and oil at this time.

2) Allow asylum status for Ukrainians in our state. New York state has already done it, and we are behind. This is a shame.

3) Demand a NATO no-fly zone above Ukraine from the US government. So far the White House has been saying that they are afraid to provoke Putin. But Putin is a nuclear terrorist. Every day that the war in ongoing, we are under a threat of nuclear attack. Every day of the war, the US, Canada, and Europe are in grave danger. Moreover, in the past week Putin has already threatened the US directly, and more than once. His army also nearly compromised one of the biggest nuclear plants in the world in Ukraine. Such threats will continue unless we stop the war. Meanwhile, more and more civilians will perish from Russian bombings in Ukraine. The best way to stop the war with as little interference as possible is to close Ukrainian sky as a NATO no-fly zone. The NATO no-fly zone was declared many times in the past 30 years, in Iraq, Libya, Bosnia. It is now time to declare one in Ukraine.