A WAR CORESPONDENT
Those of us born in the 1940’s and 50’s well remember the Cuban missile crisis when the Soviet Union placed missiles in Cuba that were minutes from destroying Washington DC and other major US cities. And we all remember President Kennedy’s speech to the American people telling us that the Soviet Union meant no harm and was just defending itself from American aggression and that Cuba was a sovereign nation and had every right to allow Russia to place missiles on its soil. There was nothing to worry about.
Of course, we all know exactly the opposite happened. The US had already attacked Cuba in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion because of the island’s growing association with the Soviet Union. With arrival of Soviet missiles on the island, America was ready to start nuclear Armageddon if they weren’t removed.
This potentially humanity ending reaction of the US was easily understood and justified in the minds of the American people. Russian missiles in Cuba were an existential threat to our very existence.
Yet in 2014 when our country, the US, orchestrated an illegal coup overthrowing the democratically elected, neutrality supporting, president of Ukraine and began installing US arms and CIA bases on Russia’s borders, we were told by all western media that Russia should just accept this. The US was just “defending” itself, and placing American arms minutes from destroying Moscow (as the US had already done a few years earlier with missile installations in Poland and Romania) was something Russia had no right to contest. Afterall, Ukraine was a sovereign nation.
But the entrance of NATO and US arms into Ukraine was every bit as much an existential threat to the people of Russia as the presence of Russian missiles in Cuba was to America. It wasn’t going to be allowed in either case.
Here we should recall words that President Kennedy actually did say in his Peace Speech to American University on June 10, 1963:
“Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy, or of a collective death-wish for the world.”
Russia was and is never going to endure a “humiliating retreat” in Ukraine. Every American, indeed every citizen of Planet Earth, should thank their very God that Russia is winning on the conventional battlefield of this war. All of our lives depend upon it.
And now we must get over the propaganda induced, utterly ridiculous thinking that Russia wants to “conquer all of Europe.” First of all, common sense tells us Russia is physically incapable of doing such a thing. It’s militarily impossible. But secondly, Russia never even wanted Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine were trading partners – people went back and forth across the border to work every day. Ukrainians and Russians intermarried and had family members on both sides of the border. In fact, much of Ukraine is Russian. At one point in history Kiev was the Capitol of Russia. It was only because US leaders with delusions of world empire decided to sacrifice Ukraine to “weaken” Russia that this war began.
Americans and Western Europeans can go on hating Russia and demonizing Putin. But the overwhelming majority of the world’s people do not agree with us. They know it was US aggression that caused the war in Ukraine, just as they know the US is totally complicit in the horrific genocide in Gaza.
Elizaveta Igorevna is a young Russian woman. She was working on her law degree when the war in Ukraine began. Like thousands of young Russians, Elizaveta felt compelled to do her part in defending her country. She speaks fluent English like many Russians do, and she decided to become a war correspondent.
Please take the time to watch the interview of Elizaveta by retired US Army officer Daniel Davis. She represents, she is, the Russian “soul.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGurPgcy4-s