Sampling a long lecture series on the history of Ukraine provided by Yale University professor Timothy Snyder, author of "Bloodlands" and said to speak ten languages, one can easily get the impression that years of study are necessary before being able to judge the proxy war currently being fought in Ukraine. But shortcuts can help. Jumping ahead to lecture 20 by Marci Shore, an apparent colleague of Snyder's at Yale, it becomes apparent that hers is the perspective on Ukraine that Americans get night and day in the capitalist media, with everything romanticized as glorious self-defense against dark, oppressive Russia, replete with quotes from Polish Solidarity activists of old in an apparent attempt to convince us that Stalin is still in power in Moscow.
What we don't get from this and badly need, is a Russian nationalist perspective, which could teach us that Russia, no less than Ukraine, has its own inspiring, self-sacrificing heroes and noble acts, dedicated to rectifying outrages against its national sovereignty. In short, the United States is getting at most only half the story on Ukraine.
Everyone should be able to guess what would have happened if, following WWII, Mexico and Canada had been taken over by pro-Communist governments with Communist military bases placed right on the U.S.border, after which Communist incursions were launched into Texas, killing Anglos and banning English, even burning a few dozen American patriots alive in a Walmart for good measure. Would the U.S. have refrained from using force at that point? Of course not. Washington would have nuked Russia and China off the map long before matters go to that point. What accounts for Putin's restraint in not doing the same to the U.S.? This is a badly under-investigated question in the West.
Judging by the steady expansion of BRICS it appears that more and more of the world is well aware of U.S. hypocrisy, whatever it may think of Vladimir Putin.
Timothy Snyder series available via link below.
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