Ukraine is unwilling to be ruled by a puppet government for Russia | Opinion
I grew up on the streets and in the neighborhoods in Kyiv where the war is being fought but my perspective on this conflict comes from my work as a civil rights attorney.
As a civil rights attorney, I understand fear. When corrupt organizations retaliate against their employees, it deters other employees from reporting misconduct.
When Russia invades Ukraine because Ukraine is unwilling to be ruled by a puppet government for Russia, other countries get the message. Georgia for example, has not sanctioned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Employees who don’t stand up for their rights because they are made afraid to do so watch their world become more and more ethically uncomfortable and find themselves acting more and more in service of their employer’s corruption. Similarly, authoritarian governments enslave their populations to some degree and totalitarian governments have succeeded in doing so.
It is a threat to an authoritarian government for its people to see that the country right next door, a fraternal nation with a similar history, is free. Like Russia and Ukraine. Or China and Taiwan.
For the last decade, Russia’s economy has stagnated and the average Russian citizen has grown poorer. Russia has almost everything it needs for economic development: a well-educated population and natural resources but is run by a government that doesn’t protect individual rights or property rights. The Russian government does not want this to change because individual power and wealth is a threat to its regime. So, because it cannot allow itself to become more prosperous, Russia has to win some other way.
Since Putin has been in power, he has been dealing with feckless world leaders who have shown him, escalation after escalation, that the world will do nothing to stop him.
If Russia’s actions in Ukraine are a net win for Russia, it will encourage China to do the same. So now Russia and China will be constrained not by international law but only by a threat of imminent greater force. With this war, the lines have been redrawn, and we, the Democratic Western World, have lost significant ground.
The cancer that is authoritarianism has just become much more malignant. The Western world is now in a very hot cold war with Russia and China, even if we don’t want to admit it.
The sanctions that have been imposed may have made a bigger difference if they were imposed a long time ago before Putin staked his reputation on this war. The West may be doing some of the right things but is several steps behind. Same with military aid.
Russia has spent more than $60 billion a year for the past 10 years on its military budget. Germany just added $100 billion to its own defense spending. Yet, the military aid to Ukraine, who is in the middle of a war, from the United States, the biggest contributor, has been $1 billion over the last year.
Why doesn’t the world do more? Why isn’t the horror and heartbreak that everyone is expressing as the country is being shelled and blown up an impetus for stronger action? Do we want to leave to our children a world ruled by fear?
Elena Komsky is a Tallahassee attorney practicing employment law.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Ukraine is unwilling to be ruled by a puppet for Russia | Opinion
