The Good Ukrainians, Continued

Dec 6, 2022

In his rebuttal to my article, I saw that Scott Ritter agrees that there are good people left in Ukraine. However, he did draw my attention to the fact that this statement was not clear:

“I do not know what Scott expected the people of Ukraine to do. […] and the nationalist western half of the country that supported their government’s policies. “

I accept that one could assume I was referring to people being passive in the first sentence of the quote. And like Scott, I also divide Ukraine into eastern and western parts, each with its unique characteristics. However, I was unclear on those points, and I apologize for leading you to those assumptions, Scott.

But I still maintain there are good people in all parts of Ukraine.

Events following the government change in 2014 affected the ability of some people to respond or act. Some women refuse to leave their sons, husbands, or elderly parents behind. Others remain to care for the ill, disabled, and orphaned. Some men hide from the authorities to avoid conscription. Finally, some people successfully fled, and others ran and paid the ultimate price of death. I can speak personally to each of these situations.

Although I agree in principle with what Scott wrote, these are some reasons people may choose to be what Scott calls passive, and I call survivors.

However, I won’t take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. I have personal contact with people on both sides of the clash, and their situations lead me to agree with Scott that war should always be the last option, as it is the civilian people who suffer the most.

Kevin Michelizzi and Scott Ritter will discuss this issue on Episode 27 of Ask the Inspector.

A guest post by

Kevin Michelizzi

An American living in Crimea. I am an engineer, having worked for the DoD on guided weapon imaging and cyber/information warfare systems, and now write cyber security docs, information warfare videos, and videos about life in Crimea.

5 Comments

bahhummingbug IV substack

Dec 7, 2022Liked by Kevin Michelizzi

Dear Kevin,

Everybody knows just a few bad apples can spoil the whole barrel. I think the same is true with people and nation-states.

Scott Ritter, bless his hardened heart, is well trained in the art of war and has lifetime of experience practicing it as well as dealing with its ugly consequences (e.g. Senate oversight committees). War is learned behavior. War is a terrible thing to be wrong about, maybe the worst of things to be wrong about. Compared to war, all 'other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.'

While we may all share relative degrees of responsibility ~ Where Are Those Good Americans ~ the poor, downtrodden people in your heartbreaking photo gallery above are surely the consequences of the war in Ukraine, not the cause.

Ukraine may be a relatively newly formed nation-state (on my early 1990s globe it's U.S.S.R. territory) as Scott points out, but it's lovely city architecture and picturesque rural communities appear to be hundreds of years old.

(note. in any case, I think Scott struggles with concept that the world is really just one big old country, and 'mankind its citizens.)

I knew 'they', the bad apples, were going to destroy this beautiful place on Feb. 23, 2022 when Nato's Jen Stoltenberg, U.S. Sec. of State Blinken, U.S. Defense Sec. Austin and President Biden all said exactly the same thing:

"If Putin's greatest fear is a strong Nato in Ukraine, that's exactly what he is going to get"