Alex Borst’s essay on Vladimir Putin and Russia (DM, September 11) makes some reasonable points: that “it is difficult for us to see the world through a non-Western lens;” that Russia has lost power in the last twenty-five years; that “Putin represents a revitalized Russia at the cost of some freedoms.”
The problem is in what Mr. Borst leaves out.
Since 1991, American businessmen and Russian oligarchs have exploited the Russian people shamelessly. NATO has pressed aggressively east, despite Ronald Reagan’s promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that it would not.
In November 2013, the European Union offered Ukraine a deal. Putin proposed a three-way agreement with which Ukraine could have economic ties to the E.U. without cutting its ties to Russia. Prodded by the United States, the E.U. refused, also insisting that Ukraine must join NATO. Viktor Yanukovych canceled the deal.
These events, rather than Yanukovych’s corruption, were mainly responsible for the February coup d’etat in Ukraine and the civil war that followed. The new government does not represent the Russian-speaking people of the east of Ukraine. This government includes the fascist parties Svoboda and Right Sektor, descendants of those who welcomed the Nazis to Ukraine in 1941. The Kiev government has been attacking Luhansk, Donetsk, and other practically defenseless cities with heavy artillery and bombs. It has killed thousands and displaced tens of thousands. It is committing war crimes.
Though Putin has helped the Ukrainian rebels, he does not control them. He has actually shown considerable restraint. But the Kiev government and the Western governments that support it are recklessly moving, for strategic reasons, toward what may become a third world war.
Yes, we should try to look at the world through a non-Western lens. We should also look in the mirror.
Peter Wirth
Lecturer in English
