DURING OBAMA’S VISIT TO POLAND, RUSSIAN AGGRESSION INTENSIFIED IN UKRAINE
TORONTO, KYIV - The ICSU welcomes the visit to Poland by President Barack Obama. His visit is an important response to Russia’s unrelenting overt and covert military aggression against Ukraine, and the threat that this poses to regional peace and stability, and to America’s vital national security interests.
From the outset of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian sovereign territory, the Ukrainian diaspora community and those of Ukraine’s democratic neighbors, have been strong advocates of greater support for Ukraine by the West. In the United States, these communities have individually and collectively spoken out unequivocally for military assistance for Ukraine. The Central and Eastern European Coalition, representing 18 national organizations of Americans who hail from the countries in the region, issued a 14-point plan for US action, including Major Non-NATO Ally designation for Ukraine. In this regard as well, the Polish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian communities have met with the leadership of the Congressional Caucus on Poland, House Baltic Caucus, and the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, respectively. Such an outpouring of support is most gratifying.
President Obama’s visit to Poland and meeting there with Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s newly elected President, is an important expression of America’s commitments to oppose Russian aggression and to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity. Today, these commitments need to take on more tangible forms, as Russia is sending more of its special military forces and sophisticated arms to Ukraine in response to Ukrainian security operations in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
However, the US and NATO continue to provide concessions to Russia by rejecting a military option to stop the annexation of Crimea and the expansion of the occupation of Ukraine's southeastern provinces by Russian special operations troops. They have even refused to provide Ukraine's Armed Forces with desperately needed military assistance, despite numerous pleas by Ukraine's Transitional Government.
By not implementing the third stage of hard-hitting sanctions againstRussiaand providingUkrainethe military means to defend itself, the West has de facto given Putin a green light to continue his military incursions intoUkraine, including most recently the Vostok Division, that may well escalate into a full-fledged invasion ofUkraine's mainland. In this regard,Russia's recent proposal for a UN Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian corridors in easternUkraineis a further ploy byRussiato have its regular army troops enterUkraineunder the guise of peacekeepers, as they have done inGeorgiaduring the annexation of theterritoryofAbkhazia.
Therefore, in addition to more sanctions, theUSand its allies need to immediately provide military assistance forUkraine's police and security personnel, and for its armed forces and national guard. Granting Major Non-NATO Ally status for Ukraine by the US would go a long way in doing so.
The need for stepped-up deterrence also applies to defending countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We welcome the dispatch of US military personnel to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, as well as the other security measures initiated by the US government. Likewise, we support the call for stationing NATO forces on the territory of these NATO member countries. This is not only justified, it is essential as a direct consequence of the invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, Russia’s continued overt and covert military aggression in Ukraine, as well as its unceasing efforts to undermine and destabilize the countries in the region.
The diaspora communities from Central and Eastern Europe fully understand the extent of the threat that Russia under Putin represents, as their ancestral homelands are among the former Captive Nations that until recently were under the colonial control of a brutal and uncompromising tyrannical regime, Soviet Russia. They know from personal experience that increasing economic, trade and financial sanctions only after Russian tanks enter Kyiv, just as they entered Budapest in 1956 or Prague in 1968, will be too little too late to deal with the threat that an unrepentant Russia poses for America and the world. The ICSU, time and again, has underscored, that Russia under Putin’s rule is destined to be authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad. By his own words, restoring Russia's empire is the goal and controlling Ukraine is the lynchpin for success.
While Ukraine is the immediate objective, next will be the isolation of the US and then the disintegration of European unity, leading to Russian hegemony over Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. It is in the vital national security interest of the US to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression and to stand with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the other democratic countries in the region.
Russia will stand down only when there is meaningful push back.
Yuri Shymko
Former Canadian Member of Parliament
ICSU, President
Tel (416) 658-4066
yurishymko@rogers.com
Borys Potapenko
ICSU
Vice-President
Tel 1 (586) 216-3798
boryspotapenko@gmail.com
The International Council in Support of Ukraine (ICSU), which encompasses civic organizations in Ukraine, USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece, was established in 1967 as a coordinating body of Ukrainian organizations in the Free World whose main goal was the restoration of an indivisible, independent and democratic Ukrainian nation state that briefly existed after WW I and was proclaimed at the outset of WW II. These acts of self-determination and national emancipation included a protracted liberation struggle against both Nazi and Soviet occupiers. The ICSU’s first two presidents were survivors of Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen.
