U.S. must recognize Ukraine’s misery under Russia’s yoke

Before the G-7 meeting this month, President Trump made the bizarre proclamation that Russia should be readmitted to the international group. “This used to be the G-8, not the G-7,” he said. “Something happened a while ago.”

I was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Ukraine two years ago. That “something” was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and theft of Crimea.

This invasion resulted in thousands of deaths and thousands more refugees. I taught some of these refugees at the displaced National University of Donetsk. My students reported food shortages, no electricity and grandparents too poor to leave. More plaintively, these teenagers faced the loss of being Ukrainian.

At a time we frantically try to keep up with every tweet and crisis, that international conflict feels like it happened so long ago. We only tangentially connect these events with the ongoing investigation of collusion with Russia in the highest offices.

Russia President Vladimir Putin, however, sees a direct link, and his aggression in Ukraine will drag on until he feels safe from American intervention.

To understand this link, we need to delve into a relationship that has little to do with the United States. Russia regards Ukraine as being fundamentally Russian. Treated as the feminine to Russia’s masculine, Ukraine was called Malaya Rus, little Russia, for centuries. This sense of ownership has meant Ukraine, more so than any other Russian satellite state, has been punished when it tried to pull away.

The Holodomor, the genocide you’ve never heard about, stands as the starkest example. Fearing budding Ukrainian national identity, Stalin forced the nation’s borders closed in 1932-33. This led to the death of more than 10 million people. While many countries have recognized the Holodomor as a genocide — but not the United States — Russia refuses, arguing it was a famine that hit all of the Soviet Union.

Eight decades later, Russia again clenched its fist when Ukraine tried to pull away. In 2013, thousands of Ukrainians gathered in the Euromaidan to protest their government’s decision to choose closer ties with Russia over the European Union. But instead of closing borders, Russia broke them and invaded. And as in the Holodomor, Russia denies it’s responsible.

There has always been spycraft between the United States and Russia. After Maidan, however, things took a turn. Russia began publicly releasing information gleamed from espionage, beginning with a bugged conversation between State Department official Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Wyatt. The conversation seemed to support the Russian claim Washington had funded and manipulated the Ukrainian opposition, specifically in order to weaken Russia. For Putin, the United States had diplomatically interfered in Little Russia, and he had to retaliate.

So Russia vastly ramped up its hacking operations, often making no effort to hide its efforts. That hacking includes interference with the 2016 election.

Putin will not forget what he thinks was American aggression in Ukraine. His impassive face hides a deep fear about his fundamental weakness. Neither he nor his government will back down from the underhanded tactics they continue to use to undermine American democracy. They don’t see why they should have to.

The United States has failed to offer any retaliation strong enough to truly punish Putin. Sanctions have been ineffective. Trump shows little interest in condemning Russia, and neither protest nor dismay seems to sway him.

What we can do, however, is offer support to Ukrainians, my students, by recognizing their suffering under Russia’s yoke. Their peers and their parents gave their lives in the name of democracy. Ukrainians perished generations ago for the sin of seeking their own history. The United States can respect that history by acknowledging the Holodomor as a genocide.

The Canadian Parliament took that step in 2008. Congress and the Texas Legislature can stand up for democracy and against tyranny by passing our own bills.

The least we can do is to recognize the Holodomor. It might be a small step but, as they say in Ukraine, a fire begins with a single spark.