I agree with the guest column of Dec. 1 and letter of Dec. 12 about the Ukraine War and how urgent it is to end this war, which has increased the potential for a nuclear war with Russia. Nobody wins that one — game over for all our precious kids and grandkids, for humanity, and for most other species.
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University has opened my eyes to many hidden aspects about this war. He documents how the U.S started arming and training Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis after World War II. Even way back then, our just-founded CIA, was trying to weaken and even regime-change Russia. One of those Ukrainian fascists, Stepan Bandera, is still revered by a significant minority in Ukraine today, and his statue still stands in many places.
His followers play a major role in Ukraine’s government and military. In the 1960s, my father told my brother and me that we had “a ring of steel around the Soviet Union.” That situation has only gotten worse. Our news media doesn’t tell us that the CIA built about 12 secret bases in Ukraine over the last 10 years, and I suspect they’re still there helping the Ukraine military carry out long-range missile and drone attacks like the recent unsuccessful one that targeted one of Putin’s residences outside Moscow. This is really playing with fire — nuclear fire. If the U.S. helps Ukraine abduct Putin or kill him outright, we’d really be in deep trouble, especially with Trump’s finger on the nuclear button.
And if you think this was just an aberration, think again. In the past year and a half, the U.S. also helped Ukraine attack and damage key radar installations that warn Russia of a nuclear missile strike and then attacked airbases and damaged a few strategic bombers that carry nuclear weapons. MIT Prof. Ted Postol, a long-time expert on nuclear weapons, has been sounding the alarm that such attacks are beyond reckless.
As the 4th anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears, Russia is clearly winning the war, with Ukraine losing more and more soldiers and territory every day. And its desertion rate is skyrocketing, in addition to civilian men avoiding conscription by paying bribes, leaving the country, and hiding in their homes. I learned this from Ukrainian historian and Holocaust scholar, Prof. Marta Havryshko, now at Clark University in Worcester.
We shouldn’t keep giving Ukraine arms, intelligence, and financial aid, and let it just bleed out. Matthew Hoh, a disabled U.S. Marine captain and Iraq war veteran, is one of many expert voices calling for Trump to lean on Ukraine to negotiate the best deal it can get now, or they’ll be forced to accept a far worse deal later. Ending this war would remove one of the biggest flashpoints of international conflict that could lead to nuclear war with Russia.
John Haag lives in Florence.