The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (a branch within the US State Department) releases annual ‘Human Rights Reports’ on 194 different countries around the globe. Their 2021 report for Ukraine was released in April of this year. Despite its relevance to whether US intervention in the RU-UA war is merited, the report received zero media coverage.
The report highlights “serious abuses” in the Donbas region citing multiple sources: “International organizations and NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the HRMMU, issued periodic reports documenting abuses committed in the Donbas region on both sides of the line of contact.”
Notable examples of ‘significant human rights issues’ listed by the bureau include “extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents,” “violence against journalists,” “serious acts of government corruption,” and “violence motivated by anti-Semitism.”
Corroborating the State Department’s classifications is the Heritage Foundation, a pro-interventionist conservative think tank founded in 1973. For nearly three decades, the foundation has maintained its Index of Economic Freedom which defines economic freedom as the “fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property”. For the 2021 index, not only does Ukraine rank 35 spaces below Russia at #127 on the leaderboard, it’s in another category. Russia’s economy is deemed to be “moderately free”, a category shared by first world nations like Italy, France, and Spain, while Ukraine’s economy falls within the “mostly unfree” bracket.
I encourage readers to read the full list at the end of page 1 of the report and compare it to the State Department’s report on Russia. The assessments are nearly identical. It’s worth asking, if our own State Department classifies these two nations as equally abysmal defenders of basic human rights, why on Earth should we care about who governs their disputed territories?
The only material differences between the two reports are related to Russia’s unfair elections, an issue the department does not attribute to Ukraine despite the Obama Administration’s interventions into their elections in 2014. That said, there is no question that Russian elections are less-than-legitimate. Despite Putin’s popular support (which has been cited in numerous western outlets), he certainly shapes the system to his advantage - whether it’s extending his legal term limit, imprisoning opponents, or outlawing online speech that demonstrates “disrespect” towards “state authorities”.
However, even granting that Ukrainian elections are likely freer and fairer than those in Russia, if our goal is to defend democracy, why have we refused for almost a decade to recognize the secession of Crimea?
Months after the widely disputed Crimean referendum to join Russia which passed in early 2014, Gallup, one of the oldest and most respected polling institutions in the US, in partnership with the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a US federal agency whose stated mission is to “promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding by broadcasting accurate, objective, and balanced news and information”, polled Crimean residents on whether the referendum reflected their views. Not only did 82.8% of the population confirm that it was, but 68.4% of ethnic Ukrainians did as well.
The following year, GfK, a German-based data and analytics behemoth, conducted a follow-up poll asking Crimean residents “Do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea?” to which 82% responded “yes, definitely” with only 2% answering with a definitive “no”. One cannot claim to be defending democracy while aiding and abetting the Ukrainian government’s ongoing incursions into Crimea. David Sacks sums it up best:’
Ok, so if not protecting democracy or improving the quality of life, what are we doing? Can we simply not tolerate an infringement on sovereign borders?
If that were the case, why then does the US not only allow but actively support the United Arab Emirates and Saudi-backed invasion of Yemen that began in 2018 and continues today? Regardless of the origins behind this war, it was not sanctioned by the Yemeni government and thus an infringement on their sovereignty. It’s the Middle East so it doesn’t matter?
The real reason we are involved in Ukraine is not to help their civilians. It is not to preserve democracy. It is not to preserve national sovereignty. It is what US officials like Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Congressman Dan Crenshaw have both admitted. The true purpose is to ‘weaken Russia’. A goal in direct contradiction to “Standing with Ukraine”. This goal uses their home as our playground. It uses civilian lives as our propaganda. It does nothing for the ordinary Ukrainian whose life would experience no material difference if Russia were to govern Crimea (as it has done for nearly a decade with the approval of its inhabitants) or the Donbas (which has been mired in civil war for years with atrocities on “both sides”).
Oh yeah… and this goal also runs the risk of annihilating humanity.
