Thoughts on the Rashist slaughter in Ukraine

I started to write down these thoughts in February 2023 before my second trip to Ukraine, paused for many months, picked it up intermittently in the summer, and finally finished on Saturday, September 23, 2023. I will not edit this post because I want to come back to it to see how my views will change or remain in the future.

It has been a long and brutal 19 months since the Moscow KGB thug launched the slaughter in Ukraine. 

My views on this war are simple and straightforward, not much different from freedom lovers who stand with free people fighting for their freedom. I wanted to provide some background. I have some slight differences from others that make me treat certain things slightly differently.

Why I support the Ukrainians' fight for their freedom

I firmly support people fighting for their freedom regardless of their political leaning (left, right, or center), race, or religion (Buddhists in Tibet, Christians in Ukraine, Muslims in Xinjiang, Iran, and Afghanistan). To me, this is a binary issue with little room for debate.

My support has little to do with my views about Russians, Ukrainians, or their cultures. I knew a little more about Russia which has had a tangled relationship with China where I grew up than Ukraine Before the war, The main event that I knew about Ukraine was the Maidan (Independence Square) Revolution which is very similar to the pro-democracy movement centered around Tiananmen Square in 1989 of which I was a part. 

My trip to Ukraine dramatically enhanced my appreciation of Ukrainians and their culture. Russian soldiers' looting, raping, murdering, and disregard for their own comrades' lives have revealed the dark side of contemporary Russia. However, this has little to do with my primary motive to stand with Ukraine.

My support also has little to do with the perceived outcome of the war. If the Ukrainian victory were like a cakewalk, I might lower my enthusiasm because I want my support to make a meaningful difference. If Ukraine appeared to lose, I would work harder to help make the aggressor pay as much as possible to deter future aggressions.

It is very disappointing to see some people who were persecuted by the totalitarian regime (some Chinese dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners) support another totalitarian regime's brutal murder of free people. 

Standing with free people against tyrants is an unwavering forever position for me.

The current state of the war

This is where I may be slightly different from other supporters of Ukraine. Though I believe Ukrainians are undefeatable and it has been winning,  I still think they are fighting a war of survival. Major cities may still fall. I cannot see how this war ends as long as the KGB thug is in power. Even if Ukraine takes back all the lost territories including Crimea, Putin can still strike Ukraine with missiles and drones at will while Ukraine is not allowed by Westerm genius politicians to strike back into Russia with Western weapons.

The ramification of this understanding is that I appreciate any help for Ukraine no matter how small it is and whoever offers it because I do not see Ukraine has the luxury of many choices on the path to victory or the help they need. Any help is good.  The only standard I use is whether something helps end the war in the long run. I appreciate every young Russian professional leaving Russia no matter what his motive is. Even if Kadyrov starts his private army, I will cheer it because warlords will increase the chance of Russian disintegration. 

There are different ways to depose Putin but I do not know their probabilities respectively. 

1. Decapitation as a returned favor by Ukraine for Russia's multiple attempts to assassinate President Zilenskyyi.
2. Disintegration of Russia as a result of a broad weakening in the economy and military. 
3. Coup
4. Uprising

Since the war of attrition will persist as long as Putin is in power, the attrition ratio is the most important metric. Russia uses quite some inmates and lots of disposable minorities to fight the war while Ukraine sacrifices many engineers, teachers, scientists, doctors, artists, and other highly productive citizens. I hope Ukraine can take whatever approach with the most favorable casualty ratio without emphasizing too much on territory recovery. Ukraine will recover all its territories eventually. Russia will continue to weaken even if there is a ceasefire. The ideal scenario would be a ceasefire right now with Putin to be deposed in the near future followed by a complete withdrawal of Rashist troops from Ukraine including Crimea.

I have little clue about the scale of Ukraine's casualties but I am sure it is not small. The main mission of my second trip to Ukraine was to bring a package of urgently needed first-aid items (mainly Combat Application Tourniquet (C-A-T), NSN 6515-01-521-797) to the international legion. 

In terms of casualties, one can take a walk in any Ukrainian city to dispute the Rashist disinformation that Ukraine is running out of men. You see no fewer young men everywhere in Ukraine than in any cities of other countries. 

There may be a better path to victory by taking full advantage of Ukraine's advantages:

1. Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of bright brains and will continue to lose more while many highly educated Ukrainians around the world have returned to serve. Ukraine's innovations have already started to pay off on the battlefield.
2. Russia is under a large number of sanctions and has difficulty in acquiring advanced technologies and components while Ukraine is supported by the most advanced countries. Ukraine should not have difficulty obtaining cooperation or assistance in its defense R&D.

Ukraine has the potential to develop and produce advanced weapons at a favorable cost and use them to have sustained strikes on Rashist targets including cities like Moscow, and St. Petersburg with minimal or zero human casualties. These daily strikes can accelerate the change in Russia (e.g., disintegration). 

Ukraine is a highly functional and efficient country. Instead of having professors, scientists, and engineers fight in the trench, why not have them fight for the country in labs and factories to produce lethal weapons. In this way, Ukraine can sustain the fight indefinitely with support from the free world while rebuilding the country and reviving its defense industry to boost exports.

The optimal path may be to rally both scientists and engineers in Ukraine and around the world to develop cost-effective advanced weapons to beat Rashists and drive them out of Ukraine.

Ukraine is a free country with people of different opinions. It is hard to get an accurate picture of Ukrainians' attitudes towards different aspects of the war. Here are some of my guesses.

1. More than 90% of Ukrainians believe Crimea and all the occupied eastern Ukraine territories belong to Ukraine. I am quite certain about this.
2. The number of Ukrainians who believe that Ukraine will be able to regain all the lost territories eventually regardless of how long it will take is significantly smaller. My wild guess: 70% - 90%.
3. The number of Ukrainians who believe that the current military campaign will take back all the lost territories in the near future (e.g., in a year or so) is even smaller. My wild guess: 60% - 80%.

Aid to Ukraine

If the US had ramped up lethal weapon delivery to Ukraine rapidly and massively instead of begging the PRC for months leading to the invasion, the invasion would likely have never happened.

If the US had ramped up weapon delivery quickly after the war started, the 65km long sitting ducks of the Russian convoy to Kyiv would have been largely destroyed and many Ukrainian territories in the North would have been liberated much sooner.

If the West had delivered more effective weapons, a large number of Rashist troops around Kherson would have been eliminated instead of an orderly retreat in November 2022.

Though Ukraine deserves more aid than what they receive, the aid to Ukraine has been unprecedented. Many countries have been hosting a large number of Ukrainian refugees. Over 200 foreign volunteers have paid the ultimate price and many more are still fighting tough battles. People all over the world have been raising funds and sending requested items to Ukraine. I brought a suitcase of requested materials to Ukraine (wool military Long-Johns, iPad, tablet PC, power banks, walkie-talkie, charging cables...) for my first trip to Ukraine in October 2022 and another package of requested first-aid items (Combat Application Tourniquets, chest seals..) to the International Legion for my second trip. I have booked many Airbnb stays form Ukrainians without using them. 

There are a lot of aid organizations. The organizations that help Ukrainians directly such as volunteer centers in Poland, Georgia are the best. Many others have good intentions but they are having a hard time having a good material impact, so they are inactive or semi-active.  I have made donations to some but I have largely chosen to deliver self-funded materials directly to the front.

The coordination and monitoring of aid organizations, including large ones, could be improved. When large financial transactions and merchandise are involved, fraudsters will show up undoubtedly. My sense is that frauds are relatively small due to many voluntary scrutinies. The Mriya Aid scandal is an outlier.

I wonder if it is true that the US government is sending funds to Ukraine to pay civilians directly. This would be a mistake. The US's support should focus on the following two:

1. Advanced weapons and other aid to the military. As President Zelenskyy said, if Ukraine is winning and becoming safe, more Ukrainians will return and create tax revenues. That is the best way to address Ukraine's financial difficulty. Ukraine is still spending a lot of its own revenues on its defense.
2. Encourage businesses to invest in Ukraine. This may sound crazy during a war. The fact is that many places in Ukraine are safer than many US cities. Ukraine has a high-quality labor force and a pragmatic government. Nova Pshta, Ukraine's version of UPS or FedEx, is thriving even in the midst of the war. It is expanding to Germany and Romania. Its state-owned Ukrzaliznytsia, or Ukrainian Railways, is also thriving and expanding. 

Many Russians are victims too

I was more brainwashed under Chairman Mao than most Russians today under KGB thug Putin. I remember when the CCP started the Sino-Vietnamese war to save Cambodian butcher  Pol Pot who eliminated a quarter of the Cambodian population, many of us in middle schools wished we were old enough to join the PLA to fight Vietnamese invaders. We had no idea the invaders were the PLA troops. Putin has turned Russia into a giant animal farm where cattle's brains are engineered by his propaganda.

Indoctrinated cattle can be enlightened. A large number of anti-war Russians have been detained. It is great that President Zelenskyy appealed to Russians directly. I wish there were more coordinated efforts to wake up Russians. As I believe China will be a free country eventually, I have no doubt that Russia will be free. It is hard to see that Putin can fully North Koreanize Russia to secure himself. 

Ukrainians are a great people

First, let's address two accusations against Ukraine based on my own experience even though they have been disputed by many others.

1. Ukraine is a Nazi country. 

Does Ukraine have any Nazi elements? Yes, there is no doubt. Even Ukrainians do not deny it and the government including President Zelenskyyi acknowledge it. It is a question of the scale. By now, I have traveled to 10 cities/towns, small (e.g., Tatariv with 2,600 people) and big(e.g., Kyiv with 3 million). As a lifelong runner, my preferred way of transportation is jogging and walking. I jogged and walked at least 40 km in the Kyiv region alone. I have met lots of different people. Ukrainian troops are ubiquitous due to the war. I have never seen a single Nazi sign. 

I had a meal at the famous Ukrainian nationalist restaurant Kryjivka which requires a password to enter. It is like a small museum with all kinds of relics that go back to WWII. I did not see any Nazi sign.

Some people in our neighborhood (North Shore, Massachusetts) were distributing Swatika pamphlets as reported by local newspapers. A friend told me her brother who also lives in Massachusetts had Swastika displayed at his home for many years. I don't think Massachusetts is a bastion of Nazis and I don't think the US is a Nazi country despite its Nazi elements. For the same reason, I don't believe Ukraine led by a Jew is a Nazi country.

2. Ukraine is the most corrupt country. 

Ukraine did have widely known serious corruption and that is one of the reasons for Ukrainians to elect Zelenskyy whose platform had anti-corruption as a major component as their president. I doubt Ukraine has ever been more corrupt than Russia, China, or some African countries. The question is how corrupt it is currently.

Though most government corruption is not visible to visitors, when a country is extremely corrupt, it will show up everywhere. For example, policemen or customs officers trying to extract bribes is common in extremely corrupt countries. I have encountered many officers of different sorts in my two tours across Ukraine and have never noticed the slighted sign of bribery. This does not mean Ukraine is free of such corruption, but it cannot be as rampant as Putnists claim.

War is a stress test of a country and it reveals corruption easily. The rampant logistic issues of the Russian military exposed by its invasion show its deep corruption. Such issues are rare with Ukraine's armed forces.

The worst enemy of corruption is a vibrant free press which Ukraine apparently has. A recent investigative report brought down a large number of senior officials. After reading the cases, I am not quite sure Ukraine is much more corrupt than the US which, I believe, is relatively clean. In the US, companies and foreign hostile forces such as the CCP can buy elites including former senior government officials to work for them as legal lobbyists. Ukraine does not seem to have a thriving lobbying industry.

There is little chance that Ukraine is the most corrupt country. The PRC is definitely one of the most corrupt countries where almost every gov official has significant gray income and the bribes are often astronomical. However, Ukrainians should fight corruption as hard as they do Rashist invaders.

Having addressed the two issues, here is my general impression of Ukraine:

1. Ukrainians have a strong sense of identity contrary to Putin's persistent claim that Ukraine is not a real country. After the Rashist invasion started, hundreds of thousands of overseas Ukrainians volunteered to return to their homeland to fight. Their Derussification has been going on for many years.
2. It is largely the Ukrainian culture and civil society, not a forceful government or dictator,  that unites and stabilizes the country during the current brutal war. Many countries have social collapses to different degrees when facing invasions, Ukraine becomes stronger and maintains an unbelievably functional society after the Rashist invasion. A lot of work, especially, resistance to the invasion was done by people voluntarily, not by government dictation. 
3. Good education. Ukraine exports a large number of well-educated labor forces and also exports its education service. A large number of foreign students study in Ukraine. My personal interactions with ordinary Ukrainians of all sorts (engineers, educators) confirm this. 
4. Ukrainian hospitality is often touching to me. They are not the type of people who actively greet and hug you, or smile at you as we are used to in the US, but they jump to help when they notice any need. The help often exceeds the expectation or need. I could compile a long list of such incidents. It sometimes happens multiple times a day. Let me randomly pick a few examples. When I had difficulty in communicating with a ticketing window clerk at Kyiv railway station to buy a train ticket to Odesa, a fellow noticed it and jumped in to help. When he felt his help was not adequate, he asked me to stay there and he would bring the help to me. A nearby lady also tried to lend a hand when I was waiting for help. The gentleman brought a youngster speaking good English from the information center to help me get the ticket. I asked for directions to the nearby lodging place. Instead of giving me directions, she walked me to the front desk of the station hotel and made sure that I booked the room and got all the needed instructions. In Kharkiv, I was confused in a subway car and got the attention of a student. He made sure that I got off the blue line correctly, and then he wanted to know where I was heading. He did not know how to switch the line, so he asked others, then led me to navigate the underground maze to the red line in the right direction. I took a new route from the tiny railway station of Vale Visuile, Romania to enter Ukraine for my second visit. I could not book the ticket online and the railway station does not sell tickets, the staff on this international train do not speak English. A lady noticed this and essentially assisted me in everything - ticketing on the train, customs checking, transferring to another train after the stop - in a sort of polite and subtle way. She was not guiding me. Instead, she watched me going through all the steps and stepped in to assist whenever translation or directions were needed. 
5. The role of faith. Wherever you go in Ukraine, the most prominent structures are churches. It is no surprise that 85% of Ukrainians identify as Christians. Christianity forms a large part of the foundation of the Ukrainian culture that helps glue Ukrainians together during this trying time and prevents massive chaos, looting, raping... Christians see death as going to the ultimate home. This may explain the extraordinary bravery demonstrated by Ukrainians. 

Ukrainians are fallible humans like other peoples. They have their share of traitors, scammers, and grifters. I had a few unpleasant experiences of which the pigeon scammers at the Glass Bridge in Kyiv are the worst. 

Post-war order

China will be a free country eventually, and so will its current de facto province Russia. They have the potential to become powerful and vibrant countries. However, there are many uncertainties for them in the road ahead. Freedom may come to them in a few years or in a few decades. No one can predict the timing with any meaningful certainty.

The future of Ukraine and its neighbors is much more certain.

I have traveled to the following Eastern European countries (from north to south): Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Hungry, Romania and Moldova. My impression is as follows:

A. The Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and Poland

They are very similar - well-run free countries. They have the two most important things in a society: security (including personal safety) and freedom. I saw little kids (5 to 10 years old) walking alone in the streets or catching buses without any adult company. I was told it was normal. Safety requires the rule of law and a good culture. Freedom, especially, free speech limits corruption.  A government needs pragmatism to run a country well. These countries have all of them. By its size, Poland, a country of faith, freedom, principles, and pragmatism, is the leader of this pack. They will ascend to the top.

GDP (PPP) per capita:

Estonia: $46K

Latvia: $40K 

Lithuania: $49K

Poland: $45K

 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) (highe scores mean less perceived corruption)

Estonia: 74

Latvia: 59

Lithuania: 62

Poland: 55

 

B. Romania

It is similar to the above 4 countries.  I debated whether I should put it in the same group but my impression of Romania is noticeably different. In my impression, Romanian people are very similar to Poles and the people of the Baltic states, but the country, at least on the surface, still needs some work to catch up with the above former Soviet block countries. It has worse corruption - CPI = 46. Its GDP (PPP) per capita: $42K

C. Moldova

It should be merged with Romania ideally. That is what many Moldovans wish. Moldva was abused by the USSR when it was a part of it as other former Soviet publics. Unfortunately, Russia continued the abuse, though in different ways, after Moldova gained its independence. Moldovans are similar to Romanians, but the contry needs a lot of catchup work. It is one of the poorest coutnries in Europe but the beautiful country has huge economic potential. All they need are stability and a pragmatic, clean government. They seem to have them now.  Its GDP (PPP) per capita: $17K, CPI: 39.

 D. Hungary

Hungary is supposed to be very similar to Poland. Indeed, Hungary and Poland were forming a  sort of alliance within the EU before the Rashist invasoin of Ukraine. However, its current state head Orban, a Sinophile Putinist, has made it an outlier of EU members, NATO members and former Soviet block countries. On the surface, Hungary looks similar to Poland - well run country with friendly people. "Hungary ranks 85th in the RSF Press Freedom Index. Ten years ago it ranked 40th.". Its tragectory is not good. Its GDP (PPP) per capita: $43K, CPI: 42.

E. Ukraine

It has been described here extensively. Another way to look at Ukraine: if it had followed Poland to joing NATO, today's Ukraine would likely have little difference from Poland. Ukraine is a modern country with certain areas equiring badly needed development. It is actually much better than its official GDP figure suggests. I do not know why. Its GDP (PPP) per capita: $14K, CPI: 33

Once the hot war ends regardless of whether Ukraine has recovered all its territories, Ukraine's rapid reconstruction will start and it will have high GDP growth. Any country with the following attributes can have sustained robust economic growth:

1. Freedom. Economic freedom allows people to achieve their dreams without shackles. Press freedom keeps the government relatively clean.
2. Rule of law to protect people and businesses in a broad sense.
3. Pragmatic government. A meritocracy-driven, non-ideological government ensures the above two. 
4. A culture valuing education and meritocracy. 

Ukraine, Poland, and many of its neighbors have all of them. It is possible and I even think it is likely the current Franco-German economic center will be replaced, or at least, rivaled by a new Polish-Ukrainian center in the next two decades if the current trajectory continues. Germanistan and Francestan will be in a declining state unless Germans or the French do something to reverse the course. If you have doubts about the trouble of Germanistan and Francestan, take a look at the recent massive riots in Francestan, these two countries' ties with the PRC, and Germanistan's pre-war reliance on Russia, its abandoning of the finest nuclear power plants in favor of Russian gas. 

Ideally, the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia, post-Orban Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria should form a new type of union based on maximum protection of freedom and common sense.