Ukrainian agony: Why Europe owes a debt to Ukraine

Often overlooked in history, Ukrainians were categorized as “subhuman” by the Nazis and brutally killed. It was one of the largest genocides in history, as an estimated 5 million Ukrainians were slaughtered at the hands of the Germans between 1941 and 1945. It is a Nazi massacre not typically taught in the country’s schools.

However, neither is the other carnage and genocide that Ukrainians suffered a decade earlier. The Holodomor was the famine that Josef Stalin intentionally caused to starve Ukrainians into submission. It was tantamount to siege warfare. An estimated 7 million Ukrainians died at the hands of Stalin between 1932 and 1933.

Perhaps even more tragic is the unconscionable neglect regarding this genocide. Over 12 million Ukrainians were ruthlessly murdered by Nazis and Soviets over a period of 12 years and many people have never heard of these tragedies.

This lack of awareness was by design. The slaughter of Ukrainians by the Nazis was lost among the publicity given to the systematic extermination of the Jews. The concealment of the slaughter of Ukrainians by the Russians was accomplished with the complicity of the New York Times. The paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Soviet correspondent dismissed reports of the Holodomor. Only a freelance writer named Gareth Jones accurately reported what was happening. But Walter Duranty’s lack of approval impugned Jones’ credibility.

The New York Times’s deception nearly 100 years ago still stands as one of the most egregious examples of early 20th-century fake news. Even more disconcerting is the lack of effort to educate young Americans about these events, especially those students in our nation’s finest high schools and universities.

I was fortunate enough to attend a preeminent college, the University of Pennsylvania, where I majored in Russian and Eastern European Studies and (incidentally, also Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s alma mater). Despite this, very little was taught about the Holodomor, and nothing that I can recall about the other repression suffered by Ukrainians.

The agony of Ukraine did not end with the end of World War II or even with the end of Stalin in 1953. Ukraine experienced a second Holodomor in 1946-47. There was the savage counterinsurgency campaign by the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, known as the NKVD, against the Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or UPA). This militia, formed in 1942, at various times fought against and with the Nazis, Soviets, and other groups with the intent to establish a free and independent Ukraine.

Indeed, any Ukrainian deemed a nationalist was persecuted. There were forcible removals to Siberia from Western Ukraine. There were arrests and imprisonment in the Gulags.

Moreover, the Soviets engaged in religious persecution. The Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church was forced to merge with the Russian Orthodox Church. Monks and priests were executed and sent to the Gulags.

Finally, Soviet Russia did everything it could to destroy Ukrainian identity, distort its history, and exploit Ukraine economically. The political oppression, cultural imperialism, and economic exploitation of Ukraine rival any similar type of oppression of any other race of people.

Yet, Europeans did nothing to prevent or alleviate it. Europeans eagerly sent troops to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans or dispatched peacekeepers to Africa. They deployed ships to Asia and aid to other parts of the world, and were more than anxious to raise their voices to defend Israel. But until recently, and arguably still even so, Europe did very little to help Ukraine.

When the Donbas was invaded by Russia, Europeans did nothing but performative geopolitics. They metaphorically wagged their fingers but let Russia take it without any resistance. Even in 2022, after Russia’s most recent invasion, Europe was slow to react and primarily relied on the United States to do the heavy lifting. Most recently, after a change in U.S. policy decisions with the incoming Trump administration earlier this year, European leaders claimed they would up their efforts and funding to protect Ukraine. Months later, they have still done very little, if anything.

REPUBLICANS MUST HOLD THE LINE ON MEDICAID SPENDING

Europe owes a debt to Ukraine. A debt of a century of neglect. For all the Europeans’ sanctimonious pronouncements of advocating freedom and humanity, they have demonstrated minimal leadership and action to ensure these principles in Ukraine. This geopolitical lethargy exists even now, as the European Union is not unanimous in its willingness to help Ukraine by any means necessary. Without the U.S. to provide the money and the manpower, the EU is impotent, and arguably, NATO is nothing more than a debating society that talks loudly but wields a soft stick.

Now, Europe should pay its debt and end the Ukrainian agony.