By the time this is published, Kyiv may have fallen. But Ukraine’s comedian turned President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has admirably led his people by example, and refused evacuation out of the country.
The first Ukrainian-American I ever met was Lubomir (“Louie”). We started plebe year together at West Point. Thanks to Louie, I visited my first-ever Eastern Orthodox church, which met in the basement of the Cadet Chapel. Unfortunately, he resigned shortly thereafter. While Louie was true to his faith, it is sad that religion is being perverted by Putin as partial justification for his invasion. In 2019, Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew in Constantinople (Istanbul) granted the Ukrainian Orthodox Church independence from the Russian Orthodox Church, led by Patriarch Kirill, who calls Putin’s opponents in Ukraine, “evil forces.” The world is now seeing Slavic Orthodox Christians killing each other.
Admittedly I am no expert, but have done some business with Ukraine. I have more experience in the Balkans, where religion was similarly used as an excuse for bloodshed. This included genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina in the mid 1990’s, followed by warfare between Serbia and Kosovo a few years later. In both cases, nominal Christians and nominal Muslims were killing each other, using religion as a pretext.
Vladimir Putin was a good Communist. As such, according to Wikipedia, he served as a KGB foreign intelligence officer from 1975-1991. After the fall of Communism, he suddenly believed in democracy — and the Russian Orthodox Church. He began his political career in Saint Petersburg in 1991. In 1996, he joined the administration of Russia’s first democratically-elected President, Boris Yeltsin. He served as director of the Federal Security Service and secretary of the Security Council from 1998-1999. In 1999, he was appointed Prime Minister.
When Yeltsin resigned in 1999, Putin became acting President. He was elected to a full-term in 2000 and re-elected in 2004. Term-limited, in 2008 he became Prime Minister. In 2012, Putin was “elected” President again, and extended his term until 2018, when he was “re-elected.” Following a 2021 referendum, Putin signed into law a constitutional amendment which could extend his Presidency until 2036. Clearly, Putin became an authoritarian dictator and fancies himself “czar” of a Russian empire he is trying to revive by force, even by reportedly using flamethrowers in Ukraine, which are banned by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
As Ukraine has the world’s deepest topsoil (Rush County has second deepest), it was the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union. During the height of the Great Depression, a few years before the Holocaust, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin unleashed on Ukraine the “Holodomor,” a genocide by man-made famine from 1932-1933. Despite Soviet dictator Nikita Krushchev giving Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, it was invaded and taken by Russia after it hosted the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Shortly before the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, Russia invaded Georgia, and still occupies Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Considering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine following the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, we can only speculate where Putin might invade before or after the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
Oleg Gostomelsky was a year behind me at West Point. Born in Kyiv, he grew up in Syracuse, New York. He and I now serve together on the Indiana District Export Council. Oleg is Vice President of International Operations for Mursix in Yorktown. Over occasional lunches with Oleg, I have learned much about Ukraine. In fact, he told me that on the first day of the invasion, Russians briefly captured (and then Ukraine recaptured) the town of Gostomel, his ancestral hometown.
During this time of crisis, Indiana should be thankful for leaders such as U.S. Senator Todd Young, a Marine Corps veteran and fellow service academy graduate, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Ukrainian-American Congresswoman Victoria Spartz. We must not let our guard down during this time. China may try to take advantage of a distracted world and invade Taiwan. In the meantime, let’s keep the valiant people of Ukraine in our prayers.
Nate LaMar, an international manager by profession
and a West Point graduate, also served as
Henry County Council President from 2009-2019.
