coauthored with Bohdan Kukharskyy at City University of New York, Anastassia Fedyk at UC Berkeley and Ilona Sologoub at VoxUkraine
Dear Professor Chomsky,
We are a group of Ukrainian scholastic financial experts who were grieved by a series of your recent interviews and commentaries on the Russian war on Ukraine. We think that your popular opinion on this matter is counter-productive to bringing an end to the unjustified Russian intrusion of Ukraine and all the deaths and suffering it has brought into our home nation.
Borodyanka, Ukraine, Wednesday, Apr. 6, 2022. Source: https://apimagesblog.com/russia-ukraine-war-drafts/2022/4/6/day-42-rows-of-body-bags-in-ukraines-bucha
Having actually familiarized ourselves with the body of your interviews on this matter, we discovered numerous repeating fallacies in your line of argument. In what follows, we want to mention these patterns to you, alongside with our quick response:
Pattern # 1: Denying Ukraines sovereign integrity
In your interview to Jeremy Scahill at The Intercept from April 14, 2022 you declared: “The fact of the matter is Crimea is off the table. We might not like it. Crimeans apparently simulate it.” We wish to give your attention a number of historical realities:
Russias addition of Crimea in 2014 has breached the Budapest memorandum (in which it guaranteed to regard and protect Ukrainian borders, including Crimea), the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation (which it signed with Ukraine in 1997 with the exact same guarantees), and, according to the order of the UN International Court of Justice, it breached the international law.
Second, “Crimeans” is not an ethnic culture or a cohesive group of people– but Crimean Tatars are. These are the native people of Crimea, who were deported by Stalin in 1944 (and had the ability to come back home only after the USSR broke down), and were forced to flee once again in 2014 when Russia inhabited Crimea. Of those who stayed, dozens have actually been persecuted, jailed on false charges and missing, most likely dead.
Third, if by liking you describe the result of the Crimean “referendum” on March 16, 2014, please note that this “referendum” was held at gunpoint and stated invalid by the General Assembly of the United Nations. At the same time, the majority of citizens in Crimea supported Ukraines independence in 1991.
Pattern # 2: Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard
Whether willingly or reluctantly, your interviews insinuate that Ukrainians are combating with Russians since the U.S. initiated them to do so, that Euromaidan took place due to the fact that the U.S. attempted to remove Ukraine from the Russian sphere of impact, etc. Such a mindset denies the agency of Ukraine and is a slap in the face to millions of Ukrainians who are risking their lives for the desire to live in a totally free nation. Merely put, have you considered the possibility that Ukrainians would like to detach from the Russian sphere of influence due to a history of genocide, cultural oppression, and consistent rejection of the right to self-determination?
Pattern # 3. Suggesting that Russia was threatened by NATO
In your interviews, you aspire to bring up the alleged guarantee by [US Secretary of State] James Baker and President George H.W. Bush to Gorbachev that, if he accepted permit a combined Germany to rejoin NATO, the U.S. would guarantee that NATO would move not one inch eastward. Please note that the historicity of this promise is highly contested among scholars, although Russia has been active in promoting it. The facility is that NATOs eastward expansion left Putin with no other option however to attack. But the reality is various. Eastern European states joined, and Ukraine and Georgia aspired to join NATO, in order to protect themselves from Russian imperialism. They were right in their goals, considered that Russia did attack Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Moreover, existing demands by Finland and Sweden to sign up with NATO can be found in direct reaction to Russias intrusion of Ukraine, consistent with NATO expansion being a repercussion of Russian imperialism, and not vice versa.
In addition, we disagree with the concept that sovereign nations should not be making alliances based upon the will of their individuals since of challenged verbal pledges made by James Baker and George H.W. Bush to Gorbachev.
Pattern # 4. Stating that the U.S. isnt any better than Russia
While you admittedly call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war criminal offense,” it appears to us that you can not do so without naming in the very same breath all of the past atrocities devoted by the U.S. abroad (e.g., in Iraq or Afghanistan) and, ultimately, spending many of your time going over the latter. In contrast, we argue that prosecuting Putin for the war criminal activities that are being intentionally dedicated in Ukraine would set a worldwide precedent for the world leaders attempting to do the same in the future.
Pattern # 5. Whitewashing Putins goals for invading Ukraine
In your interviews, you go to great lengths to justify Putins objectives of “demilitarization” and “neutralization” of Ukraine. Please note that, in his television address from February 24, 2022, marking the start of the war, the verbatim objective declared by Putin for this “military operation” is to “denazify” Ukraine. This idea builds on his long pseudo-historical post from July 2021, rejecting Ukraines presence and declaring that Ukrainians were not a nation. As elaborated in the denazification manual published by the Russian official press firm RIA Novosti, a “Nazi” is merely a human who self-identifies as Ukrainian, the facility of a Ukrainian state thirty years ago was the “Nazification of Ukraine,” and any attempt to build such a state needs to be a “Nazi” act. According to this genocide handbook, denazification indicates a military defeat, purging, and population-level “re-education”. Demilitarization and neutralization imply the same goal– without weapons Ukraine will not have the ability to protect itself, and Russia will reach its long-term goal of damaging Ukraine.
Pattern # 6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic service
Everyone very much wished for a cease-fire and a worked out settlement, which could have conserved lots of human lives. We discover it unbelievable how you consistently designate the blame for not reaching this settlement to Ukraine (for not offering Putin some “escape hatch”) or the U.S. (for supposedly firmly insisting on the military rather than diplomatic service) instead of the actual aggressor, who has repeatedly and intentionally bombed civilians, maternity wards, healthcare facilities, and humanitarian passages during those very “negotiations”. Provided the escalatory rhetoric (cited above) of the Russian state media, Russias objective is erasure and subjugation of Ukraine, not a “diplomatic solution.”
Pattern # 7. Advocating that accepting Russian demands is the way to avoid the nuclear war
Because the Russian invasion, Ukraine lives in a constant nuclear hazard, not just due to being a prime target for Russian nuclear rockets however also due to the Russian profession of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
Have you ever wondered why President Zelenskyy, with the frustrating support of the Ukrainian people, is pleading with Western leaders to offer heavy weapons regardless of the prospective danger of nuclear escalation? The answer to this question is not “Because of Uncle Sam”, but rather due to the truth that Russian war criminal offenses in Bucha and lots of other Ukrainian cities and villages have actually shown that living under Russian profession is a concrete “hell on earth” taking place right now, needing immediate action.
Probably, any concessions to Russia will not reduce the likelihood of a nuclear war however lead to escalation. If Ukraine falls, Russia might assault other countries (Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Sweden) and can likewise utilize its nuclear blackmail to press the rest of Europe into submission.
Professor Chomsky, we hope you will think about the truths and re-evaluate your conclusions. If you really worth Ukrainian lives as you claim to, we wish to kindly ask you to refrain from adding additional fuel to the Russian war maker by spreading out views quite comparable to Russian propaganda.
Ought to you want to engage even more on any of those points, we are constantly open to conversation.
Kind concerns,
Bohdan Kukharskyy, City University of New York
Anastassia Fedyk, University of California, Berkeley
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley
Ilona Sologoub, VoxUkraine NGO
Current requests by Finland and Sweden to sign up with NATO came in direct response to Russias intrusion of Ukraine, constant with NATO growth being an effect of Russian imperialism, and not vice versa.
While you undoubtedly call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war criminal activity,” it appears to us that you can not do so without calling in the very same breath all of the past atrocities dedicated by the U.S. abroad (e.g., in Iraq or Afghanistan) and, eventually, spending most of your time going over the latter. As elaborated in the denazification manual published by the Russian main press firm RIA Novosti, a “Nazi” is simply a human being who self-identifies as Ukrainian, the facility of a Ukrainian state thirty years back was the “Nazification of Ukraine,” and any effort to build such a state has to be a “Nazi” act. Demilitarization and neutralization suggest the same objective– without weapons Ukraine will not be able to protect itself, and Russia will reach its long-term goal of ruining Ukraine.
Provided the escalatory rhetoric (pointed out above) of the Russian state media, Russias objective is erasure and subjugation of Ukraine, not a “diplomatic service.”
