{"id":722,"date":"2014-03-03T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T19:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthewvandyke.com\/blog\/?p=722"},"modified":"2014-06-29T14:35:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T18:35:23","slug":"russian-invasion-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.matthewvandyke.com\/blog\/russian-invasion-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Russian Invasion of Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s the 21st century, and a country\u00a0has been\u00a0invaded by\u00a0the army of\u00a0a shirtless man on a horse.<\/p>\n

\"Russian

Vladimir Putin. Russian President and shirtless equestrian.<\/p><\/div>\n

As Russian troops march across Crimea and the Russian parliament\u00a0considers the annexation of the territory from Ukraine, the international community is stumbling\u00a0while watching\u00a0a repeat of history. Six years ago\u00a0the Russian bear\u00a0reached its claw into Georgia and grabbed\u00a0ahold of the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, tearing them away from that sovereign nation through military invasion and creating two Russian satellite states functioning under the guise of being newly independent republics.<\/p>\n

The international community didn’t stop Russia then, and it likely won’t stop Russia now. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been emboldened by years of US, European, and UN inaction to stop him, whether in Georgia, Syria<\/a>, Ukraine\u00a0or anywhere else. Putin will do what Putin wants to do, as he has always done, and the international community will watch, sweat, and offer\u00a0little more to Ukrainians than speeches and press conferences condemning what has happened to their country.<\/p>\n

When the dust settles, it will be\u00a0Putin who decides what happens to Crimea, not the US, Europe, the UN, or anyone else. And\u00a0when\u00a0Putin decides that the Russian bear will claw a line through Ukraine\u00a0establishing Crimea as an independent republic and de facto Russian satellite, nobody should be the slightest bit surprised.<\/p>\n

Russian President Putin will not yield. German President Angela Merkel recently concluded after her phone call with Putin about the situation in Ukraine that Putin was “out of touch with reality.”<\/p>\n

The question is, who’s reality is he out of touch with?\u00a0Putin’s reality is\u00a0shirtless horseback riding<\/a>, shooting whales with crossbows<\/a>, and hugging polar bears<\/a>. Putin’s reality is supplying the Assad regime with weapons to massacre\u00a0those struggling for freedom in Syria. Putin’s reality is invading neighboring countries to enforce his will on them at the tip of a bayonet.<\/p>\n

The fact is, Putin’s reality is<\/em> reality. Inaction on Georgia, Syria, and (so far) Ukraine has supplanted any reality of international law or standards with\u00a0Putin’s reality, and for years now\u00a0we have been living in Putin’s world.<\/p>\n

Before another nation\u00a0is\u00a0invaded by Russia, before protestors in another country\u00a0are silenced by Russian weapons, before Russia rewrites international norms of conduct\u00a0and\u00a0inspires\u00a0other countries to\u00a0begin\u00a0enforcing their will through unprovoked military action, Putin must be stopped.<\/p>\n

The reaction by the international community must be swift, punitive, and unequivocal in\u00a0delivering\u00a0the message\u00a0that such aggression will not be tolerated in the 21st century. The fate of not only Ukraine, but the course of history in our time, depends on it.<\/p>\n

(this article is available in French here<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s the 21st century, and a country\u00a0has been\u00a0invaded by\u00a0the army of\u00a0a shirtless man on a horse. As Russian troops march across Crimea and the Russian parliament\u00a0considers the annexation of the territory from Ukraine, the international community is stumbling\u00a0while watching\u00a0a repeat … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[37,1],"tags":[111,110],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-uncategorized","tag-putin","tag-ukraine"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Russian Invasion of Ukraine - The Freedom Fighter Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's the 21st century, and a country has been invaded by the army of a shirtless man on a horse. 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