Thanking Ukrainians
Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and an expert on Russian and Eastern European history. Yesterday, he narrated an essay on his subscription-only Substack site “Thinking about . . . “ on the occasion of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the US and expression of gratitude for UN support. Snyder believes that we should be thanking Ukranians. Here, I summarize his ten reasons: 1. Security in Europe: Ukraine has been the victim of a long-anticipated Russian military attack, the first such attack since NATO was established, and Ukraine is fulfilling the NATO mission of European security singlehandedly on the strength of 3% of the US defense budget; 2. Audit, in practice, of the US defense budget: using US military technology* and equipment, Ukraine has won back half the territory it lost to Russia in 2022 and has thereby shown us what a portion of the US defense budget can do in the f...