Editor, Gazette-Journal:
In February 2022, a corrupt oligarchy (Russia) invaded another corrupt oligarchy (Ukraine). Russia started the war and is the cause of the conflict. In a just world, Russia would pay the price for its actions which started the conflict.
In the realworld we live in, we are saddled with the tragic events in Ukraine of the past three years. Prior to the invasion, the population of Ukraine was 44 million people. According to the BBC, 5.2 million of those people have left Ukraine as refugees. Large percentages of those refugees are draft dodgers. I work in the maritime industry, and prior to February 2022, one third of all the ships I attended had Russian/Ukrainian crews. I have not worked a vessel fully crewed by Russians/Ukrainians since the fall of 2022. I have since met individual Ukrainians mixed in with other nationalities who are all draft dodgers who have left Ukraine and who speak very derisively of the people who are fighting the war. “All the guys who want to die have already volunteered,” I was told by a Ukrainian second mate who is now living in South America.
The Ukrainian army has been in the field constantly for the past three years and has suffered heavy casualties. How much longer can it persist without breaking? The scorched earth defense strategy chosen by the corrupt oligarchs in Ukraine to protect the Ukrainian people from the equally corrupt oligarchs in Russia has left their cities in ruins.
The war for the oligarchs is like a military construction contract here in the United States, which are routinely cost plus contracts. For U.S. defense contractors, the more inefficient and incompetent you are, the more money you will get paid. For the Ukrainian oligarchs, more destruction means more money in the banks. It will be interesting to see how many children of U.S. Senators and Congressmen get a position on the board of directors of Ukrainian construction companies as one thing Ukrainians know is how to grease the skids.
Zelensky’s pipedream of a military victory which restores Ukraine’s 2013 borders can only be achieved if NATO armies (read that as the U.S. Army as European armies have minimal capability at this time) are deployed to Ukraine as warfighters, not peacekeepers.
End the war now. Zelensky’s affront to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance at Friday’s press conference shows that he still believes in his pipedream and fully expects the American taxpayers to fund his delusions while lining the pockets of the oligarchs in one of the world’s most corrupt countries.
Keith Ellenberger
Urbanna, Va.