Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Ukraine’s Friend of the Week: Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson, the tousle-haired British foreign secretary, is famous for his florid style of speech, and amusing turn of phrase. But sometimes his witticisms get him into trouble, if only because they may actually reveal his true opinions.
For instance, when asked why he was backing his fellow Old Etonian David Cameron for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005, Johnson told the UK’s Independent newspaper that he was “backing David Cameron’s campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest.”
Sometimes he says he is going to do one thing while clearly aiming to do another. He was quoted by the UK’s Daily Mail on July 22, 2003 as telling a group of schoolchildren while on a visit to their school that he had “as much chance of becoming prime minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.”
Yet his actions since then have been to promote himself, bolster his career, form political alliances, and inch closer to the highest office in the land. With current UK Prime Minister Theresa May floundering after her disastrous decision to call a snap general election in June 2017, which saw her majority in parliament slashed, Johnson soon set out his stall for a leadership bid in an article on Brexit – Britain’s exit from the European Union – published in the UK’s Daily Telegraph on Sept. 15, 2017. While professing his loyalty to May, there is little doubt that Johnson still has his eye on the prime minister’s job.
Another example is his changing stance on Brexit. Five years ago, he gave what many “Remainers” would now describe as a lucid and clear-eyed assessment of Britain’s prospects, were it to quit the European Union:
“If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognize that most of our problems are not caused by ‘Bwussels,’ but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure,” Johnson wrote in the Daily Telegraph on May 12, 2013.
But since shortly before the Brexit referendum of June 23, 2016, he has been a fervent backer of leaving the EU, touting it as an opportunity for “Global Britain” to reassert itself in the world.
In the past he has also given an accurate account of events in Ukraine and a precise character assessment of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin:
“Putin’s proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine,” Johnson wrote in an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph on Dec. 6, 2015.
“He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.”
But in the very next paragraph Johnson appeared to leave open the possibility of working with the Kremlin leader:
“Does that mean it is morally impossible to work with him? I am not so sure. We need to focus on what we are trying to achieve. Our aims – at least, our stated aims – are to degrade and ultimately to destroy Isil as a force in Syria and Iraq. That is what it is all about.”
So what store should we set by Johnson’s latest pronouncement, made on March 21, that Putin was using the 2018 soccer World Cup, which is to be held in Russia, to burnish his regime’s reputation – in the same way the dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games?
While Johnson has a history of saying whatever he judges to be the right thing, at the right time, to the right people, we can only agree with his likening Putin’s regime to Nazi Germany. The parallels are striking, and disturbing.
Of course, with someone as erratic, self-absorbed, and self-serving as Boris Johnson, next week he could well shift position 180 degrees and again argue that a deal needs to be cut with Putin. But this week, at least, he is Ukraine’s Friend of the Week and winner of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, for speaking plainly about the nature of Putin’s Russia. It is something the world needs to hear.
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week: Jean-Claude Juncker
It is normal diplomatic practice for heads of state to send congratulations to the newly appointed heads of other states – even states that they might consider enemies. Ronald Reagan on June 17, 1983 sent a letter of congratulations to Yuriy Andropov when the Russian was elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union – a post roughly equivalent to president.
Andropov had, however, actually become the leader of the Soviet Union on Nov. 12, 1982, two days after the death of the previous Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev. That was when he was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – the real seat of power in that wretched, one-party, totalitarian state. As far as is known publicly, Reagan did not send a letter on that occasion, as the appointment to general secretary, while more important, was not at state level, and did not warrant diplomatic acknowledgement.
“Elected” is not the best word to describe Andropov’s ascent to power. A New York Times article from Nov. 24, 1982, puts it best: “After the nomination of Mr. Andropov, the 1,500 deputies snapped their hands up in the mechanical unanimity customary in the Supreme Soviet.”
Andropov, who headed the Soviet secret police, the KGB, from 1967 to 1982, was a thoroughly unpleasant man. He helped crush the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring. His tenure as head of the KGB was marked by brutal repression of Soviet dissidents. He was one of those who came up with the disgusting idea of branding Soviet dissidents as mentally ill – an idea recently resurrected in the Russian Federation.
And on Sept. 1, 1983, a civilian airliner, Korean Airlines Flight KAL-007, was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor after it strayed into Soviet airspace, with all 269 people on board being killed. Andropov, who had entered hospital in August 1983 after suffering renal failure, did not personally order the shootdown. However, the airliner’s black boxes were found by the Soviets, and on Andropov’s orders this was kept secret, as the data did not back up the Soviet’s claim that the aircraft had been on a spying mission for the United States.
U.S. journalist David Remnick, a former Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post in the 1980s called Andropov “profoundly corrupt, a beast.”
Yet Reagan congratulated Andropov when he formally became head of state of the Soviet Union.
So there’s nothing wrong with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, sending a letter of congratulations to Vladimir Putin, who was elected president of the Russian Federation for a fourth time on March 18, is there? After all, Putin, just like Andropov, headed the KGB, invaded other countries, and (almost certainly) shot down a civilian airliner, but Reagan still saw fit to send Andropov a letter of congratulations. Sending a letter is simply a diplomatic nicety, without much significance, right?
Wrong: at least in the case of Vladimir Putin.
There is a difference in the way Andropov and Putin were “elected” leaders of their countries.
While there was lots of politics, there was no democracy in the Soviet Union. Positions were assigned based on personal connections, loyalties, deals, and backstabbing among clans of Soviet officials – the actual vote was a formality, as the New York Times described. Soviet “elections” to high office were simply political appointments.
In contrast, Putin, the Russian dictator, held his sham election after one of his main rivals, Alexey Navalny was banned from running, and another one, Boris Nemstov, had been shot dead. Up to 10 million votes appear to have been stolen. Ballot box stuffing was so blatant and widespread as to be almost comical. A parade of pathetic, sham opposition candidates were presented to voters to give the illusion of choice. The official turnout jumped from under 60 percent to over 67 percent in just a few hours, after it became clear that Putin might not win an absolute majority of the votes of all registered voters. And the number of registered voters mysteriously increased by 1.5 million during the night after the election, before the final election result was issued.
Putin’s sham presidential election was aping, mocking democracy. It was an insult to democracy in a way Andropov’s appointment simply could not be – there was no pretense that Andropov’s “election” was a democratic event.
So when Juncker (and other EU leaders who should have known better) sent his letter of congratulations to Putin, he was congratulating the Russian dictator for rigging an election and defrauding his own people. What absurdity is this? For that, Juncker is Ukraine’s foe of the Week and a winner of the order of Lenin, as Putin is Ukraine’s chief foe.
Moreover, Juncker’s letter came just days after the United Kingdom accused Russia of being behind the attempted assassination of the former Russian double agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the town of Salisbury, England. Horrifically, the attack was carried out using a potent nerve agent of Soviet origin, according to UK experts. A policeman who attended to the Skripals and who came into contact with the nerve agent was also seriously sickened, and dozens of others of people were reported to have been treated as a precaution. Members of the public who were in the same restaurant and pub as the Skripals, who numbered in the hundreds, were advised to wash their clothes and even wipe-down their mobile phones.
Add to that the brutal war crimes Putin’s forces are currently committing in Eastern Ghouta in Syria, the continuing repression of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and the continuing war by Russian forces on Ukraine in the Donbas, there is no reason to congratulate Putin, and every reason to condemn him.
These are not normal times, and normal diplomatic practice does not have to be observed – indeed it should not be. Shame on Juncker, and all the others, for congratulating Putin on his fake election win.
Addendum
U.S. President Donald J. Trump on March 20 also congratulated Putin, against the advice of White House national security staff. But what else did you expect from Trump?
