Did the United States Fail Ukraine?

the year was 1993 in the late creataceous period at the University of Vermont I was in the hallway and we’d put up a poster that had some Russian language on it just for kind of fun this being right after the USSR fell and we see two young students there ulia and Elena who are staring at this ruski is Russian language and turns out the girls are from Russia and Ukraine respectively we’re chatting I’m talking to the two girls uh jul is from Russia and Elena is from Ukraine and I said isn’t there a Ukrainian language as well and Elena says oh yes there is and the Russian girl looks down at her she was much taller and says no there isn’t they only speak it in the hills and the Ukrainian girl looks up as if to say I wonder what ever happened to those two countries in fact we should probably talk about how long uh the Ukraine Russia tension has been going on since the fall of the Soviet Union and maybe talk about who’s been president on up to the current situation next up guys it’s , 5 secondstime for some Game Theory welcome back to game three today I’m Eric Garland Ukraine and Russia are , 12 secondsbig in the news right now Ukrainian president volodimir zalinski was just at the White House for what I described as , 19 secondsa poop flinging chimp circus uh I could use other words uh and so could you probably if you saw any of the videos , 27 secondspretty hard to figure out what was going on so I had to put put it in the context of three different uh international relations theories just to try to get us , 35 secondsup to speed in the last video here I’ve seen a lot of reaction online supporting Ukraine I’ve seen support for Ukraine for almost three years right now since , 44 secondsthe War Began it’s pretty great I mean look I’m an American we really like the Underdog Story and really nothing could , 51 secondsspeak better to the Underdog Story than the relationship between Ukraine and Russia right now and it’s in epitomized , 1 secondby President zalinski who’s physically smaller in stature and he goes around kind of dressed for for combat and it’s , 8 secondsvery clear he’s being beat on by one of the biggest empires in history uh it’s very much a David and Goliath thing and all the imagery around it really plays , 16 secondsinto it so I see a lot of support online and that’s great saying look uh you know Trump’s speeding up on him certainly , 24 secondsdoes look that way and you Ukraine is the the real home of freedom in Europe right now well it’s a great story and , 30 secondsit’s developing as we speak here uh they’re our greatest Ally well that , 37 secondsmight need a little bit of unpacking there um because they’re not technically our Ally we could get into that from an international relations perspective it , 45 secondsgets complicated uh they’re the leader of the Free World I saw one political science Professor say and I’m like whoa whoa , 55 secondswhoa whoa whoa back it up there uh Ukraine is a much more complicated country than that , 2 secondsthis President is maybe more complicated than that charismatic certainly um and you know a an amazing voice for , 11 secondsdemocracy and I just I I support and and adore really everything that’s going on , 18 secondsin an otherwise very complicated situation and it just occurred to me that there’s all these people that have these opinions about who is currently , 27 secondspresident of Ukraine and how great the country is and how great he is and it occurs to me that we’ve never really had , 33 secondsUkraine on the television news nor the rest of Europe most people can’t name what form of government they have in , 41 secondsCanada which is our greatest trading partner and almost certainly our greatest Ally uh in a real sense as in we’re part of an alliance and we work , 49 secondstogether all the time and they’re super like us and we support each other no matter what um and it occurred to me we need to go back and just get some basic , 58 secondsfacts on the table because I think need to understand what’s happening in Europe what is happening with the United States , 4 secondsrole uh in NATO and in the world so we’re going to just take one topic for today which is who else has been , 13 secondspresident of Ukraine before this now for those of you who are uh gen Z or Millennials or anything younger uh you , 21 secondsyou may have completely forgotten from high school ancient history class uh any lessons on the union of Soviet Socialist , 30 secondsrepublics or USSR which is what came before all this yes I know the cold war is so boring and so very Gen X and Boomer and old and whatnot but it’s , 39 secondsstill with us it’s still important especially since Ukraine has only had its own presidence since the fall of the , 46 secondsUSSR of the Soviet Union so if we’re going to have all these fan clubs for uh Ukrainian presidents we should probably , 54 secondsknow a little bit more about their system we’re not even going to do their political parties today but we’ve got a few presidents to cover going back to , 2 seconds1991 so before we have any more uh online online pep rallies let’s do the , 9 secondspresidents of Ukraine and get all on the same page let’s , 18 seconds[Music] , 22 secondsgo mikola pavuk was born on the 5th of June 1925 in the village of Russo Poland , 30 secondsnow independent Ukraine during World War II mikola became active in the plast scouting movement which spotted assess and recruited young ukrainians to join , 39 secondsthe organization of Ukrainian nationalists after World War II pavik fled to Germany and got a degree in economics from the University of Munich , 47 secondspavuk then immigrated to Montreal Quebec Canada in 1949 where he remained active with the Ukrainian diaspora there , 55 secondseventually becoming Ukraine’s president in Exile Russian intelligence and its Ukrainian Partners the MGB were all over , 3 secondspavuk from early days so confident that they were going to take him down that his official code name was bzd which translates to doomed or , 12 secondsunfortunate Canada proved an excellent location for a Ukrainian Patriot and the Ukrainian MGB was unable to surveil his , 20 secondswork recruiting up ukrainians in North America to fight Soviet repression the Russians apparently lost track of him partly because they messed up basic , 28 secondsstuff like spelling his Ukrainian name correctly in Russian spy archives the Russians however had no problem finding his father and brother back home and , 37 secondsharass them both over pavia’s activities in Canada by 1965 the KGB assessed that pavak was a convinced Nationalist and , 45 secondsquote a vicious enemy of the USSR after the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine on August 24th , 53 seconds1991 just after the fall of the Soviet Union pavak officially relinquished his title as president in Exile and , 59 secondssupported the inauguration of Lan kuk as the country’s first Sovereign head of state mikola pluk took an active part in , 7 secondsthe development of Ukraine’s statehood in January 1992 he set foot on Ukrainian soil for the first time in 48 years no , 16 secondslonger afraid that a trip home would mean a permanent trip to prison in May 1993 he was granted Ukrainian , 23 secondscitizenship for services to the motherland he was awarded the order of Prince yaroslav the wise pavik passed , 30 secondsaway on March 10th 2012 and was buried in the city of Oakville Ontario Canada at the Ukrainian Cemetery of St , 39 secondsVladimir guys I wish I could do the rest of the biographies of Ukraine’s presidents with as much reverence as can , 46 secondsbe reserved for mikavu that was a man who did some of the most dangerous covert actions around , 53 secondsthe world daring the KGB to kill him for decades as a patriot of country that , 1 seconddidn’t exist yet I I wish I could do all of the presidents of , 7 secondsUkraine with the same respect and honor that you can reserve for pavc who was the president in Exile and who never , 15 secondsbecame head of state I I wish I could but I I really can’t I don’t think it would be appropriate uh in , 24 seconds1991 uh Len krauk came to power and uh yes he he had the support of pavuk but , 33 secondsat the end of the day uh krauk became part of the Communist Party in 1958 he was a political economics professor in K , 42 secondsuh under the Communist party aaces and he specialized in propaganda and ideology in 1990 he became head of the , 49 secondsukra Ukraine Supreme Soviet and then in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union he became the first Sovereign president , 58 secondsbut he was a communist he was part of the problem not part of the solution so plav supported him but really the , 6 secondscountry was still run by the same people who had just been making their citizens miserable krauk was in power until , 13 seconds1994 when he was replaced by his prime minister Len kuchma kuchma was the only , 21 secondspresident of Ukraine to last two terms but those years were not exactly covered in glory it was in that period of 1994 , 28 secondsto 2005 that the mafia oligarchs really came to prominence and in 2002 the United States actually sanctioned all of Ukraine for , 37 secondsmoney laundering practices that financed International terrorists they did this uh under the the Patriot Act one of two , 45 secondscountries the other being NAU uh it was that period when the the Russian oligarchs really got their hooks in the place uh , 53 seconds2005 saw the rise of Victor Yenko the official winner of the election at first in 2004 was protin Victor yanukovich but the election results were overturned in the orange Revolution and Yenko came to , 9 secondspower soon thereafter he had a falling out with his main political Ally ulia teimos shenko she’s the woman that , 17 secondspolitical consultant Tad dine originally came up with the term lock her up for although it was Ukrainian first uh Yenko , 26 secondshad a falling out with timoshenko and then in 2010 Victor yanukovich the Ardent protin uh oligarch , 35 secondscame to power for real this time with the help of future Donald Trump campaign consultant uh Paul manfor yanukovich was , 42 secondssubsequently convicted of treason and has now been sentenced to 13 years in prison in absentia he has fled to Moscow , 51 secondsfollowing the invasion of donbas in Crimea which was done with yanukovich’s tacit approval in 2014 , 59 secondsyanukovich was replaced by chocolate magnate and TV station owner pet poroshenko who has also been charged , 6 secondswith treason and sanctioned by his own country since then uh in 2019 Vladimir , 14 secondszalinski moved over from doing a television program called servant of the people ran under the servant of the , 20 secondspeople party and was elected in April of 2019 then he had a bunch of weird calls with Donald Trump Donald Trump got in , 29 secondsteached over those and in 2022 Russia cut out all the uh the fancy moves and just invaded the place and that brings , 38 secondsus up to the modern day and I got to tell you I I’m troubled by a lot of this because I find myself kind of agreeing with mik , 46 secondsgorbachov’s conceit when he said that Russia is as bad as bad as it is because the United States in the west abandoned , 55 secondsit that the US should have given it way more support after the fall of the Soviet Union and for years that’s stuck , 2 secondsin my craw it’s like we don’t have to be what is it do you want us to be the world’s policemen do you want us to support the entire world and have our influence everywhere or do you not , 10 secondsbecause the Russians were just as quick to to attack us for spreading democracy and all of a sudden Gordon bov was like well you didn’t help us enough and you , 19 secondsknow for the longest time I’ve resisted that but looking back at the last 30 years of Ukraine I’m not sure gorbachov , 26 secondswas wrong because the real question for me is why wasn’t plavu allowed to become , 33 secondspresident this is a guy who who suffered for years in a country that didn’t exist yet and worked ardently to to bring them , 42 secondsdemocracy and he was never allowed the people actually in charge were Communists and then mob bosses or mob , 49 secondspuppets after having basically ignored Ukraine’s democracy which was under constant attack by the Russians the , 57 secondsRussians had enough material and practice attacking elections in the modern context including through social , 5 secondsmedia and other digital Communications which they definitely did uh in many of Ukraine’s elections where uh they , 13 secondsexperimented on how Facebook could be used so we had a warning especially the intelligence Community had a warning of , 20 secondswhat was going on and then in 2016 it wasn’t just Russia but Russia Israel , 27 secondsSaudi China Hezbollah everybody was jumping in to attack America’s democracy , 35 secondsso really if we’re country that that believes that we hold these truths to be self-evident that these are Universal , 42 secondsDeclarations of the rights of man we need to fight for them as hard in Ukraine and stay as a population not , 49 secondsjust our geopolitics nerds in DC but all of us have to say tuned in to all of these democracies around the world and , 58 secondsand help them out in support them as much as people are right now with zilinski so I guess the main message is , 5 secondsdemocracy is not a spectator sport kids we got to get out there and do it every day be the hardest worker out there , 14 secondsthat’s it for this episode uh what do you think of the Cold War did it end is it still going on do you remember it personally were you taught it in school , 23 secondswhat do you think about all this let me know in the comments or for that matter anything else you can think of uh one last thing click like click subscribe so , 32 secondswe can keep doing these and uh it’s always a pleasure to spend time into be like this thanks for thanks for having me talk soon