So now it’s about gay people, too?
Having failed to convince anyone with his previous justifications for his invasion of neighboring Ukraine, now Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, are attempting to frame their aggressive foreign policy as part of a worldwide crusade against “cosmopolitan” elites and their “strange” values.
Putin, in what was billed as a major address in Moscow on Thursday, said Russia didn’t consider the West an enemy — but did see Western “elites” as an enemy. Also on Thursday, his political party introduced legislation to ban gay “propaganda.”
If his rhetoric sounds a little bit familiar — it should. The Russian president is echoing the language of the American right, trying to convince conservatives that they share the same enemies.
“In the United States there’s a very strong part of the public who maintain traditional values, and they’re with us,” he said. “We know about this.”
With his war effort sputtering on the battlefield, Putin clearly is hoping to convince at least a segment of Americans to see the Ukraine crisis through the prism of our domestic politics, by posing as the defender of Christian values who’ll lead the fight against pride parades, gender-neutral pronouns, and George Soros. The strategy seems to be to hope enough Republicans fall for it that they cut off American military aid to a fellow democracy. Some isolationist Republicans are already leery of providing assistance, even though it’s helped Ukraine turn the tide against the invasion.
Russia’s gambit has been to peel off gullible ideologues on either end of the spectrum — posturing as either a bulwark against capitalist neoliberalism or a defender of old time religion, take your pick.
Both parties need to recognize such appeals for what they are — cynical efforts to exploit our internal divisions. The reality is that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a brutal war of conquest to reclaim a lost part of the old Russian and Soviet empires, and camouflaging it in the language of traditionalism or anti-imperialism doesn’t change that.
Even while making anti-woke overtures to Republicans, to Democrats, and left-wing Americans, Russia pitches another narrative: that it’s willing to end the war, if only the United States would force Ukraine to come to the negotiating table to address its supposed “security concerns.”
Of course, that’s ridiculous — Russia could stop the war anytime it wanted to. And that’s why it was so disappointing to see US Representative Ayanna Pressley join 29 other progressives in calling for the Biden administration to engage in “direct talks” with Russia for a ceasefire. A ceasefire, which implies letting Russia keep some of the land it has conquered, is Ukraine’s to negotiate. Negotiating over Ukraine’s fate recalls the worst kind of Western foreign policy blunders. As Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland said in a response to the progressives’ letter, “It is a bad colonial habit to suppose that ultimately peace depends upon the wishes of the great powers and the great powers alone, and even progressive and liberal people can fall into this colonialist reflex.”
Putin’s war has unleashed suffering on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II. Millions of Ukrainians have become refugees. Retreating Russian troops have left evidence of rampant human rights violations in their wake. Helping a vulnerable democracy protect itself against Russian aggression has been a rare point of bipartisan agreement.
It’s been a long time since politics stopped at the water’s edge. And disputes over the extent of aid to Ukraine, and overall US strategy, are certainly legitimate. But at the least, both parties have a responsibility to see through Russian efforts to push our ideological buttons.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.