In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, a criminal act of bloody aggression that was condemned across the free world. Thirty months later, for the first time in this war, Ukraine has invaded Russia.
Last Tuesday, in a fresh demonstration of the grit and valor with which they have defended their homeland, Ukrainian forces in tanks and armored combat vehicles crossed the border into the Kursk region of southwestern Russia. Moscow's defense ministry promptly claimed that the incursion was being repelled with "artillery fire, army aviation strikes, and drone strikes." A few hours later, Russia posted a statement declaring that it had taught Kyiv a lesson: "After suffering significant losses, the remnants of the sabotage group retreated to Ukrainian territory."
But that statement was soon deleted. By Friday, Ukrainian forces were in the town of Sudzha. Soldiers from the 61st Mechanized Brigade released a video showing themselves inside the local offices of Russia's giant Gazprom energy company. "The city is under the control of armed forces of Ukraine and quiet," they announced serenely. On Sunday, Moscow acknowledged that Ukrainian troops had penetrated nearly 20 miles into Russia, accusing Kyiv of "intimidating the peaceful population of Russia." Coming from a government that has deliberately bombed hospitals and apartment buildings, threatened to use nuclear weapons, and filled mass graves with the corpses of Ukrainian civilians, Moscow's complaint comes across as self-satire.
How long Kyiv will be able to sustain this advance onto Russian soil is an open question. The farther Ukraine presses forward, the more stretched its supply lines will grow, the tougher it will be to consolidate its gains, and the more time Moscow will have to organize an effective counterattack. But whatever happens, Ukraine's incursion has delivered a black eye to Vladimir Putin's brutal regime and confirmed once again what a valiant asset Ukraine has become to the West.
 Ukrainian soldiers take down the Russian flag from the town council building in the town of Sverdlikovo, in Russia's Kursk region. |
In an essay for The Bulwark, Benjamin Parker observed that in crossing the border where it did, Ukraine was invoking a powerful psychological symbol. Kursk, he explained, has historical associations that Americans may not know about, but that Russians and Ukrainians are only too aware of:
"In 1943, Kursk was the site of the largest tank battle in history; the Red Army overwhelmed the German Army there and ended any hope of stabilizing the front," Parker wrote. "After Kursk, the war on the Eastern Front was just one long march to Berlin. For the Putin regime, which bases so much of its legitimacy on the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany . . . , Kursk is a neuralgic spot to have to defend."
Moreover, the name "Kursk" evokes one of the worst naval disasters in Russia's history. The Kursk was an enormous nuclear submarine, the pride of the Russian navy. In August 2000, while on maneuvers in the Barents Sea, the Kursk was destroyed in an explosion so powerful that it registered 4.2 on the Richter scale. All 118 crew members lost their lives. It was a devastating blow to the country — and a debacle for Vladimir Putin, the recently installed Russian president.
Just in case the allusion needed to be driven home, Ukrainian forces sank a Russian submarine in Crimea shortly before crossing the border into Kursk.
While some Americans shamefully proclaim their indifference or even hostility to Ukraine's fate — "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another," JD Vance said in 2022 — most understand that it is in the interests of the United States to support Kyiv in its war of self-defense. Ukrainians are in a fight for their survival against an odious dictatorship hell-bent on extirpating their existence as a sovereign, independent nation. For 2½ years they have been making it clear that they have no intention of going quietly into the night. For far too long, the Biden administration insisted that Ukraine could not use American weapons to attack Russian territory; only this summer did it finally drop its objections. Now Washington and NATO should be accelerating the flow of materiel into Ukraine, and removing any limits on Kyiv's freedom to use Western artillery against the enemy. More than ever, the civilized world must continue to make it clear that whatever happens, Ukraine's valiant defenders will not be forsaken. Slava Ukraini!
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What Tim Walz and John Kerry don't have in common
Like 94 percent of American adults, I never served in the military. I am grateful to those who have worn the uniform and respect them for choosing to serve, regardless of the form that service took. My feelings don't change when it comes to political candidates who are veterans. Whatever disagreements I may have with their policy views or public pronouncements, I honor them for making a sacrifice that I and most other Americans never even thought of making.
I am no fan of Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, but I think it is greatly to his credit that he enlisted at 17 in the Army National Guard, in which he served for 24 years. And I am not impressed by the accusation from JD Vance, the Republican candidate for VP, that his rival is guilty of "stolen valor" because he "abandoned" his unit in order to avoid being sent to Iraq, yet falsely implied that he had been in combat.
Vance's charges, which have been magnified and repeated by other Republicans, are pretty small beer. With so many legitimate reasons to blast Walz's record, trashing his military credentials seems a pointless distraction.
Walz stepped down from the Minnesota National Guard in May 2005 to run for Congress. Two months later, his unit was activated for service in Iraq. Walz had openly acknowledged that his campaign plans might clash with a call to overseas duty; in March his nascent congressional campaign had even issued a press release calling attention to the point. (It was headlined "Walz Still Planning to Run for Congress Despite Possible Call to Duty in Iraq.") To be sure, when the deployment orders came, Walz could have opted to forgo the congressional race, get back into uniform, and go overseas. But he was plainly under no obligation to do so. He had given the Guard 24 years and his retirement had been approved. To charge him with having "abandoned" his fellow Guardsmen is a calumny.
 John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971. His words came back to haunt his presidential campaign 33 years later. |
Walz is also being faulted by his political opponents because he was in the habit of calling himself a "retired command sergeant major" and sometimes remarked that he was the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to serve in Congress. In fact, he had reached the rank of command sergeant major — but to retire at that rank would have required additional time in that position and the completion of certain coursework. It's a fair objection, albeit a fairly minor one. In response to the rebuke, the Harris-Walz campaign has tweaked its website. Whereas before it listed the governor as being a "retired" command sergeant major, now it describes him as having "ris[en] to the rank of command sergeant major" before he retired.
Finally, Republicans have been making a great hoo-ha of the fact that Walz, while discussing gun control, alluded to "weapons of war, that I carried in war."
That sent Vance into attack mode.
"Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war?" the Ohio senator demanded. "What bothers me about Tim Walz is this stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you're not."
The temptation to puff up one's record is commonplace but Walz's embellishments scarcely rise to the level of stolen valor. He is guilty at worst of speaking loosely about his service. Had he referred to "weapons of war, that I carried in the military," it would not have materially changed his meaning, yet it would have been 100 percent accurate. Granted, with so many years of both military and political experience, he should have known better than even to hint that he had served in a war zone. Then again, with only four years of military service to Walz's 24, Vance — a former Marine who spent six months in Iraq as a public affairs reporter — might want to find more substantive grounds on which to challenge Walz. There is certainly no shortage of targets in the Minnesotan's past.
Almost as soon as Vance and the GOP had unleashed their critique of Walz, left-leaning media outlets rushed to compare it to the 2004 condemnation of John Kerry, that year's Democratic presidential candidate, by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. "House Democrat compares Walz attacks to 'Swift Boat bulls‑‑‑' against Kerry," was the headline in The Hill. "Democrats push back as Trumpworld dusts off 'swift boat' attack on Walz," announced the Independent. From Politico came "Vance runs a Swift Boat attack against Walz's military service." A front-page story in the Globe reported: "Democrats say they won't be swiftboated again."
The suggestion of these stories and others like them is that the Swift Boat Veterans engaged in an unprovoked smear campaign against Kerry, spreading lies about his military service in a nakedly partisan attack — and that the same thing was now being done to Walz.
Not true.
At the heart of the Swift Boat Veterans' scorching attack was not Kerry's war record but his antiwar record.
In his run for the White House, Kerry made his long-ago stint in Vietnam, where he was decorated for service as commander of a Swift boat patrolling the Mekong River delta, a centerpiece of his campaign. His running mate, then-Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, urged voters to take Kerry's measure by spending "three minutes with the men who served with him 30 years ago." His ads emphasized his combat heroics. At the Democratic National Convention in Boston, photographs of Kerry's Navy days were displayed everywhere. When he appeared before the delegates to accept his party's nomination, it was by saluting and "reporting for duty." And to anyone "who wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam," Kerry said, "here is my answer: Bring it on!"
So the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth brought it on.
The group comprised hundreds of Vietnam combat veterans, among them men of extraordinary heroism, such as Colonel Bud Day, a former prisoner of war and Medal of Honor recipient. In an initial TV spot, several men who had served with Kerry charged that he had "not been honest" about his own service in Vietnam and said he "lacks the capacity to lead." To be fair, there were conflicting eyewitness recollections. As The Washington Post reported at the time, both the critics' accounts and Kerry's "contain[ed] significant flaws and factual errors."
But the Swift Boat Veterans' real objection to Kerry was not what he did in Vietnam. It was what he did when he came back. That was what their subsequent ads focused on, to devastating effect.
In April 1971, Kerry appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and claimed that Americans in Vietnam were guilty of ghastly war crimes — "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
Offering no evidence, he recycled accusations from the "Winter Soldier Investigation," an antiwar gathering a few months earlier at which several dozen soldiers and civilians described atrocities they had allegedly seen or committed.
"They told stories," Kerry said, "that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."
That was why so many veterans smoldered with resentment for Kerry. Kerry's words — which drew massive media coverage at the time — helped poison public attitudes about Vietnam veterans and the cause for which they had fought. Worse, they encouraged and strengthened the enemy.
"The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield," said Paul Galanti, one of the Swift Boat Veterans group. "Thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington." Galanti had good reason to remember Kerry's testimony. He first learned of it from his torturers in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton," where he spent nearly seven years as a POW.
Kerry never recanted those accusations. He eventually acknowledged in an interview on Meet the Press that his testimony had been "a little bit excessive" and "a little bit over the top" and that he could perhaps "have phrased things more artfully." He conceded that many of the war crimes stories he cited in his testimony had eventually been discredited. But he expressed no regret for what he had done: "I'm proud that I stood up," Kerry said. "I don't want anybody to think twice about it."
There is no meaningful comparison between the "swiftboating" of Kerry 20 years ago, as liberals and Democrats called it, and Vance's "stolen valor" attack on Walz. The former was a challenge from men who had fought and bled and sacrificed in Vietnam; it grieved them deeply that Kerry, who had come to prominence as a radical opponent of the war in Vietnam was running for the president on the strength of his service in that war. The GOP gang-up on Walz, by contrast, is just an opportunistic political attack. By next week, some other shallow controversy will have taken its place.
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What I Wrote Then
25 years ago on the op-ed page
From "Empty campaigning," Aug. 16, 1999:
The sensation of the 1896 presidential campaign was William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee. At his party's convention in St. Louis, he electrified the delegates with a speech about inflation — specifically, about increasing the nation's money supply by abandoning the gold standard and permitting the coinage of silver.
"We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them. . . . ! We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"
The speech set the convention aflame. For nearly an hour, frenzied delegates cheered. . . .
[I]t is impossible to imagine a modern presidential candidate delivering such a speech. To run for the White House today is to sedulously avoid talking about issues, and to resort instead to catchy themes and focus-group-tested slogans.
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The Last Line
"Eisenhower is a great man, believe me. He's a great man. And a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for what's good for America." — Richard M. Nixon, the "Checkers" speech (Sept. 23, 1952)
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(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
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