How World Affairs Council of Marin Lost its World View

Several weeks ago, an announcement from the Marin chapter of World Affairs, a Bay Area nonprofit that promotes dialogue on global issues, sent the local Ukrainian community into an uproar. World Affairs had organized a talk on the war in Ukraine by Russian professor Andrei Tsygankov.

Tsygankov, a professor at San Francisco State University, is also an expert at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Kremlin-backed propaganda machine sponsored by Alfa Bank, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. government. In recent writings, he has blamed Ukraine and the West for provoking Russia into war and argued that the US should lift sanctions and let Putin have his way.

Both local nonprofits and individuals wrote to World Affairs in protest. They included Nova Ukraine, which has raised over $20 million for humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, and Hromada, which publishes the West Coast’s first Ukrainian newspaper. Concerned community members pointed out the inappropriate nature of such a talk as war continues to rage. They explained the very real danger of victim-blaming and both-sidesing in the face of Russia’s widespread torture, rape, and murder of innocent civilians.

Their repeated entreaties went unheard, their concerns deemed invalid or exaggerated. The talk moved forward as scheduled.

At first glance, Professor Tsygankov, appearing in his Zoom square on attendees’ screens on Wednesday afternoon, appeared reasonable. He spoke in a calm, measured tone and struck familiar chords: condemning violence, enumerating Putin’s mistakes and missteps. This was no political firebrand or television propagandist. And yet, his talk was full of a different kind of propaganda - the most dangerous kind of all.

Foaming-at-the-mouth, Putin-loving extremists - the kind of person we typically imagine when we hear the term “Russian propaganda” - are easy to recognize and discount. Few Americans sympathize with Russians who flaunt explicit genocidal ambitions or call the Jewish president of Ukraine a Nazi. But Tsygankov, with his academic detachment, is more convincing, even to a discerning audience. His weapons are not flat-out lies or shock-and-awe proclamations. Rather, the danger lies in Tsygankov’s omissions and emphases.

During his 30-plus-minute talk, Tsygankov spoke extensively about Russia - about its history, its goals and dysfunctions, its geopolitical interests and ambitions and fears. He also spent time on the US and NATO - Western aims and strategies and mistakes. He talked of the conflict brewing between Russia and the West.

What he barely talked about was Ukraine.

Professor Tsygankov paints the war in Ukraine as the pinnacle of a decade-long conflict between NATO and Russia. Ukraine is important to Russia; NATO refuses to respect Russia’s claims to Ukraine. What’s more, NATO foolishly welcomes Ukrainian overtures. Ergo, it’s only natural for Putin to invade.

Typical of purveyors of the Kremlin’s narrative, Dr. Tsykangov denies Ukrainians the right to determine their own future. He glides over the Ukrainian people’s centuries-long struggle for freedom and democracy. He chastises Ukraine for resisting Russia’s attempts to annex Crimea and the Donbas in 2015 and for turning westward for support. He views Ukraine’s attempts to align with NATO as foolish provocations rather than a necessary step given the looming danger of a powerful neighbor who refuses to acknowledge your right to exist as a sovereign nation.

Early in his talk, Tsygankov shared a political cartoon: Putin trying to wrest Ukraine from the iron grip of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel. As is standard in such caricatures, each leader’s features are exaggerated and unattractive. But the most shocking depiction is that of the Ukrainians - a dozen tiny, faceless figures clinging to a chunk of land that hangs precariously over an abyss.They wave their arms in panic or cower in fear. They look almost subhuman.

And this, in a nutshell, is the danger of Tsygankov’s views.

Dr. Tsygankov’s narrative – in its failure to acknowledge the agency of the Ukrainian people to choose their destiny – contributes to a fundamental dehumanization of Ukrainians. This is the kind of thinking that leads Westerners to engage in a geopolitical version of “Sure, he raped her, but what was she wearing?”Why don’t they surrender? Why won’t they give up their territory? Why can’t they just compromise?

Of course, few of these devil’s advocates would consent to give up chunks of their own countries’ territory - but that’s exactly the point. When we talk about Ukraine as a pawn in a fight between Russia and the West, we are saying that Ukraine doesn’t have the same basic right to territorial sovereignty as the US or Germany or France.

What’s more, this same depraved mental framework leads Russian soldiers to commit unconscionable war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine. It has deep roots in Russia’s history - a century ago, it helped justify Stalin’s Holodomor and other atrocities against Ukrainians. As Anne Applebaum states in a recent article “First comes the dehumanization. Then comes the killing.”

Let us be clear: freedom of speech is a fundamental American value. But, though Dr. Tsygankov has every legal right to voice his repugnant views, World Affairs is by no means obligated to give them a platform. Choosing to move forward with this event despite widespread community concerns shows incredible insensitivity and poor judgment.

Frank Rettenberg, the chair of the steering committee responsible for the event, cynically excused the decision with the claim that World Affairs simply aims to “to encourage debate and discussion.” And yet, after community concerns were aired, Rettenberg’s team chose to move the talk from an in-person event to a tightly controlled Zoom format.

Similarly, World Affairs touted the opportunity for Q&A, and promised concerned community members a chance to engage with and challenge Tsygankov after he spoke, But during the Q&A period, the moderator cherry-picked five neutral queries and abruptly ended the call, even as he acknowledged that many questions remained.

The result? An opportunity for Tsygankov to push his dehumanizing, anti-Ukrainian narrative completely unchallenged.

World Affairs portends to support Ukraine. In a statement on its website, the organization condemns Russia’s invasion and calls on the world community to pressure Russia to withdraw its troops. And yet, in centering dangerous anti-Ukrainian narratives, it is, in effect, sponsoring an attack on Ukraine and its people.