Throughout the State Republican Nominating Convention there were references to the solidarity New Yorkers should have with the people of Ukraine, and detailing how evil Russian President Vladimir Putin is and has been since assuming office on May 7, 2012.
Although Russia had not yet attacked Ukraine when Democrats held their nominating convention on February 17, Russian armed troops were building up weapons along the Ukraine border. The imminent attack by Russia was not mentioned by clergy or politicians at the convention.
When the Republicans met for their two-day convention at a Nassau County hotel on February 28, the war, which began on February 22, was underway, and the politicians took full advantage, making the most of it in rhetoric about the evils of the Russian Empire, inviting Ukrainian elected officials to speak and clergy adding prayers for the Ukrainian government into their sermons.
“The people of Ukraine are suffering at the hands of a terrorist. Growing up in the region I know that President Putin has always been a tyrant but now he has officially lost his mind,” said New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn). “All this is about is more power. I think he [Putin] wants to destroy democracy and I think he wants to bring the Soviet Union back. The Ukrainian people and the Russian people do not want this war.”
Vernikov, 37, was born in Chernivtsi, Ukrainian SSR. She immigrated to the United States with her family at age 12. Vernikov was a member of the Democratic Party until 2020 and switched parties last year to run in the city council election. She was a staff member to former state assemblyman Dov Hikind. Before running for City Council, Vernikov was an immigration and divorce attorney. She is a member of the board for both Tikva, an organization supporting Jewish orphans in Ukraine, and Americans Against Antisemitism.
Last week, former New York Governor George Pataki, who is of Hungarian descent on his grandfather’s side, made a trek to the Hungarian-Ukraine border in a humanitarian relief effort that included bringing money, food, clothing and medical supplies for the refugees. The trip was organized through his not-for-profit Pataki Leadership Center.
Before the trip, Pataki made an appearance at the GOP convention, where he started off by attacking President Joe Biden.
“Biden has failed,” he said. “He has led from behind. After those sanctions this weekend the EU, of all groups, got together and passed massive new sanctions and authorized weapons to Ukraine. Germany did a 180 and authorized massive defense spending and weapons to Ukraine. Our Congress wasn’t acting. They should have acted weeks ago and that is a failure of leadership.
“One or two days into the war, President Biden said, “We’re going to help Ukraine. We’re going to help President [Volodymyr] Zelensky. We’ll fly him out of his country.” You know, Biden must have thought his cut-and-run surrender in Afghanistan was so successful he would do the same thing in Ukraine. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. You all saw where Zelenskyy said, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition.” That is a leader. I wish we had someone like Zelenskyy instead of someone like Biden as our president. Last June, more than six months ago, Biden reinstated that ban so we couldn’t send defensive weapons so the Ukrainians could defend themselves. That is an abdication of leadership. That is why the poor people of Ukraine are suffering so badly today.”
GOP gubernatorial nominee Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley, Suffolk County) also offered his take on the war and bemoaned one-party rule in New York state and in Congress.
“We’re going to flip the United States Senate and have balance again in Washington because we need it as we watch what happens overseas and we think of all those Ukrainian American families in our own state, we have a huge population,” Zeldin noted. “They are pro-freedom against a Russian aggressor. If it’s at our own border, if it’s inflation, if it’s a supply chain crisis we know the stakes are in Washington.”
While Democrats did not mention the pending Ukraine war with Russia at their convention, insurgent gubernatorial hopeful Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove, Nassau County) boycotted the convention and held a petition rally on March 1 at the same swanky hotel where the Democrats had met two weeks earlier to name Governor Kathy Hochul as the head of the ticket.
Suozzi came to the stage as the John Lennon song “Power to the People” played to a spirited crowd of supporters.
“The Ukrainians. Talk about power to the people. Look at the Ukrainians that are holding back the hordes of Putin’s armies,” Suozzi told the crowd of more than 100 petition carriers. “Putin is a liar. He’s a manipulator. He’s a murderer. We have to do everything we can to support the Ukrainian people. Sanctions, yes. Cutting off the banking, yes. New Yorkers should boycott Stolichnaya (vodka) and oil.
“If I was the governor right now, I’d say let’s padlock the mansion of every single Russian oligarch, seize their yachts until they start telling Putin to free the Ukrainian people and leave them alone. We have to do everything we can to stay united. Democrats and Republicans. Politics has to stop at the water’s edge. We have to stay united with not only the United States of America but with our allies to do everything we can to stand up to the Ukrainian people. Nobody expected us to hold together the way we’re holding together. We have to make sure that that continues.
“What’s it about in Ukraine? It’s about freedom and democracy. What is freedom and democracy but what you are doing right now. Politics is freedom and democracy. The power of the people actually impacts change because when you don’t have people participating in politics, it doesn’t work. Politics is supposed to be based on competition. I’ve got a better idea than you. I’ve got better experience than you do. I can do it faster than you. I can do it more efficiently than you. I have better ideas that will make people’s lives better. We haven’t had that type of competition in New York state. It’s all been an insider’s game,” Suozzi added.
At least one person who fled Ukraine 30 years ago sees Putin’s military aggression as inevitable.
“We have a leader in Russia who is really able to get anything he wants,” said Dr. Aldalbert Pilip, 43, a Smithtown, Suffolk County-based cardiologist who resides in Great Neck, Nassau County. “He has pushed the envelope as much as he has to realize he can get anything he wants because there really isn’t much pushback, so he does what he wants. He won’t stop. This is a typical mentality of dictators in that part of the world. You go as far as you can until you’re stopped, and he knows he can’t be stopped.” Pilip is a native of Munkacz in the Carpathian Mountains, located near the Hungarian/Romanian/Slovakia borders with Ukraine.
“[Putin is] going to level Ukraine as much as possible to get the oil. He’s done it before. All of us are thinking about it. All of us are condemning it whether publicly or privately. This is sort of a government-to-government conversation. People are taking notice,” Pilip, who has seven children with his wife, Mazi, a Nassau County Republican legislator, told The Jewish Press. “These are my former neighbors. These are children that could be mine. In essence, you’re seeing what life could have been. I left that country when I was 14 years old. In an alternate universe this could have been me there with my family. I said it to my children too. Just because you live in this country doesn’t mean it could have been you. Your soul in someone else’s body. This is all of us.
“There’s nothing wrong with the Russian people. This is not Russia against the world,” Pilip said. “This is Putin who has hijacked the entire nation and uses it for his own grandeur of the perception of his own greatness for whatever he wants to achieve. It has nothing to do with the Russians. The Russians don’t want to be there doing this.”
On February 22, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military forces to enter the breakaway Ukrainian republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, calling the act a “peacekeeping mission.” Putin also officially recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as sovereign states, fully independent from the Ukrainian government.
