On the Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

I have not posted about the war in Ukraine since around the time it started, but it has been in my thoughts. I think back about the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine over a year ago, and the predominant feeling now is sadness – the vast loss of life since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Now it is one year later. What do I feel on the one year anniversary of the start of the war?

I feel sadness. This conflict begins to approach 20th century scorched-earth military campaigns with vast loss of life on all sides. The civilian casualties, and likely war crimes, from Russian aggression are considerable; the Ukrainian loss of life runs to the tens of thousands. And it shows no signs of slowing up in the foreseeable future. Some 13 millions Ukrainians have fled their homes and left the country, or been internally displaced. The damage to the material infrastructure of Ukrainian society in terms of housing, industry, power plants, roads, bridges all amount to the hundreds of billions of dollars. Ukraine has been devastated, both in terms of loss of life and infrastructure. What a mess.

The lesser but still substantial feeling is admiration for the inspiring fortitude and military skill of the Ukrainian people. All the “experts” claimed the Ukrainian military would put up a token resistance, and then be overwhelmed by a larger and more potent Russian military. That did not happen. An inspired Ukrainian military fighting for literally the survival of a democratic society – one aspiring towards the west and Europe and the United States, not towards Russia and autocracy – fought the Russians to a standstill in this terrible war, even pushing them back in places. The whole world was astounded and impressed. Me, too. It is inspiring to watch the Ukrainians fight for their freedom, and I have totally supported Western efforts to support Ukraine and punish Russia. Ukrainian valor and fortitude, Western weapons and support.

But there is the cost. The financial costs to the West in refusing Russian oil and natural gas, and of giving weapons for free to Ukraine. I wrote a year ago, “Time for the Ukrainians to show what they are made of – time to send lots of Russian soldiers back home in body bags.” And the Ukrainians have done so: good for them. We Americans (along with our NATO allies) have helped them to do that. Good for us, too.

But even there… lots or Russian soldiers dying in combat. And Ukrainians, too. Heavy heavy combat in the WWII dross. In fact, the whole thing politically has the unhealthy air of 1937-1943: a dictator ruminating bitterly about how his country was treated by history, trying to remedy this by attacking his neighbor… hard combat with exhausted soldiers and vast loss of life by both the guilty and the innocent. Huge expenditure of high explosives and a vortex of expensive weaponry used up in combat. Russia sending out their new inexperienced recruits to replace all the dead from earlier battles, trying to grind down a smaller Ukraine, to no real result so far; the Russian cannon fodder are victims, too. They say the dead are stacked up like cord wood.

And after one year of intense fighting, there is no end in sight.

This could go on for years.

And the longer it goes on, the higher the danger of sighing spilling out from a local Russian-Ukrainian fight to a larger NATO-Russian one.

To be frank, the whole thing scares and saddens me. That is my predominant feeling: sadness and fear.

But there is anger against Vladimir Putin and Russia, too. And there is resolve to use American and NATO power to give the wherewithal to help the Ukrainians fight off the Russian bear. There are Americans on the far Left and far Right (again: Horseshoe Theory of politics) who complain about the costs to the American taxpayer of an open-ended support of Ukraine and oppose helping them; I am not one of them. We should look closely at what we are doing, why, and at what expense, but I support giving Ukraine powerful weapons and diplomatic support for them to secure their independence from the Russian thug to the east.

And, as I wrote before, I hope for cool heads and good judgment from the US national security leadership in this affair. They will need it.

But most of all: I hope this fight ends sooner rather than later. 

I fear I will be disappointed in this.

Both Zelenskyy and Putin are in “whole hog,” with both sides claiming their national survival is at stake. This will go on indefinitely, until one side blinks; that may be a long time. History shows that these unhappy wars have a way of turning out badly for Russian autocrats (the vast social upheavals of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, or even the “Great Reforms” of Alexander II after miserable Russian military results in the Crimean War)… we shall see how things look for the dictator Vladimir Putin in late 2023 and 2024.

God protect Ukraine and preserve their independence.

And God preserve their democracy.

This is what I maybe fear the most: that vast blood and treasure will be shed to keep Russia off Ukraine, only to allow corruption and a sort of autocracy to take shape in a post-WWII “democratic” Ukraine. If tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died for a free Ukraine akin to European countries or America, let them have a democratic Ukrainian state and a free society which lives up to that goal and makes the sacrifice worth it. To have it be otherwise would be heartbreaking.

As I also said, “History is watching.”

And so is death. In this deadly contest, Death is waiting. He will take the first who calls out. There is death everywhere in Ukraine.

Sadness and fear: do these emotions reflect my cautious pragmatic late middle age outlook? 

History might look back and praise the heroism of Ukrainians in fighting off the lumbering Russian bear. Do I not see and embrace that heroism? I do. But there is the cost. Of course, the Ukrainians don’t have any choice. But war is the mindless scourge which seems to punish the innocent and reward the wicked. War is always a waste. But sometimes it is unavoidable. Sometimes war is the best choice.

Alas.

As the Chinese claim, “May you be cursed to live in interesting times.”

I was so moved by the Ukrainians when Russia was invaded that I too contemplated joining their struggle for about a millisecond, before I realized I am a father with heavy family responsibilities in late middle age and a public school teacher who is approaching retirement. I am too encumbered and too old. But many other Americans (among other nationalities) did volunteer to go fight. Many of them have died in action, after having suffered through a heavy slog in miserable conditions. They paid the ultimate price. And I also feel sorry for all the Ukrainians who died for their nation’s freedom. I even feel sorry for so many of the Godforsaken Russian soldiers who serve as cannon fodder for Putin’s neo-Soviet ambitions for retro imperium. I read recently approximately 180,000 Russian soldiers have been injured or killed in the last year of this war.

What misery and waste.

Alas.

History – and heroism and “great acts” – these are maybe the fruits of youth and ambition?

Maybe showing ambition, exhibiting heroism, and “making history” are all feats which are behind me? Am I too old for all that?

As I approach my fifth-sixth birthday, is there nothing new under the sun? Do I perform the same mundane rote tasks as always? I have taught for 23 years in the same classroom. Do I look at yet another journey around the sun and see sameness? Year after year and ennui? Must I “endure the timid sun”?

I think so.

But in Ukraine a whole nation fights for its life.

I am on their side.

But I am also nervous.

On February 24, 2024 it will be the two year anniversary of the war. Where will things stand twelve months from today? What will have happened? Nuclear weapons are nearby. Chemical weapons, too. How might the cornered Russian bear act? A desperate one? I have no doubts that the cause of Ukraine against Russia is a righteous and just one. But I have my doubts as to what is the prudent and practical path to take moving forward.

So I am apprehensive.

Sooner or later, one side will have to blink. 

Will it be Russia? Ukraine? 

Both? Neither?

There will have to be some sort of negotiated end to this. What will it look like? When will it come? How might the war change so that one side or the other (or both) will be ready for peace?

I cannot see it right now.

Will Putin ever accept the political independence of Ukraine or any of his other neighbors?

I highly doubt it.

But one thing I think will be for sure: the end won’t be pretty.

There will be further ugliness. Gobs of it. And suffering on a mass scale. The only question will be what kind of “mass scale” are we talking about? Localized suffering? Or a war which spreads beyond Ukraine and Russia? Who will be involved? What kind of weapons?

The end of the Russo-Ukrainian War will surprise most people, I suspect. I wish we could just fast-forward to the end. But we will have to wait and watch as History unfolds.

Watch the ugliness and suffering (and heroism) of the combat – the soldiers and civilians all caught up alike. All the misery and suffering. Watch this war reach its inevitable conclusion.

Ares, the God of War, that blood red scourge and loathed pestilence – everyone dislikes him. Yet he is never far away. Even in the best of times, he seems just around the corner. As Plato claimed, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

But when war is unavoidable, when it comes for you, the only thing left is to put some steel in your spine and resolve to do what must be done.

The world is watching. History is being made.

God bless the soldiers and citizens of Ukraine.

Let’s give as much American military material and actionable intelligence as is practical and advisable, short of direct NATO involvement, to the Ukrainians.

And watch an aroused and inspired people fight for their freedom and independence.

Whereupon they hopefully bring good government (liberal democracy) and economic prosperity (free market capitalism) to Ukraine, the nation more tightly integrated to the European Union, making all the sacrifice and suffering of the war worth it. That is worth fighting and dying for, in my opinion. The Ukrainians think so, too, evidently. The world is watching: fight off the Russian bear. Slava Ukraini!

So be it – Amen.

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“There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend, not their homes alone, but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments and their very civilization are founded. The defense of religion, of democracy and of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one we must now make up our minds to save all.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Speech to Congress 
January 4, 1939