Three weeks into Russia’s unprovoked and criminal invasion of Ukraine, we have been witness to acts of tremendous courage from the Ukrainian people and their leaders.
As the Russian invaders pummeled civilian targets—hospitals, apartment buildings, schools, and food warehouses—with rockets and artillery fire, killing thousands of non-combatants, including almost 100 children, the Ukrainian spirit to defend freedom and their way of life remained unbroken.
Unlike the disgraced ex-president of Afghanistan who fled his capital last year even before the Taliban entered the city, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a beacon of hope and courage, remaining in Kyiv as the Russian forces moved to surround the capital, and vowing that Ukrainians would “fight to the end… in the forests, in the fields, on the shores (and) in the streets.”
Under perilous conditions, ordinary Ukrainians have shown a remarkable willingness to fulfill this promise.
In stark contrast, the Russian invaders and their leader, the dictator Vladimir Putin, exhibited only craven behavior, specifically targeting innocent civilians whose lives they upended, using barbaric siege tactics that were long banned by the Geneva Convention.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism as “the use of violence, or the threat of violence, to frighten people in order to achieve a political, social, or religious goal.” By this definition, Putin and the soldiers carrying out his illegal orders are terrorists of the first order, cowardly using their military might to subjugate a smaller, sovereign state.
Putin, as tyrants are wont to do, has cracked down on dissent in his home country, arresting thousands who protested his illegal war and threatened to throw them behind bars for years under draconian measures only recently announced, and used the state-run media to brainwash millions of his subjects in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
Amid all this, the Ukrainian courage has been infectious. Just this week, the prime ministers of three neighboring European Union countries—Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia—made a perilous journey by train to meet Zelenski in Kyiv, a city under siege
In a press conference after the meeting Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala told Ukrainians “Europe stands with you.”
“The main goal of our visit and the main message of our mission is to say to our Ukrainian friends that they are not alone,” he added.
The words of encouragement are most welcome, as are the lethal and non-lethal aid that other countries have provided, but throughout Ukraine’s ordeal, the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have refused to provide Kyiv with the one request that could turn the war—a no-fly zone to prevent Russia from ruling the skies over Ukraine. This they have been reluctant to do for fear it could trigger a wider war in Europe, as Putin brandishes his nuclear weapons.
In their reluctance to move, however, the US and NATO are allowing the madman in Moscow to slaughter thousands of civilians and lay waste to Ukrainian cities. Certainly they can rise above their fears and do better than that.
