In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, after having the world beg it not to, a wave of outrage went through mankind. People asked me: “How did Ukraine manage to generate so much compassion?” My answer was: “It wasn’t our doing. I was sure a wave of outrage against aggression was nothing but a normal human reaction to something so obviously big, unfair and horrible.
“This war is geopolitical murder in full view. Why would any decent person find reasons or rationale to stand with the murderer?”
I was wrong. Once the initial shock wore off, millions worldwide did find reasons to do give the murderer, Russia, their support while it was killing, torturing, raping and making millions of Ukrainians homeless.
The reasons to support Russia in this obvious crime are plenty: gullibility, ignorance, fear, indifference, vanity and greed. I get to see the rationale on social media every day.
“Ukrainians are Nazis, they deserve it!” (For Russia, every Ukrainian rejecting the occupation is “a Nazi”).
“I disapprove of what Russia is doing but I understand why it is doing it.” (As if understanding doesn’t imply partly approving).
“Russia is destroying an unfair world order. So, in the end, it’s good for us.” (Yes, the world order is unfair but what Russia is doing is just making it unfair differently).
“Ukraine is paying for the West’s sins in Iraq, Afghanistan etc.”
This last one deserves a fuller answer because it’s an argument I hear often in South Africa. Yes, the West’s record in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere is doubtful. But two wrongs don’t make a right and Ukraine isn’t the place where old scores with the West get settled. The war is not about this.
Ukrainians didn’t invade anyone. They are dying in their cities and fields, defending their homes from occupation and annexation. The idea of making Ukraine responsible for someone else’s sins is the opposite of justice. It’s picking a new victim to make an old grievance feel resolved.
I understand that Russian money and propaganda is behind 90% of this. Life is an endless chain of choices between good or evil.
Russia is wealthy enough to supply the world non-stop with reasons to do the wrong thing: support what it is doing to Ukraine. Or merely “understand” it. The war is not about oil, energy, resources or financial gain in general. It’s about the right of big nations to carve up their smaller neighbours. It’s about the right of the strong to come to your home and say: “From now on, what was yours is mine.” Which they successfully did, for centuries. We thought those times were over.
What does that struggle look like on the ground? What is happening? Who is winning? The frontline is roughly where it was three years ago — in Donbas and Ukraine’s occupied South. Ukraine is bleeding but Russia is bleeding more: it has to replace at least 30 000 soldiers every month. They are dying in so-called “meat-wave” attacks against Ukrainians who are mostly defending fixed positions. It is a war of drones and this favours the defender over the attacker.
The bad news for Ukraine is the shortage of anti-ballistic defence. It means Russia can take out its battlefield frustrations on civilians in Ukrainian cities. If Russia has enough ballistics and Ukraine lacks air-defence, Moscow will try to do to Ukrainian cities what it did to Syrian ones a decade ago.
The blood-chilling prospect does not change the basic truth about Ukraine: It will not surrender. We grew up as free people. We will not become Russia’s colony.
The bad news for Russia is that it will be paying a price, not only militarily but also economically. Its oil-refining industry — a golden goose— is taking a hit across the country and even more Ukrainian retaliation is coming. As Russia targets Ukraine’s cities, its own golden geese become sitting ducks. Modern technology gives Ukraine the advantage. No, defender’s strikes are never provocation. Just like those of the aggressor are never retaliation.
Russia’s plan is apparently simple: conduct a mass mobilisation in October, thus making the meat waves bigger. This will make its losses higher which, in turn, will bring the tension inside the country closer to boiling point. President Vladimir Putin is playing with fire — and millions of lives — and it will continue despite all the opportunities for peace. Continuing the war will be his choice. Just like it was in February 2022.
A lot has changed since then. Most importantly: strikes go both ways. Russia is tasting its own morbid brew every day. But the most important fact remains the same: this war is an attempt at geopolitical murder in broad light.
The reasons to do either the right or wrong thing — urge the aggressor to stop the madness or to look away — are in front of us. The path to peace (President Volodymyr Zelensky’s offer to stop fighting and draw the line), just like the path to more war (Putin’s bigger mobilisation) are present. Sadly, the aggressor, not the world, will decide who started the war. Yet it is up to the world to decide whom to support. In the end, it will not only be Ukraine’s destiny that will hang in the balance.
Dr Olexander Scherba is the ambassador of Ukraine to South Africa.