24 February 2022. Day 1 of Russia’s heinous invasion of Ukraine, an independent country. Since then, Vladimir Putin’s powerful Russian army has been bogged down.
It is deadlocked thanks to the extraordinary resistance of the Ukrainian people and their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A young leader whose bravery and intelligence, like that of his nation, never ceases to amaze the world.
The horror of this invasion nevertheless gives the heavy impression that it has been going on for years. Solidarity with Ukraine has not yet faltered in the West. But who knows for how much longer?
What we do know, however, is that Ukraine will increasingly need state-of-the-art military equipment, financial, political and moral support. Hence the importance of Joe Biden’s surprise visit to Kiev on Monday with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Days into the first year of the invasion, the US President promised new weapons and “unwavering” support from the United States.
Will the message get across to Putin, the self-proclaimed admirer of dictator Joseph Stalin? Let’s not hold our breath in his Ukrainian megalomania.
What they see behind the heroic resistance of the Ukrainians is no less untenable. thousands dead. million refugees. cities destroyed. decimated families. Mass graves worthy of an era we thought was over.
The essential
main thing there. What is at stake first in Ukraine’s struggle for Ukraine is its own independence.
What is at stake is her freedom to exist, to be what she is. A democratic people finally becoming independent after centuries of Russian and then Soviet hegemony.
Ukraine is a distinct culture and a true national language. And that despite decades of open Russification policy of the former Soviet Union on their soil.
This is exactly what Putin wants to eradicate. He carries with him that old imperial fantasy of “Greater Russia” to whom the Ukrainians would be just “little Russians” whose only destiny would be to be annexed and Russified for their own good…
Jimmy Carter’s righteous words
This fantasy is at the heart of Putin’s propaganda. That is why the Russian President cannot even understand the resistance of Ukrainians, their President and their diaspora. Ditto for Western support.
Because he despises the Ukrainian people, Putin can only imagine one way out: the defeat and humiliation of Ukraine.
However, if it is not possible to predict when and how this war will end one day, the surrender of the Ukrainians seems the most unlikely outcome.
After Joe Biden’s historic visit to Kiev, how can we not also remember the words of his predecessor Jimmy Carter, Democratic President (1977-1981) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate? At 98, surrounded by his family, he receives palliative care at home.
Last year, on the day of the invasion of Ukraine, Jimmy Carter condemned what he bluntly described as a “violation of international law and the fundamental rights of Ukrainians (…) that threatens the sovereignty of Ukraine and the security of Europe and the whole world” .
He has already called on the United States and its allies to “support the right of the Ukrainian people to peace, security and self-determination.”
From day one, the words of this man of peace were true.
