UKRAINIAN LESSONS

Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine at 5 a.m. CET this morning. From everything I’ve read and seen, the invasion will most certainly succeed. It is painfully clear that Ukraine, while brave and resolute, is no match for Russia’s military might. No matter how much intelligence and cyber support is furnished, no matter how much military hardware is shipped, and no matter how much financial aid is made available to Ukraine, without military intervention by western democracies---that is, without troops on the ground---Ukraine cannot defend itself alone. It will be defeated by Russia. The West will not save it.

The syntax, grammar, and vocabulary that will define Ukraine’s defeat have not yet been translated from Russian into Ukrainian, but the sense is already clear. Whether Ukraine, like Crimea, is annexed by Russia; or like Belarus, becomes a Russian vassal state; or like Finland, is forced to play the pre-scripted role of a “NATO-independent” nation, is really a matter of semantics. Russia, an unforgiving and implacable professor of punishment, will deliver its lecture to Ukraine and the rest of the world in brutal language.

And what are the Ukrainian lessons? On the geopolitical level, they teach us that western economies dependent on fossil fuels are vulnerable to petro-states, that international law can be broken without meaningful consequences, and that western democracies that play by the rules are disadvantaged against rogue players like Putin. These geopolitical lessons are, I think, indisputable.

But the Ukrainian lessons received on the individual level are the ones I fear the most. I mean Putin’s subtexts that lead to conclusions antithetical to the common good, which risk corroding and dispiriting the human soul. These are the lessons that, if left unchallenged, will have a fundamental, psychic impact on how people conduct their lives and treat each other:

Bullying works.

Crime pays.

Mutually-assured destruction = unilaterally-assured aggression.

Might makes right.

Truth is information control.

History is rewritten by the losers.

Good does not always triumph over evil.

For the very powerful, there are no consequences.

Putin’s Ukrainian lessons scream from his Kremlin lectern that pure evil is a universal language. That's true. But how can we answer this frightening truth? We can reply only in our own language, in a voice that has become quiet but which has not been silenced. It’s the voice in each of us that names and claims the people we love, the things we do to help others, and the beauty we make and protect. This is our voice and it says NO, we will not passively accept that there is only evil in the world and that evil is winning. In our own voices and in our own names, we will do all that we can to counterbalance evil with good.

This counterargument does not negate its opposite, and it will not save Ukraine. But it will save each of us as individuals and what makes our lives worth living. Long live Ukraine!