We stand with Ukraine!

Should we get through these next few weeks and months, the let it be said the courage and humility of Ukranians as their country is under siege has been sobering, moving, and ultimately a clarion call to what it means to be a democrat. These are people, from their President down, who are prepared to die, not for nationalism, even though their nation is far better country than their invader. They’re not dying for glory, as glory is transient, and ill-defined. No, what Ukrainians are fighting for is for each other, and for their values their way of life entails. This is as real as it gets. They’re prepared to die to save an ideal as well as family. They are true heroes.  Kyiv may fall, but Ukraine will fight on. From President Zelenskyy on downwards, they will endure.

There may have been a brief period in the early 2000s when Vladimir Putin was not fully molded, at least in the eyes of the West. When the Twin Towers were attacked, he stood with the US. Perhaps here was a man, like Gorbachev, the West could do business with. This was quickly dispelled. With attacks on Georgia, and Crimea, the murder of internal dissidents, and the ‘execution’ of so-called traitors abroad, Putin revealed his true self. He is, as John McCain said, a thug and a killer.

And how can civilized nations respond to the horror, without risking an easy-to-fall-into escalation leading to nuclear war? It may well come to that, in which case may God help us all. But the main bow in the armory will be sanctions. For these to work, they’ll have to be hard, consistent, and targeted. The Oligarchs close to Putin need to be impoverished, the leadership in the Kremlin need to be shunned in every international forum. South African Apartheid-era sanctions need to be rigorously applied. This may take years, but they can work eventually.

As for Joe Biden, he’s been successful in building a global consensus on how to hurt Putin economically among the G20. He’s astutely allowed his country’s intelligence to be shared amongst allies, and has been proven right in his assessment that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. It has been a tumultuous year for the 46^th President. His has been a presidency begun with insurrection, disturbed by pandemic, and now seared by a war that he knows he can not commit his country to, for what might be the consequences.

How fortunate is the World to have Biden, and not Trump, in the White House now? Trump has already praised Putin for the invasion. He was essentially an unpaid Russian asset for his four years in charge, and whether he was placed there by the Russians will be a matter for historians for much of the rest of the century. Trump’s ethno-nationalism mirrors Putin’s. Both are as close to fascists as makes no difference. There’s never an authoritarian the former guy didn’t like. He’s a, to coin and Americanism, garbage person. There’s a psychopathy that’s always been there for this wannabe dictator.

Dictators like Putin usually end up in the dustbin of history, seen in retrospect as pathetic blood-soaked- killers and bullies. The Alt-Right might like to see democracy as the interloper in their might-is-right blood-and-soil fetishes, but theirs is the vision on the retreat since the Enlightenment. When we march, we march for freedom, not tyranny. When we establish a rule of law, we solve are bound to solve our differences by peaceful means. If we differ to our brethren, we ultimately have to agree to disagree. Ours is the World we wish to live in, theirs is one of fear, tyranny, and death.

There are worst and best case scenarios as to how this ends. On the worst case, it’s hard to see anything but another Russian attack tonight, leading to encirclement of Ukrainian forces, and ultimately the usurpation of the democratically elected government. Should the conflict spill-over to a NATO country, or if Putin is truly mad (and there’s not much to gainsay that so far), then it’s lights out for all of us. Perhaps there’s a best case outcome, which recognizes that Russia temporarily ‘wins’, but never subjects the Ukranian people, and Ukraine never becomes a vassal state.

For these people will fight with every fibre in their being. The West can hold Russia and Putin accountable for every war crime, every atrocity, every single act of this illegal war. This is not the time to criticise responses, or to both-side NATO and Russia. Now is the moment where we say that international law holds strong. There can be no compromise in bringing this vile kleptocracy to account. The people of Ukraine are fighting for the values we hold dear. Their’s is the just war, their’s is the hope we carry in all our hearts. They are us, and we are them.