More than a year ago, at an open forum in Vilnius, Ukrainian activist Daria Kaleniuk asked the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan what to say to her young son who was sleeping in the corridor due to constant Russian missile attacks. Should this boy already prepare for the fact that when he grows up, he will have to fight? Daria’s son was only two years old when Russia started a war against Ukraine in 2014, and in fact, he has not seen a true peace his entire life.
My homeland is now 33 years old – Ukraine declared its independence in 1991. In recent history, for a third of our existence as a sovereign state, we have been forced to fight off Russian aggression with weapons in our hands. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier during this full-scale invasion is about 40 years old. These are people who lived their conscious lives in an independent state. It may not have been perfect, but it was worth protecting from the enemy. Historians tell us that every Ukrainian generation is forced to fight off Russian aggression, no matter what the Russian Federation is called: empire, USSR, or federation because behind the change of the sign, there is only one essence – to conquer and destroy.
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During the 30 months of the full-scale war, we realized a lot about ourselves, our friends, and our enemy.
What have we learned about ourselves?
Ukrainians always have their own opinion, and we are defending this opinion. We really like to criticize our government and are not afraid to do so. Our modern history is two revolutions (the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2014). But when the enemy attacked our entire state, we united into a single organism: civilians, children, elderly people, Defense Forces – everyone resisted the enemy. Russians felt it when their equipment was burnt by teenagers, when women rushed at their columns with insults and curses, and when elderly men destroyed the aggressor where they did not expect it.
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The Ukrainian parliament, which consists of different parties with different political views, united and unanimously adopted all decisions necessary for the security and defense of the state, for the European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine. Everyone did everything that depended on them to protect their home, their land, and their country.
We realized that we can do impossible things and incredible deeds when our highest values are life and freedom. We surprised both ourselves and the world. On February 28, 2022, The New York Times story about the war was commented on by their reader Perry Perez from Florida: “I thought I knew what bravery was. And then I saw Ukraine.” In those days, the world still thought that Ukraine would fall and Russia would succeed in capturing a much smaller state in a matter of days. But everyone was wrong: the Kremlin which hoped to get “Kyiv in three days,” and the Western world thinking our best option would be partisan resistance of Ukrainians in an almost total occupation. Only Perry Peres was not mistaken, because Ukrainians are much more than courage.
What did we learn from our friends?
The Collective West is miscellaneous, and even a common goal does not mean united ways of its implementation. Your partners can be slow, they can wait for the decisions of others, and not accept things that are obvious to you. But you have to be the drop of water that hits the rock not with the force but by quantity. Because “No” is just the beginning of the conversation.
We started resisting a full-scale Russian invasion with helmets, body armor, and light anti-tank weapons, and now our skies are protected by Western F-16 fighter jets. We can change the perception of our struggle among world leaders. And this requires unity. Despite the difference of views within the country, we can speak with one voice abroad and can set common goals that are more important than our own political ambitions. And every Ukrainian abroad is an ambassador of their country.
Unfortunately, to get the right amount of weapons at the right time, we have to pay the highest price – the lives of our people. And time under shelling flows in a completely different way than time in negotiation rooms.
What have we learned about the enemy?
The first thing is that its power is considerably exaggerated and we are able not only to hold the defense but also to change the rules of the game and challenge. The operation in the Kursk region, for which no one in Russia and its top military command was ready, is an excellent proof of that.
The second, and probably the most important thing, is that it is not Putin's war, it is the war of the entire Russian people. Many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia, and when the full-scale war began, they really wrote and called them. There were mainly two answers from Russians: “Putin is doing everything right, you should be de-nazified,” or “War is terrible, but we are small people on whom nothing depends.” That is why the communication stopped very quickly.
During the operation in the Kursk region, we ask ourselves another question: where is the resistance of Russians? Why didn’t they unite to repel a foreign army on their land? Why is it that all they can do is beg Putin for help, but not act themselves? Why do they mention humanitarian law now, and not when civilians were attacked in Ukraine, half-ton bombs were dropped on cities and rockets hit children’s hospitals? After all, it was not Putin personally who launched these bombs and missiles. Gerasimov did not shoot personally. Shoigu did not rape personally. This was done by those “ordinary Russian boys” whose mothers and wives are now demanding their return. Because it was not Putin who created this Russia but it was this Russia that created this Putin.
Can you hope for the Russian liberal opposition? As any Ukrainian will tell you – no. These politicians are absolutely not subjective but rather are pocket puppets. Are they really against the war? Even Alexei Navalny believed that Crimea was “not a sandwich” to return to Ukraine. For the most part, the Russian opposition is outraged by corruption in the Russian Federation, which prevents their army from more effectively occupying the territories of other states. Could there be another opposition in the Russian Federation? No. Because the formation of quality and genuine opposition movements requires democratic processes, and they did not exist and do not exist there.
Should we continue fighting?
Is it difficult for us? Yes, it is. But every time one considers stopping fighting, we think about how much has already been overcome and that we need to move forward. Our victory is not just going to the borders of 1991, punishing all war criminals, and getting paid reparations. Our victory is a guarantee that our children will not have to fight with Russia, as we are now. And for this, Russia should not exist in its current form. The peoples enslaved by Russia must become independent states, as Ukraine became in 1991. And the world should not be afraid of that. Empires fall: that's what happened to the USSR and that's what will happen to the Russian Federation.
All these “red lines” of Putin are the tricks of a cheap swindler. The border of Russia, which claimed to have the second-strongest army in the world and nuclear weapons, was breached by the Ukrainians. Russian territories have been taken under our control, and the Kremlin can do nothing about it. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are expanding their sphere of influence, and among them is my colleague, parliamentarian Roman Kostenko, who is on a certain “business trip” abroad.
And if indeed every generation of Ukrainians is destined to defend their land from Russian aggression with weapons in their hands, then it is within our power to end it. Right now is the moment and the opportunity for Ukraine to bring the struggle of our ancestors to a logical end. Once and for all.
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