Ukraine Against the Empire of the Evil
In the summer of 2014, the life of my family changed forever. Following events of the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv, Russia annexed Crimea and attacked the East of my country, launching an armed conflict which lasts to this day. My 15-year-old self was not aware of the situation to the extent that I, a current student of political science and international relations, am aware right now. Breached international laws, heinous propaganda, political agendas — in my reality, they all came into play later. In the summer of 2014, the only fact that mattered was that my mother and I were fleeing home, trying to escape from missile attacks and bombings.
Since February 24th, 2022 — the day when Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, more than 3 million of my compatriots were forced to leave their homes, adding a new label to their identity — “a refugee”. All around the country, peaceful civilians were awakened to the sounds of bombs and shelling. Despite the fact that the laws of just war prohibit the use of weaponry against civilians, Russian combatants have been indiscriminately targeting civilian population and murdering entire families since the beginning of the war.
Russian aggressors are shooting children and the elderly, raping women, looting houses and shops, bombing schools, hospitals, orphanages, maternity wards, churches, train stations, and annihilating entire civilian quarters. They are keeping cities under siege, cutting off access to food, water, and electricity. They are mining internationally protected humanitarian corridors and opening fire on people who are trying to evacuate. They are using vacuum and cluster bombs, which are banned by the Geneva Convention. They captured the biggest nuclear power plant in the whole Europe, located in Zaporizhzhia, a city in Ukraine’s Southeast, and are threatening the whole world with a nuclear explosion. They are monsters, and now everyone knows it.
This deceitful war, which Putin called “a peacekeeping operation”, marks another attempt of Russia to reacquire the territories of the former Soviet Union and “reclaim” Ukraine, whose land it has been craving all these years. And while Ukraine cannot deny centuries of shared history with Russia — after all, we do not choose our neighbors, — the realities of two countries could not even more different.
While Ukraine has been a democratic and peaceful country since the day of its independence, Russia has fortified its authoritarian government, wiped out domestic opposition and waged wars around the world. These days, Putin’s cronies shut down Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and other social networks in Russia, cutting off any remnants of access to international media and true information about the war in Ukraine. If George Orwell had been alive, he would have probably started writing a sequel to his famous novel “1984”.
Right now, there is a tendency to whitewash the war and put the blame for it on Putin alone. However, it is not Putin or his vicious clones that are killing Ukrainians — it is more than 200,000 of his soldiers, all with families and friends. It is people who work in his propaganda machine, spreading lies on TV and social media. It is average citizens who voted for him and supported the invasion of Georgia, and then Ukraine. Everyone is guilty in that empire of the evil.
Therefore, Ukraine is not only fighting for its right to self-determination — it is fighting for the future of all democracies. There are people who view this war as a regional, or even a national issue. However, I assure you, it is not. This is the largest military attack in Europe since the World War II. Just a few weeks ago, Russian army set off missile strikes on Novoyavorivsk, a Ukrainian city situated the mere 25 kilometers from the border with Poland. The fact that in the 21st century a deranged dictator can still get away with all the violence and atrocities is astonishing.
Despite the lack of significant military support from the EU or especially NATO, Ukrainians are putting up unprecedented resistance. While our army is showing heroism on the frontlines and fighting off the enemy in a way that no one thought was possible, civilians are not wasting any time either. Local volunteers are self-organizing to prepare Molotov cocktails, take care of the injured people, arrange shelters, gather food and medicines, weave camouflage nets for tanks, hunt down and weed out the saboteurs within the cities, erect checkpoints and so much more. The level of solidarity and cooperation within my country left the whole world in awe.
Ukrainians are strong, but we cannot withstand the enemy on our own. Wherever you are in the world, you can contribute to helping end this unjust war, be it by donating, going on protests, or simply sharing information with people who also care. Here you can find a list of suggestions on how you can help Ukraine from abroad: https://linktr.ee/help_ukraine_global
