HOEY — Ukrainian resistance is unifying people of good will throughout the world
In Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, Russians are taking to the streets to protest Vladimir Putin’s brazen bid to annex Ukraine.
Many are going to jail and face prosecution.
A daughter of a high Kremlin official tweeted a plea for peace before someone pulled her post.
A Russian tennis star scribbled on a camera filming his match, “Stop the War.”
Putin’s Russia is not Russia. The Russian people have been cowed and brutalized for years, but the end may be near for Putin’s tyranny.
Young Russians are Russia’s future, not Putin. They don’t pay attention to the lies broadcast by the official State TV, but get their news from the Internet, today’s version of Radio Free Europe.
Russian youth see what Putin is doing and they are condemning it.
In fact, the whole world is watching as Russian artillery shells residential areas, killing women and children, and Russian tanks advance on Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv.
In Kyiv, street signs have been erected to greet invaders: “Russian soldier — Stop. Remember your family. Go home with a clean conscience.”
Accountants and office workers who have never handled guns are learning how to use them. Women are preparing Molotov cocktails.
It is a David and Goliath struggle, but as this article is written, Ukrainian forces continue to put up fierce resistance.
“The fight is here”
In an incredible act of bravery, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy has refused to flee Kyiv, telling the United States, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
He has shown the Western allies what real courage looks like and has challenged them to come to his country’s aid: “We have proven our strength. We have proven that, at a minimum, we are exactly the same as you. So prove that you are with us. Prove that you will not let us go.”
And in a statement that could have been torn from the opening of John’s Gospel, this Jewish man of great faith said: “Then, life will win over death and light will win over darkness”
Without this fierce resistance, Putin’s underlings would already be in Kyiv. A puppet government would be telling the world that Russia has saved Ukraine from a corrupt, neo-Nazi government.
The only reason this has not happened is because of the resolve of the Ukrainian people. By slowing down the Russian advance, they have unmasked Putin’s lies and brutality and given the rest of the world time to take stock of what is happening and respond.
Vladimir Putin, the former KGB operative, apparently thought he could treat Ukraine as the former Soviet satellite it used to be, that he could move quickly and in stealth to install a puppet government that would do his bidding.
But Putin has badly miscalculated.
He calls Ukraine a neo-Nazi state when its president is Jewish. No one believes his lies.
He may have thought the Ukrainian people would welcome his army with open arms, but they have met this invading force with stubborn resistance.
How could it be otherwise? Before gaining its independence in 1991, Ukraine was a country under the cruel thumb of the Russian czars and then the Soviet communists.
In the 1930s, Josef Stalin saw Ukraine’s productive “black earth” as a national asset whose grain could be exported for badly needed hard currency.
At gunpoint, communist brigades forced peasants to hand over their grain. Next, the communists confiscated the peasants’ land and herded them onto collective farms.
So-called Kulaks, wealthier and more successful farmers, were rounded up and sent to Siberia.
The consequences were predictable but tragic: historians estimate that at least 3.5 million Ukrainians died from hunger and disease.
Defining moment
Both the czars and the communists made sporadic attempts to stamp out Ukrainian culture: the Ukrainian language could not be taught in schools, and Ukrainian dress and customs were mocked as the archaic regalia of ignorant peasants.
If you wanted to get ahead in Russia’s Ukraine, you spoke Russian and dressed like a Russian.
But things have changed. For 30 years, Ukraine has been a free and independent country.
There is no going back.
Ukraine has taught the Western allies a valuable lesson: you can never satisfy a bully.
The time for appeasement is over. No more should the West tolerate Putin’s vicious behavior, such as seizing Crimea, poisoning political opponents, and tampering with free and fair elections.
Putin must be stopped in his tracks, forced out of Ukraine, required to pay compensation for the carnage he has inflicted, and tried for the war criminal he is.
If the Ukrainian people are willing to die for their freedom, surely citizens of Western countries can make some sacrifices, such as paying more at the gas pump, to stop Putin’s war crimes.
In our own country, it is time to put aside petty partisan sniping, the blaming of others for Putin’s Hitlerian adventures.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but now is the time to unite and support Ukraine.
President Zelenksy has given us all an example. This is a defining moment for Western democracies.
Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag is flying in capitals across the globe, and people are singing the country’s national anthem.
Putin may yet murder Zelensky and reduce Kyiv to rubble, but the Ukrianian people will never truly surrender.
How will we respond?
Mr. Hoey, a member of Immaculate Conception Parish in Jefferson City, is a lifelong examiner of history and public policy.
