The West must stop being afraid of Putin's nuclear blackmail and save Ukrainians from death
Yuri Maznychenko 06 March 2022
March 5, 2022. This date is a turning point in the life of our family. It is the point of no return to the quiet past and the marker from which a new life is to begin. Naturally, only after Ukraine repels large-scale Russian military aggression. And one day it will become a completely new state, having washed its hands of its "fraternal" past, which for many years had imposed distorted values on our society. Like those shameful "we can do it again" values with which Russian society has been so fond of frightening the West all these years, making references to the events of World War II.
But the results of the 10 days of war with Ukraine suggest otherwise: the Russian army was the first to enter the fray and was kicked in the teeth in return, exposing to the world that the quantity of military equipment and personnel is not always directly proportional to their quality.
Saturday morning brought bad news. A mortar shell landed in the yard of our private house near Kyiv. At such moments you stop being the one who helped your country and at the same time avoided casualties, and you begin to fully accept the terrible consequences of wartime. And also realize the extreme degree of hatred for the enemy.
We drove out of Kyiv to assess with our own eyes how bad things are. On the way, there is a thorough inspection of vehicles at every roadblock. The minibus draws even more attention in such circumstances. "What are you carrying in the van?", - we are being asked at the checkpoint. "We're empty," - we answer, showing the sentries our documents. "Guys, help us bring the sacks for the checkpoint equipment," - they tried to turn our car around as we were leaving the city. But when we explain the reason for the trip, they let us pass with understanding. The city’s fortifications are left behind, and ahead is an uncertain and dangerous area, where a "liberating" shell of enemy artillery can fall at any moment.
We reached the destination point without incident. My eyes refuse to believe what misfortune a single mine blast could bring to a well-kept and orderly neighbourhood. The explosion resulted in massive windows being smashed, doors slashed, the geometry of the house damaged, and a car standing nearby probably beyond repair. There was one person in the house at the time the shell hit, and he was lucky not to be where the windows shattered into pieces.
The original plan to take only documents and necessities had to be adjusted along the way. We had realized that the enemy's "gift" might not be their last, so we tried to load the van as much as possible: everything we needed in case we were no longer able to cross the threshold of the house. The terrifying explosions of shells nearby force a rush, and fuss is the enemy of organization. It's situations like this that force the emotions that have been languishing inside each of us all this time to beat a stream: "Fuck, just leave that junk behind." "What if it comes in handy?", - I hear back. "Is it more valuable to you than your life?", - I parry, and already these words are working properly. At last, we are leaving for a much safer Kyiv. At least for now.
The oppressive silence is interrupted by the greeting of the rifleman at the checkpoint: "Good day! What's in the van?". "Evacuation, a shell landed on the house," - we reply. The sentry permits us to go: "Good luck!”. We want to believe that everything will be alright, but to do so all of us will have to suffer a great deal.
As we drove back into town, we became convinced that not everyone had left their homes in search of a safe shelter. Many remain, despite the real threat of being killed by shell splinters or buried under the rubble of their own homes. The neighbour across the street serves in territorial defence, and even jokes about the mine crater in his garden is a dig in case of emergency. The neighbour across the fence, which, by the way, no longer exists (thanks to the "liberators"!), simply hopes for the best, citing her advanced age and unwillingness to leave her home anywhere.
Since the beginning of the second week of the war, it has become calmer in Kyiv. Sirens have been less frequent in alerting the population to the danger of airstrikes. But the weakening of the occupying forces' ground offensive against the capital should not mislead anyone. Russia is actively bombarding Ukrainian cities from the air and using its artillery capacity along the entire front, destroying population centres and bringing humanitarian disaster there.
Vladimir Putin’s regime has cut Russia off from any alternative sources of information (no Facebook, Twitter, foreign media sites) and is desperately pumping its citizens exclusively with content "needed" by the Kremlin. Therefore, it is unlikely that Russians have heard anything about the Russian authorities' broken agreements on the "green" corridor in Volnovakha and Mariupol. This is exactly what the Ukrainian and Russian delegations agreed to during the second round of negotiations in Belarus. And the aggressor did not hesitate to open fire on civilians at the moment of the announced evacuation. No one doubted the Putin regime's methods, did they? To make promises, to break its commitments, and at the same time to quietly continue its insidious plans, winning some time to do so.
Ukraine has two unsolvable problems at the moment. First: the civilian population is being killed by Russian airstrikes. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have stopped the aggressors almost along the entire front line, and in some areas have even carried out successful counteroffensive operations. But the Russians, who trumpeted to the whole world in the first week of the war about the destruction of exclusively military objects in the course of the so-called "demilitarization", have now switched to the mode of the chaotic bombing of "everything and everyone". Their goal is to sow mortal panic in Ukrainian society and make people beg for peace talks. This was the scenario of the birth of the so-called "DNR" and "LPR," when civilians were afraid to cross the militants in the name of peace and stability.
The aggressors even managed to test this option in Kherson, bringing a pro-Russian crowd with Russian flags and humanitarian aid to the captured city. Except that they encountered an unequivocal reaction from Kherson residents who came out on the streets: "Occupiers, go home! Russian warship, go fuck yourself!".
The second problem is the unwillingness of the West and NATO to hear the calls of millions of Ukrainians to close the sky. Ukraine does not have the Russian capability to provide full air defence to its populated areas. And despite the tireless work of air defence systems, Ukraine cannot fully protect its civilian population from regular shelling by the aggressor.
All democratic countries of the world sympathize with Ukraine and support the Ukrainian people with humanitarian aid, and several Western partners continue to supply defensive weapons to the AFU. But the West is constrained by fear of Putin's unpredictability and Russia's ability to use nuclear weapons.
Europe still remembers the terrible days of World War II, when any attempts by Allied countries to satisfy Adolf Hitler's geopolitical appetites not only failed to prevent one of the most tragic pages in the history of the 20th century but only pushed the National Socialists into global war and an attempt to seize world domination. Neither the League of Nations, which preceded the UN, nor the tacit agreement of Great Britain and France to partition Czechoslovakia and Anschluss of Austria in 1938 succeeded in securing peace in Europe in those troubled times. The Western policy of appeasing the aggressor only hastened the outbreak of world war.
As history shows, concessions and compromises are not effective tools against a dictator who creates an alternative reality for millions of people around the world at the expense of propaganda and killing thousands of innocent people through military force. Russia has for many years understood only the language of force, and only by collective effort can the entire world secure itself against the insane Russian president.
There will be no World War III, which the West so much fears. Nor will there be nuclear strikes on London, Paris or Washington. Today's Russia knows how to achieve its goals only through intimidation and blackmail. This state is incapable of anything else, and the successful containment of Russian troops in Ukraine's ten-day defensive war only confirms this once again.
As I write this, innocent people continue to die in Ukraine. They were not expecting Russian "liberators" here, but the occupiers left them no choice. The West has that choice: either finally, show their "balls" and help Ukraine end this war by opening the eyes of millions of Russians, or let Putin conquer Ukraine and give him the excuse to declare new territorial claims and unleash a subsequent world war.