Ukraine, a just cause that has led to the fall of many masks

Four years ago, in the early hours of February 24, 2022, Russia launched a large-scale, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

They say Ukraine can't beat Russia: they also said it would only last a few days
Patriotism and the Russian invasion: Do you ask of Ukraine what you would not accept for your country?

I cannot help but recall that some people claimed then that Ukraine would fall in a few days or, at most, a few weeks, that the Ukrainians stood no chance against a great power like Russia and that they should surrender. Four years later, Ukraine is not only still resisting, but is even retaking occupied territory while Russia is suffering a colossal number of casualties and material losses, reaching a point where its means of fighting are increasingly precarious.

Ukraine has given and continues to give the world an admirable lesson in courage and patriotism. For four years, that country has been the first line of defense of Western civilization against barbarism. The moral duty of free countries is to help the Ukrainian people resist and defeat the invaders, until the last Russian soldier has left the territory of a country where his army should never have entered. Ukraine's is a just cause: that of a people defending their homeland from an invasion they did not provoke, against a vastly superior enemy that believes it has the right to seize neighboring countries by invoking delusional nationalist arguments.

The courageous Ukrainian resistance not only inspires admiration among those of us who have supported their cause from the very beginning. It must also be acknowledged that this just cause has led to the unmasking of many in other countries, exposing the rhetoric and principles that some had been solemnly proclaiming. This was a predictable reaction, at least in some cases.

The most obvious case is that of the extreme left, always ready to support and favor dictatorships and criminals of all kinds, with the sole requirement that they share their hatred of the West. The far left has been using words like "imperialism" in their speeches for a long time, always directing them against Western and democratic countries. Once again, as happened with the Soviet Union, when true imperialism shows its face, the far left remains silent or even sides with the imperialists, as it has been doing for the last four years (and before that, since Russia's annexation of Crimea) with utter shamelessness.

Even more unexpected has been the attitude of a segment of the right-wing. I'm not referring to the extreme right, the real one, the one that hates liberalism and democracy and admires tyrants like Putin. I'm referring to people who have been full of talk about patriotism and sovereignty, recalling the admirable feats of national heroes from our past against all kinds of invaders, but now, for various reasons, they want the Ukrainian people to surrender and are attacking those of us who support Ukraine, telling us that what we should do is go and fight against the invaders—a stupid and demagogic argument that shows that a segment of the right has ended up in the same intellectual and moral poverty as the extreme left.

I have warned before that these despicable reactions are providing ammunition to propagandists who, if Spain were attacked tomorrow, would say the same things they are saying now about Ukraine. Those of us who truly defend peace reject the notion that it consists of the triumph of thuggery. Peace without respect for the sovereignty and independence of Russia's neighboring countries is not peace: it is oppression —that is, what the Ukrainians and other peoples who freed themselves from the Soviet yoke with the fall of the USSR already suffered.

The false pacifism of the Putinists, both left and right, does not aim for Ukraine to live in peace. If it did, they would reject those who have threatened peace, the invaders, and support the cause of the Ukrainian people. What it aims for is the triumph of the terrorist regime in Moscow, a dictatorship whose army has been committing all kinds of atrocities against the Ukrainian people, systematically attacking the civilian population and carrying out massacres in which men, women, and children have been brutally executed with their hands tied, as could be seen in massacres like those of Bucha and Izyum. Crimes that increasingly resemble the atrocities committed by the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin.

Ukraine has been resisting this barbarity alone for four years, and the least we who live in other countries and support its cause can do is demand that our politicians mobilize all possible resources to help the Ukrainian people resist and defeat the invaders. Ukraine has already shown that Russia can be defeated, just as the USSR was in Afghanistan in 1989, by a people less well-armed than the Ukrainians. This requires political will and an end to hesitation. The West cannot let a bully like Putin get away with it, not only because it would be morally repulsive, but also because of its implications for our own security: Russia has proven to be a danger to peace in Europe, and we must not remain impassive in the face of this, because if we do, tomorrow other countries, even some NATO members, could suffer the same fate as the Ukrainian people.

Of course, I know that the threat of a strong Russia against a weak West doesn't worry either the fake anti-imperialists or the fake patriots, because both are convinced they can profit from the potential victory of a criminal like Putin against Ukraine. I don't intend to convince such people of anything. They have already shown which side they are on in the struggle between civilization and barbarism. My only hope is that their desire to see the Ukrainian people defeated and Putin victorious ultimately fails.

Слава Україні!
Glory to Ukraine!

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Photo: Volodymyr Leush. Statue of Mother Ukraine in Kyiv.