For a while, I thought the most painful thing about any war, including the one taking place in Ukraine, is how children and the elderly are affected.
We saw, in the last three weeks, images of children being helped by Ukrainian soldiers to escape Kyiv and other cities, oblivious to how the transmogrification under way will affect their lives forever. We watched too as pensioners were uprooted. What could be worse than fleeing to another country in your twilight years, when your back, knees, liver and eyes are as close to dysfunction as, well, your life savings? And to boot, your bank gets bombed, as well as everything else around you. Truth is war can make your heart stop literally and figuratively.
Having said that, do I still need to say that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be condemned for invading Ukraine? Well, even some professors are slower than others, right? Are you with us, Jeremy Seekings?
Moving right along ...
Watching Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeal for help on Sky this week reminded me it could actually get worse than being a child or pensioner in a war situation. Nothing beats fighting an unwinnable battle, encouraged by so-called powerful nations while aware they have no balls to provide actual support.
As you face what many believe are your last days, you watch “world leaders” prevaricate, utter incantations and force you to believe they’re perhaps not so much unlike the SA president, the proverbial fence-sitter. These “supporters” issue condemnations from the UN and sanctions from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices in Downing Street and Washington, but the courage to help Ukraine stop the siege through the imposition of a no-fly zone eludes them. In other words, they sit on the fence even as they issue well-written media statements of support. They don’t have the balls to call Putin’s bluff.
This is what Zelenskyy told Sky’s correspondent Alex Crawford: “Only if the world will unite around Ukraine.” Welcome to our teary party! The world is not uniting around Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso or anywhere else in Africa. If anything, the last unity we saw was Nato forces shelling Libya.
“It (unity) is still going very slowly,” Zelenskyy notes. “You can feel it (absence of unity) only when you are here. The people from Europe and USA, it’s far from Ukraine. Far from the heart of this tragedy.
“We are speaking about closing the sky, you can’t decide — to close or not to close! You can’t decide. If we are united against the Nazis and this terror, you have to close. Not me, don’t wait (for) me asking you several times, a million times, no. Close the skies! You have to phone us, to our people, who lost their children and say sorry we didn’t do it yesterday, one week ago, we didn’t push Putin, we didn’t speak with him a lot, we didn’t find the dialogue with him. We did nothing. And it’s true, yesterday, the world did nothing. I am sorry but it’s true.”
And here is an important nugget. Crawford tells Zelenskyy that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and others say if they imposed a no-fly zone in Ukraine, it would make the situation even worse. Zelenskyy responds: “What does it mean worse? For whom? For our families? No. For whom? For them? No. Who knows, nobody knows. We know exactly that now is very bad. And in future, it will be too late. And believe me, believe me, if it is prolonged this way, yes, they will close the sky, but we (would have lost) millions of people.”
He makes a point, and I agree with him (sorry to have to clarify this for professors slow to follow) that he didn’t have to ask for a no-fly zone over his country — this seems a rational response to his country’s needless bombardment by Russia. That he did it “a million times” is an indictment on so-called world leaders.
When you know you could be bombed any minute, you have no time for diplomatic niceties, especially for world leaders who lack the courage to stop the war. Zelensky shouldn’t be asking for a no-fly zone. If world leaders are indeed opposed to the shelling of Ukraine and know it to be an injustice that ought rightly to be fought, why vacillate? To close or not to close, Zelensky calls them out. Why not call Putin’s bluff? Are they waiting for more to die, to be displaced? Are the images of children not enough? You’d think US President Joe Biden, given his advanced age, would be more sympathetic to displaced and distressed pensioners, no?
Declaration of a no-fly zone will mean any Russian flights that cross the skies into Ukraine should be bombed. Importantly, it means those likely to bomb Ukraine must proactively be bombed. In other words, Russia must be bombed. This is exactly what was happening in Libya, with its defence force bombed to smithereens. Was it OK to subject to Libya what the US, UK and others are now afraid to do to Russia?
Where we correctly express our disgust at Putin for having no regard for international law, we must also point out the hypocrisy and cowardice of Western leaders. We should be consistent. The lives destroyed in Libya are not any less important than lives at risk anywhere else, regardless of Putin’s weapons. Otherwise we send the wrong message that it’s OK to have one rule for Libya (read Africa) and people of the Global South without nuclear power and another for Russia and other aggressors from the Global North. Injustice, regardless of the perpetrator, remains injustice.
The world, truth be told, is fearful of what Russia could unleash. After all, Putin reminded us all that Russia is a nuclear power. Zelenskyy tells us that acting in the future “will be too late”. The world is conveniently leaving Zelenskyy and his people to fry while issuing condemnations of Russia unaccompanied by action, barring sanctions. The world is fearful of Putin. The world is fearful of the possibility of China joining Russia if the UK and US declared a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It was easy with Libya but, it seems, now the aggressors of the north have met their match. Cowardice has a new face!
While the pain we must feel for children and pensioners in war must rank among the worst, nothing probably comes close to witnessing the “world leaders” you thought had balls prevaricate, bite their tongues and literally leave you to face the evisceration on your own.
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