I detest writing about war, even though in my many years as a print journalist I haven’t had much exposure to the varied human conflicts that have at times swirled around us.
That all said, the Ukraine-Russia war has consumed a good bit of everyone’s attention for the past two-plus weeks. The Russians invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked act of aggression; they intend to take the country back from the independence it has enjoyed since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It is a disgraceful display of bullying by the Russian dictator/despot Vladimir Putin.
The Russians now have selected “soft” targets, such as hospitals and schools. They have targeted civilians such as women and children. They have earned every ounce of scorn that the world is heaping on them and is heaping specifically on Putin.
The good news, if you want to call it that, is that Ukraine is not rolling over. The Ukrainians are putting up a hell of a fight against superior enemy forces. All the while, Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are standing tall while Putin withers and shrinks in public stature.
History well might write a compelling chapter about Zelenskyy when this fight finally ends. Think of it: a young man who built a career as a comedian and actor is thrust into the Ukrainian presidency, only to become a central figure in the first impeachment of a U.S. president, who tried to persuade Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on a presidential opponent here at home; the president escaped conviction in the U.S. Senate, but Zelenskyy’s role in that impeachment was set in stone.
Now his legacy is being burnished by the courage he is displaying by staying in the Ukraine capital of Kyiv, seeking to rally his constituents to fight with him.
I am going to pray constantly for a relatively quick end to this conflict, as it taxes my emotions even sitting in the peanut gallery far from the fighting. I don’t give a damn what might happen to Putin in its aftermath, but I give plenty of a damn about the future of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He deserves the highest praise possible from an anxious world awaiting the outcome of this aggression.
