Ukraine is winning. After an initial period of dogged defense from the late winter and into the spring of this year, and following a prolonged progression of stabilization on the northern, eastern, and southern front culminating in the retaking of Mykolaiv, Ukraine’s recent victories in Kharkiv Oblast symbolize that Putin is on the backfoot. The desperate mobilization of Russian civilians for what had originally been sold as “special military operation” to be completed in a number of days also indicates a disruption in the war’s trajectory. Since the February 24 invasion, U.S. estimates of Russian casualties are approaching 100,000 killed and wounded— the Ukrainians report over 45,000 military casualties. The United Nations establishes 14,532 civilian casualties in Ukraine as a bare minimum, although the actual number is surely much higher. When we look to Ukraine, we should celebrate the victory of a brave democracy combatting the most aggressive imperial power of this century. We should also recognize that war is the worst travesty humankind can produce. Ukrainian victory is good — the United States and our European allies should continue to arm and support its army, and recognize the enormous sacrifice of its soldiers. We can do this while also acknowledging
that its victory inevitably demands the death of thousands and thousands of Russians. Some of them were surely unapologetic nationalists, and some are even personally responsible for the horrific war crimes committed in Bucha, in Mariupol, and across Ukraine. But tens of thousands of people who are already dead, and thousands more who are being sent to die, have committed no crime greater than being born at the wrong time in the wrong place. Our recognition of this inherent tragedy shouldn’t distract us from the fact that there is a right and a wrong side to this conflict, and that the war should be prosecuted to the end. The war in Ukraine should remind us that our politics, our morality, and our lives must contend with the possibility of war. There will be more in our lifetime. We will not live through the unusual façade of “world peace” that may have fooled many of our parents.
We should not fail to take the war seriously simply because it is easy for many of us to ignore. If we refuse to make national defense a concern in our public debates and in our personal lives, those issues will one day demand we pay attention to them, as they now are in Europe.
John Emmons ’23 is from Seattle, Wash.
His majors are Chinese and
political science.
