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PERSPECTIVE
We Must Stand With Ukraine
It’s a matter of survival
Why I believe Putin will not succeed
My family is half-Ukrainian. When I first heard about the weasel Putin’s plans for the Old Country, I was incensed. When I heard the speech he made to justify invasion, I was disgusted and furious in equal parts. Ukraine no more “belongs” to Russia than Canada belongs to the United States or New Zealand belongs to Australia. Ukraine is a separate country; its culture distinct from any country on its borders, including and especially Russia. Its people have always been fiercely patriotic to their sovereign nation, even when that nation was under the thumb of another and all hope was nearly lost.
I say this as someone who, as a small child, was lulled to sleep at night by voices speaking Ukrainian, discussing politics and patriotism. This was when their country was still part of the Soviet Union. It was clear to me from the beginning that my Ukrainian family were not Soviets or Russians. They’d have spat in the eye of anyone who said so. These were people who wanted their homeland back and dreamed of the day it would be. When the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, a glimmer of hope broke through the rubble. To not just Ukrainians but so many other distinct nations and cultures in the Sovient bloc…
