On February 24 last year, after months of military buildup, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin assumed the result would be the speedy fall of Kyiv, Ukrainian surrender, and the installation of a pro-Russian puppet regime. A year later, what Putin’s “special military operation”—his fatuous euphemism for it—has mainly produced are a remarkable display of Ukrainian pluck, a continuing series of Russian atrocities, and a bloody conflict that neither side seems willing to halt short of victory.
While it is convenient to say this war is now marking its first anniversary, in a real sense the conflict began nine years ago. That was when, following overthrow of a pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Russia seized Crimea, which had been Ukrainian territory for some years previously, and began supporting pro-Russian separatists in the country’s eastern Donbas region.
The Ukrainians’ remarkable military success in the past year has been due largely to their own bravery and skill. But two other factors have been indispensable: the notable incompetence of the Russian military and the billions of dollars’ worth of top-of-the-line military hardware poured into Ukraine by the United States and other NATO allies—assistance without which no amount of Ukrainian bravery and skill could have pushed back the Russian onslaught.
So what now? With casualties, including Russian-inflicted civilian deaths and injuries, numbering in the thousands and continuing to mount, it’s hard to see what either side has to gain that could justify persisting in this bloodbath.
While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declares bold but questionable goals that go beyond retaking lost territory in the Donbas and extend even to seizing Crimea, it’s fair to ask how far the U.S. should go in lending support. The Crimean peninsula has changed hands many times and until rather recently was part of the Soviet Union and, before that, the Russian empire. There is no compelling reason why America should help Zelenskyy to regain it now.
Putin for his part seems bent on destroying as much of the Ukrainian infrastructure as he can. But to what end? One thinks of the self-portrait supplied by a cold-blooded killer called the Misfit in a Flannery O’Connor story: “No pleasure but meanness.” In reality, Putin is buying longterm economic suffering for Russia along with a degree of international disgust that could make his country a pariah for years to come.
Already, too, the war has fractured relations between Orthodox groups in Ukraine while contributing to the isolation on the world stage of the Russian Orthodox Church and its pro-Putin leader Patriarch Kirill. Decades of bridge-building by the Holy See have suffered a setback that will not soon be repaired. There is helpful background to all this in a new book by John Burger called At the Foot of the Cross based on interviews with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Our Sunday Visitor).
In his traditional New Year address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis called for immediate end to the “senseless conflict” in Ukraine. Then he said this:
The current conflict in Ukraine has made all the more evident the crisis that has long affected the multilateral system, which needs a profound rethinking if it is to respond adequately to the challenges of our time….We must return to dialogue, mutual listening and negotiation, and foster shared responsibility and cooperation in pursuit of the common good.
Will that happen in Ukraine? Only when all parties to the war return to common sense and decency.
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‘Wars are punishement for sins ‘ – Our Lady of Fatima …rampant , long standing incidence of sins against life in the countries, esp. Russia – would it not be right to look at same as the the underlying root …
Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes as The Immaculate Conception – to focus upon chastity as a means to make reparations , to heal nations and the environement too ..
German Church can lead in same as an act of gratitude and reparation for the grieving of the Pope Emer. too ..
The intent and expected outcome from the Synod as noted in the quote from the Holy Father in the article – expectation of resolving issues through respectful dialogue – as when our Lord chose to walk with the disciples going to Emmaus ..making effort to hope and trust in such an outcome of the intent , even as an act of reparation for past negliegences and its bitter fruits – as a timely need ..
One could just imagine – Holy Father arranging for a Pow Wow in that same Argentinian slum where he used to be in ‘synod ‘ – inviting along Putin ,the Russian Patriarch , Presidents of Ukraine and U.S . – agreeing on the steps to be implemented for the healing of the moral climate , on the alternatives to arms running …
May St.Joseph take charge of our dreams !
Mercy !
Why would CWR publish such a blatantly simplistic essay regarding a war provoked by Biden and the neocons against Russia?No mention is made of the US instigated ‘revolution’ to remove the duly elected Uke leader and replace him with anti Russian agitators. The 14,000 Russian speaking Ukrainians killed by artillery from their ‘fellow countrymen’ is made. No mention of the Minsk accords, the Crimean plebiscite, the Russian demand for Ukrainian neutrality, the massive money laundering corruption involving the Biden family and other U.S. politicians.This war is perhaps the most disgraceful and shameful action ever undertaken by the US government and every lost life on both sides belongs to the bloody legacy of Joe Biden.
Well said and I couldn’t agree more! Obviously there’s a lot of money to be made by someone, but it’s not the American people, past, present, or future. Or the rest of the world for that matter. What a disgrace!
“The Crimean peninsula has changed hands many times and until rather recently was part of the Soviet Union and, before that, the Russian empire. There is no compelling reason why America should help Zelenskyy to regain it now.”
My Ukrainian friend says that Stalin Holocaust 10 million Ukrainians to confiscate Crimea from the Ukrainians. The US could do it for the same reason we help Israel.
Substitute the name Hitler for Putin and Czechoslovakia for Ukraine and you get a picture of the necessity for early resistance to aggression. Ukraine was never a threat to Russia and replacement of their corrupt president was a purely internal matter. Russia broke the Minsk accords as they have every other agreement they have made. See Georgia and the imminent activities in Moldova. It should be noted the Xi Jen Ping is watching events to see if the West will fold. Total economic isolation of Russia would be quite painful to the West but far less so than a rampaging Russia going through Eastern and Central Europe.