On Love and War

Olesya Khromeychuk explores the role of hatred and courage; individuals and humanity in trying to live with the heinous crimes being committed against her country by Vladimir Putin

What better way to disguise a lack of courage than to frame it as the pursuit of peace? We tolerate violence so as not to provoke its potential escalation. Even if all the evidence points to the fact that it is our tolerance of evil that inevitably empowers it, that’s not the story we choose to believe.

Cowardice, camouflaged as pacifism, reigned supreme for the first phase of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Before they staged their full-scale attack, the Russians called themselves peacekeepers and perpetrated atrocities unobstructed.

The democratic world tolerated Vladimir Putin’s war crimes, while claiming to protect the international order built on the principles of the defence of human rights. There seemed to be only one place where courage could be found: in the trenches of eastern Ukraine.

Poorly armed, and unsupported by international military alliances, the Ukrainian Army lacked all provisions but it was equipped with something else that sustained it nevertheless.