Why Resisting Putin Matters. Not Only for Ukraine

The world is watching in horror as Russia attempts to conquer its smaller and weaker, at least on paper, neighbor.  It seems the entire world is watching as Ukraine puts up a desperate defense, in the name of its homeland.

The attack began on February 24, in the early hours of the morning.

Most people thought Kyiv would fall within a matter of hours and Ukraine would surrender within days.

It seemed to many that we were returning to an old world where might ruled and war instead of diplomacy was used to solve international disputes.

One does not have to search long for articles and speeches by academics and security experts about the return of that old world and the end of the post-war order. Long before Putin invaded Russia experts were talking about the balance of power and the need to give appropriate respect to the genius in Moscow. Realism in international politics had returned and these experts filled books, and journals talking about how best to manage these new great power conflicts. Most people ignored this conversation because this world was a theoretical idea and not reality.

On 24 FEB 2022 that changed. We woke up to a new world.

But then something unexpected happened in Ukraine, the columns of Russian tanks stopped.

Reports of incredible acts of heroism came from Ukraine. The Ukrainian Army was fighting, its police were fighting, its border guards, special services, and national guard were fighting. Ordinary citizens were volunteering so fast that authorities couldn’t process and get them guns.

More than 100,000 people volunteered to pick up arms and defend their homeland in a matter of a few days.  

What was even more amazing was the women and children, hiding in subway stations, in basements, and in their apartments, making Molotov cocktails, repairing camouflage nets and sharing food stores.

The entire population united to resist the invasion.

Ukrainian moral was high, they supported their army and their government. They were proud and defiant and for good reason.

In first five days of fighting the Russian Army failed to take a single contested city, even in Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. The Russian troops seem to lack the will to attack and seize contested terrain. The significance of this should not be underestimated; and taking the city is only the first step.

Russia then must occupy every one of those cities with a hostile, armed, and obviously motivated Ukrainian people. There are videos from every occupied city of unarmed civilians protesting the occupiers.

Russia was given another shock after the invasion when the world handed Russia humiliating defeats in the diplomatic realm. The EU closed its airspace to Russia, Russian banks have been disconnected from SWIFT, the EU has eliminated the fast-track visa regime for Russians, Germany is giving weapons to Ukraine and building LNG ports to wean itself off Russian gas.

Sporting venues refuse to let Russia host events or compete under its flag. Soccer teams refuse to play Russia.

Putin was suspended as honorary president of International Judo Federation. Protests against the war are taking place across the globe.

This may not seem important after all what can it do to stop tanks in Kyiv. But it is, especially for a country like Russia that takes immense pride in being a "great power".

This is an incredible turn in western relations and the results will be profound. The political will for these extraordinary anti-Russian measures did not emerge out of some think tank or political consensus in Washington or Europe. It was born of a real anger, and shock to the new reality that we had woken up to. It was born on western streets and in social media where citizens demanded an answer to an evil that had been brought back to Europe.

We know why Ukrainians are fighting: land, freedom, and dignity and that is easy for all of us to understand.

But why were people in western countries so angry about a country that many could not find on a map and most who knew about it, dismissed as hopelessly corrupt? Because, until 24 February 2022 we lived in one world and then suddenly, we were dragged back into an old world. We lived in a world where government is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around, where nations negotiate sometimes painfully slowly to solve their problems. National borders were set and the use of violence to change them was unthinkable.

Then that world was taken from us, and we had a choice.

We could accept this new world, give up on Ukraine and focus on defending ourselves, or we could make it clear to Russia, and to every other country in the world that this was not acceptable, that we would not live in this world.

For most of us, this was not a hard question, we were given this world by our parents and grandparents, and we are going to do everything we can to pass it to our children, because it is a better world.

So how is this possible, how does a small country stand up to a giant? How does the west stop Russia? How do we retain the post war order?

The answer to all these questions is the same, because in principle the end the realists are right. Thucydides was right when he said 2000 years ago that, "the strong will do what they can, and the weak will suffer what they must".

The strong get to make the rules.

The strong decide how the world will be governed.

This is good because as every Ukrainian knows and is demonstrating to Russia, when we stand together with determination and purpose, we are the strong. We get to make the rules, we get to decide what kind of world we will live in. And while it is not perfect, it is infinitely better than the world on offer from Russia.

When you see someone doing something in support of Ukraine. Protesting, singing, donating money, donating blood, writing their leaders, or just posting #stoprussia you are watching someone reject the world on offer from Russia.

Join us and see if we can build a better world for our children.

Author: Daniel Newell,

an American who lived in Ukraine and studied Anti Corruption at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy until the Russian invasion,

for European Pravda