This week, Tuesday, Feb. 24, marked the fourth year of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And you should care.
First, let me provide some general facts and statistics. I realize this might not be the most exciting way to begin this article, but please bear with me. The war between Ukraine and Russia is the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. Russia is currently facing more sanctions than any country in history. Since February 2022, Russia has suffered 1.25 million casualties and Ukraine about half a million.
In the European Union (EU), the atmosphere surrounding the situation in Ukraine has been increasingly tense over the last month. On Jan. 27, a Russian strike hit equipment of the Druzhba pipeline, which transfers Russian oil through Ukraine to the rest of Eastern Europe, primarily Hungary and Slovakia. The EU has an ongoing embargo on Russian oil; however, they granted a temporary exemption for its Eastern member states due to their lack of alternatives for oil reception. Given the damages caused by the Russian strike, leading to Druzhba’s now month-long outage, Hungary and Slovakia have been cut off from their primary source of oil; this has caused economic difficulties for the countries and their inhabitants. Both Slovak and Hungarian government officials have since expressed that Ukraine is to blame for the increasing length of this outage.
This Monday, in the wake of the full-scale war’s fourth anniversary, foreign ministers of the EU met in Brussels to discuss the 20th sanctions package that would be imposed on Russia. Hungary blocked these sanctions, as well as the financial aid to Ukraine, citing Druzhba’s pipeline as the reason. The Hungarian foreign minister said that until Ukraine resumes the oil flow, they would maintain their veto on this aid.
While these events are deeply concerning, they do not feel too different from other conflicts surrounding international support of the Ukrainians in this war. It is almost shocking how controversial giving aid to Ukraine has been, given the general international agreement on the fact that the Russian invasion in Ukraine is illegal. I think it’s fair that the more we talk about a conflict, the more desensitized to it we become. I also understand that there are other, arguably graver, conflicts happening in the world. I see how more and more people just want the Ukraine-Russia war to end.
There are so many resources that explain why this war is important and why it’s crucial for Ukraine, Europe and the whole world that Ukraine wins. Just to summarize the key information, Ukrainian identity, culture and state would be under serious threat, due to Russian colonialism. Many believe that loss of this war would signal Ukraine’s “national extinction.” Even less grave results of Russian victory would be detrimental to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s loss to Russia would also destroy any vision of European unity and security. Eastern European member states of the EU would be under serious economic, social and security threats from Russia.
Finally, if the war were to end with Russia’s victory, it would have massive implications for the U.S. authority as a Western power that assures safety from Russia. It would increase the Russian zone of influence, its territory and the idea that President Vladimir Putin can get away with reclaiming former Soviet countries.
I don’t know about you, but all of these scenarios are terrifying to me. I want to emphasize once again that there are other horrific events taking place in the world that are endangering the international order that we know today, and that are harming a large amount of the world’s population. While this indicates that the current international political system — in which the U.S. gets to decide who will be at war and who won’t — doesn’t work, it is still the system that we are living in. The U.S. needs to continue to care about Ukraine.
In March 2022, Macalester publicly stated that the institution “stands with the world in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” Yet on Tuesday, I saw no acknowledgment of the war; no flag, no anything, which felt disappointing but also unsurprising. Maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough, though. On Instagram, I saw more people post about Twin Peaks Day than the anniversary of the war, which was a little morbid but also strangely fitting. You know that a political conflict has gotten truly irrelevant when you don’t see Mac students post about it on their stories.
This war still matters. And it matters that it ends with Ukraine not losing its territories to the Russian aggressor. We need to care about this. Americans need to care about this. You need to care about this. I don’t want to be writing another one of these opinions next year.
Слава Україні. Героям слава. Glory to Ukraine. Glory to the heroes.
