Appeasing Putin isn’t the answer

Oddly enough, a visitor to Kyiv these days is unwittingly reminded of Israel, of all places. With sunbathers on the beach by the Dnipro, busy (though not completely full) restaurants and cafés, and hipsters and skateboarders, it is sometimes hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that this is a country at war.

Yet the war is omnipresent. Each day is punctuated by air raids, mostly ignored by the locals. Roadblocks and checkpoints around the city are being fortified instead of removed in anticipation of another possible attack on the capital. Just twenty minutes from downtown, one can see the devastation of Irpin, where Russians spent weeks shelling apartment blocks, family houses, and children’s playgrounds, while locals hid in their basements without water, electricity, medicine, or food. In the village of Bucha next door, dozens of civilians were summarily executed simply for being Ukrainian.

Much like Israel, facing threats from much larger Arab nations for much of its existence, Ukrainians are aware of the stakes of the current conflict.