Among Ukrainians, there is little debate about how the war will end. The overwhelming consensus is that it cannot conclude until Russia has been fully repelled, and Ukraine’s borders are returned to the 1991 frontier when independence was declared after the Soviet Union collapsed.
This means removing Russian troops from Crimea and the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region.
Of course this is not an easy mission. But for Ukrainians, the alternative is unthinkable. The mass graves uncovered in Bucha have shown us what Russian occupation means. We have also seen, in the broken promises of the Minsk agreements, what any truce with Vladimir Putin is worth. Why should we agree to a fake peace deal when we know Putin will ignore it and unleash war on us again?
As a Ukrainian, it’s odd to read some of the theories about what’s going on. Are we pawns, fighting because we’ve been put up to it by the West? No, we held off Putin with very little help in the first few weeks of war. Even if the West stops arming us, we will continue to fight. We know the alternative is worse: subjugation and cultural annihilation.
Discussions in the West over Ukraine’s future often stall when it comes to the question of Crimea and the Donbas. It’s argued that many Russian-speakers look to Moscow for protection and see Ukraine as the invader. Yes, Ukraine’s history means we have many Russian-speakers who once felt closer affinity with Moscow than Kyiv and once feared discrimination at the hands of what they perceived to be Ukrainian nationalists. It was a similar problem to those of Northern Ireland and Cyprus: historic immigration patterns creating communities with competing identities. That’s why many in the West are uneasy about taking sides.
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