Voice of Ukraine

From Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (604th day): I’m Biden’s speech on Oct 19th was welcomed with much enthusiasm in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Putin’s spokesman Peskov said that ruzzians found the speech offensive.

Of course, Ukrainians would feel encouraged as we need to keep hearing assurances of support because whatever assurances were given “yesterday” might be not so sure anymore as some Republicans do their best to cater to Putin’s dream of Ukraine being cut off from support of civilized world which is led by the USA.

Of course, ruzzians would find it offensive because Biden equates Hamas and putin, mentioning both threats several times. We have known that all terrorists are alike but for the world leader to call things their truthful names is a big progressive step.

There was an interesting article in The Atlantic “Against Barbarism” by Eliot A.Cohen. He talks about commonalities between barbarians and why civilized world can’t ignore them. Here are few quotes:

“Geopolitical and strategic analysis of Israel’s war with Hamas might miss an essential element of this war, a conflict that is not solely, or even primarily, about politics or desperately conceived purpose. It is about barbarism.

Americans have fought barbarians in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Ukrainians have been fighting them for years, and particularly since February 24, 2022. Sometimes, as in Rwanda, we merely note them with embarrassment and eyes averted. Other times, as during the massacre at Srebrenica committed by Serbian forces, we flinch, and act belatedly and inadequately. We express pity for the dead, but often fail to fight for the living.

Barbarians fight because they enjoy violence. They do not only kill and maim—the armies of civilized states do that all the time—but go out of their way to inflict pain, to torture, to rape, and above all to humiliate. They exult in their enemies’ suffering. That is why they like taking pictures of their weeping, terrified victims; why they make videos of slow beheadings; and why they dance around mutilated corpses.

Occasionally, as in Russia today, or Germany in the 1930s, or the Gaza Strip under the Hamas dictatorship, they seize hold of a whole society, and instill their doctrines in a cowed population, converting some and terrifying others into passivity. Then they are truly dangerous. But underneath the reveling in their power to hurt lies the real secret of barbarians: They are insecure because they are losers and, deep down, they know it.

Barbarians live for grievance—grievance against those who they believe have wronged them, but also against those who enjoy the good things in life. That is why they enjoy wrecking homes and kidnapping children and, as Russian soldiers have done in southern Ukraine, raping women. That is why they excel at building only certain kinds of things—arsenals and strongholds, booby traps and minefields, sports stadiums and missiles of all kinds, but not places of beauty and contemplation, elegance and human proportion. They dream of an unrealizable utopia, in which their nation dominates the Earth, or their religion extirpates all others, or their enemies grovel for a mercy they will never grant.”