Two Years On, Still Unbroken

Two years ago, Russian forces attempted a Hitlerian blitzkrieg in Ukraine. According to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, its goal was to eradicate Ukraine: both the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian nation, with its distinctive language and culture. The blitzkrieg failed, thanks to an epic Ukrainian resistance, defined by Homeric acts of valor and sustained by remarkable social solidarity. Thus one irony of Putin’s war: The Ukrainian nation is more united than ever, its steely resilience and will to prevail forged in a Russian blast furnace.

The price paid by Ukraine is incalculable. No one knows exactly how many Ukrainian soldiers, reservists, volunteers, and civilians have died; the numbers are certainly in the hundreds of thousands. The Russian way of war—including wanton destruction of economic infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and cultural centers—has caused what is likely a trillion dollars’ worth of damage, even as Russian forces have made Ukraine the world’s largest minefield, which will take decades to clear. As many as fourteen million Ukrainians have become international refugees or internally displaced persons; yet there are no refugee camps, in Ukraine or its European neighbors, as those with homes have opened them to their fellow citizens or allies. (As Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Church put it recently, “In the winter of 2022–23, when Putin damaged or destroyed 40 percent of Ukraine’s electricity network, no one froze. People literally shared their warmth.”)