Thirty years after the Soviet Union imploded because it didn’t work, Russian leader Vladimir Putin starts a vanity war with Ukraine. Allies flew to Ukraine’s aid. Under US lead, the transAtlantic Alliance became stronger than ever. But a frivolous war putside the rule of law has consequences far beyond the battlefield.
Great strides have been made in worldwide development since the Second World War. United Nations programs and funds have reduced poverty, increased literacy and promoted health initiatives. They have also addressed the many aspcts of climate change, particularly the migration that results when people become climate, economic or political refugees. Immigration, in turn, causes political unrest in most receiving countries at present. Yet because of Putin’s vanity project in Ukraine, those challenges are on the back burner.
For the first time in its history, the seat of democracy is threatened by home-grown enemies. Solid Europe held the fort as the rest of the world looked on. Then Putin struck Ukraine and all eyes turned there.
Nearly a year after the onslaught began, there is no end in sight for the simple reason that Putin doesn’t care about people. The fierce Wagner Group of convicts can free prisoners for cannon fodder in all the neighboring countries in Putin’s sway. But all the while, the eyes of children around the world are on Putin.
Ukraine is familiar to the West. Empathy comes more readily than with victims from more distant lands. But beneath the surface differences, all refugee experience is traumatic. For kids, it is the cause of an emotional pain that lasts a lifetime regardless of fortunes and therapies.
To be torn from your home base without warning and in the midst of explosive chaos is bad enough. But relocation in a strange land far from familiarity with no friends is brutal. Being flexible, kids adjust. They lead a more or less normal life except for a gaping hole that opens at unexpected or intimate moments. Explaining to others rarely helps. It’s difficult to express in words the homesick longing for a place barely known. Most painful are moments of realizing that others just don’t care. They don’t want to know. For you, there it is, that sharp pang on seeing a refugee child from anywhere, the frustation now compounded by the familirity of children from Ukraine.
Since God is on the side of good, as are Ukraine’s allies, Ukraine will eventually expel Russia from the sovereign territorial borders agreed upon in international treaties. But in the meantime, Putin is creating enemies of refugee children not just in Ukraine but in national trouble spots waiting on the back burner for international attention.
All those kids will hate Putin for their lifetimes. That does not bode well for the future of Russia.
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