Although the world's news agencies and broadcasting giants such as the BBC and CNN report on the war in Ukraine 24 hours a day without interruption, there is a key element in these reports that is one of the causes of the outbreak of this war.
Yesterday, one of the most important events of the war was a missile strike in the central square of Kharkiv. However, if you think that this episode of a massive war crime was how CNN's news bulletins started, you are gravely mistaken. First, a report from the border, where refugees are concentrated. Young black men (non-residents) are interviewed while standing in a long queue, taking advantage of the situation to get to Europe. The report is titled: Ukrainian students fleeing Ukraine face racism and segregation.
To be fair, in later news bulletins, Kharkiv and other military news were the main stories, but overall there is a disproportionate emphasis on humanitarian security and refugees. I need to clarify what I mean by the emphasis on humanitarian security and why this is not always a good thing. The main idea of the people sitting in the television studio is to protect human lives. The people being interviewed, who are prepared to fight and possibly die, evoke not so much respectful admiration and praise as something akin to awkward bewilderment. It is not put into words, but you can feel that these people sitting in the studio would themselves, in a similar situation, be involved in the so-called welcomer movement that was once popular in this country - "I too would flee".
Of course, there are different news anchors and reporters on the ground, so I do not want to apply this to everybody, but quite often there is something of a rebuke, if not quite a rebuke, then something along the lines of - well, why are you resisting such overwhelming force, thereby putting women, children and civilians in great danger? When the defenders of Ukraine say that we do not need your blankets and boots, we need military aircraft to prevent the aggressor from having free access to our airspace, the news anchors sound almost offended. It is obvious that they are speaking different languages.
Two ideologies, two understandings of the world are clashing. One is that I only live once, so there is nothing more important than my life (and the lives of others). Therefore, there are no ideas that are worth a human life. And the other is that if an idea is not worth a human life, then that idea has no great value either. If there is no willingness to risk one's life for one's country, then such a country has no value either. If this country is protected only by printed papers with signatures, then what is the point of it at all.
It was on the belief that the Ukrainian state was an artificial construct created by the whims of politicians of an earlier time (Lenin, Khrushchev, Yeltsin, Kravchuk) that the whole invasion was based. Nobody would give their life for such a thing, after all. Plus, the conviction that the West, in its lust for money and comfortable life (I'm just repeating the Kremlin narrative), will do anything to preserve this comfortable life, so it won't seriously interfere. But the Ukrainians have shown that they are prepared to risk their lives for their country and to disrupt this whole Putin narrative.
Let us be realistic. Putin as a man is grudge-bearing, stubborn and ruthless. He will be ready to destroy Kyiv, half of Ukraine, but he will not back down. The missile strike in Kharkiv is proof of that. We should not pin much hope on a coup d'état. It means that, in the end, he will have taken Ukraine. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, this "taking" will not bring Putin the joy he was hoping for. No sea of enthusiastic crowds in Moscow's Red Square will greet him with this "victory". As was the case in 2014 after the peaceful (without bloodshed) annexation of Crimea.
Now things have turned out quite differently. Putin, in the shots in which he is shown, looks furious, frustrated. The contemptuous laugh sounds a bit nervous. The Ukrainians warn Westerners on every live TV broadcast that if Putin is not stopped now, he will go further. With this war, Putin has made such a mess that a return to the world that existed before February 24, 2022, is no longer possible. When I watch CNN and the BBC, I am not convinced that people in the West have fully grasped this truth. The same ideological narrative that was once broadcast by our public media still prevails. The one that can be called: do refugee children have warm enough boots?
I wouldn't want to be misunderstood. The comfort and safety of people, including refugees, is very important, but I am talking about focus. Of course, there is no shortage of military analysis and respectful, inspiring reporting from the defense lines. But the overall tone is one of pity. Watching all this, a popular joke these days comes to mind: it is not Ukraine that should join NATO, but NATO that should join Ukraine, because it is the Ukrainian army that has the most fighting power at the moment. It just lacks the necessary military and technical equipment.
The Russia-Ukraine war has highlighted a key weakness of the West: the long struggle against "patriarchal white cisgender domination", "toxic masculinity" and many other leftist bogeymen has significantly weakened resistance to real aggressors, real thugs and real problems. What is happening now in Ukraine is also largely the fault of politicians like Macron, Merkel, Obama and others, who for years tried to "appease" Putin. Even now, they are trying to "persuade" Putin not to behave so badly. My dear friend, please do not bomb civilians.
CNN is showing the lies of Lavrov, Putin's yes-man, live from the UN podium. Why? To what end? For the sake of some misunderstood impartiality? This war criminal, who should only be heard by a prosecutor in The Hague, is still perceived as a foreign minister without quotation marks. This lenient attitude only further convinces Putin of the West's cowardice and readiness to give up without a fight.
If the leaders of Europe and the United States had shown even a tenth of the determination back in 2014 that Zelensky is now showing in Kyiv, the situation in the world would have been very different. A bully is only a bully as long as he is allowed to be a bully. People walk past indifferently, thinking, well, I'm not going to get involved. If I am not personally concerned, then let them deal with it themselves. With such politeness and "tolerance", the world has lived to see the bombing of cities housing millions in Ukraine and the unafraid demonstrative support of Putin's policies by some people here in Latvia.
Fortunately, the Ukrainian people, both men and women, are demonstrating to the whole world what a genuine reaction to the brazen behavior of a bully should be. Whether on the street, on the tram or in the trenches. I think that we, the rest of the world, owe a huge, unrepayable debt to the Ukrainian people, who, not only by their heroism, but also by their blood and suffering, are setting an instructive example of how to fight against real, not imaginary, evil.