After five months of suffering the worst devastation in Europe since World War II and defending their homeland with a determination that won admiration around the world, many Ukrainians are surely asking themselves some troubling questions.
Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
They wonder when Western leaders will finally decide unequivocally that enough is enough and take, without delay, all necessary measures to help Ukraine win the all-out and unprovoked war that Russia launched against it on February 24, 2022.
How many other heinous acts of genocide (as recognized by the parliaments of Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Ireland and Ukraine) are to be committed by Russia against the Ukrainian people?
How many more tears are to be shed by Ukrainian parents at the burial of their children, like 4-year-old Liza Dmytriyeva, killed in a Russian airstrike while pushing her doll stroller on a walk in the park with his mother in Vinnytsia?
How many more Ukrainians are to be killed and injured in this all-out, unprovoked Russian war against Ukraine?
How many Ukrainian teenage girls still have to be raped by Russian soldiers and told they will continue to be raped so that they fear any future intimate relationships and give birth to Ukrainian babies?
How many more Ukrainian prisoners of war are to be tortured and then murdered by the Russian military, like those in Olenivka prison in Russian-occupied territory in the Donetsk region?
How many more Ukrainians, including children, are to be forcibly deported from their homes to Russia?
How many more millions of displaced persons and Ukrainian refugees will it take?
How many other Ukrainian cities are to be destroyed by Russian shelling, such as Borodyanka, Bucha, Irpin, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Mariupol?
How many more churches, hospitals, schools, cultural sites and residences are to be demolished in Ukraine by targeted Russian missile attacks?
How many more people must be starving in needy countries as Russia brazenly destroys Ukraine’s agricultural sector and wreaks havoc in Europe’s breadbasket?
How many more gas crises must be artificially created by the Kremlin to drive gas prices to record highs and destabilize the global economy?
How many other international agreements must be violated by the Kremlin – even before the ink dries – such as the Black Sea grain agreement?
How many other Western appeasement efforts must be crushed by the Kremlin and used as props for further Russian aggression, such as the lifting of sanctions on gas turbines by Canadian authorities at the behest of the Germans and encouraged by Americans ?
How many more acts of terrorism, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns need to take place inside and outside Ukraine, such as the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by Russian soldiers?
Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine and has escalated its hybrid aggression against the West, including the weaponization of refugees, food, gas and information.
NATO member countries understood this when they declared at their June 29 summit in Madrid that “Russia is the most important and direct threat to their security and to peace and stability in the euro atlantic area “.
However, they still do not fully understand that time is running out.
Indeed, if the member countries of NATO had acted in January when Russia mobilized its military troops on the Ukrainian border as they did after the outbreak of total war by Russia on February 24, it There wouldn’t have been such a war, because Putin’s language is the language of force.
Ukraine has a superb window of opportunity before winter to win this war, stop Putin and bring peace to Europe.
To ensure such an outcome, NATO member countries will have to provide Ukraine with additional financial assistance and the necessary weapons to enable it to impose a no-fly zone and push back the Russian army to the border between Ukraine and Russia. They will also have to tighten sanctions against Russia so that Western dollars do not continue to fund Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine.
If NATO member countries act quickly and effectively, we could still see peace in Europe, including Ukraine, in 2022.