Ukraine – what should we be doing
I think we have to be out in the streets demonstrating on behalf of Ukraine. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/russia-ukraine-invasion-protests/6/ We also need to show our support for those Russians with the bravery to demonstrate against Putin. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/02/photos-anti-war-protests-russia/622914/ This is particularly important as the widespread erosion of domestic support and turning it into active opposition will stop Putin’s war.
For those who can, we should be helping support Ukrainians in their hours of need. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/saltzman/2022/02/24/ukraine-help-support-app-website-donations/6923840001/ We need our governments to step up their sanctions on Putin while providing financial and military support for Ukraine.
Russian leaders need to be held to account for their invasion. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083006841/world-leaders-fine-tune-punitive-measures-against-russia
We need to call out and rebut the Russian disinformation campaign. https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/02/25/the-disinformation-war-the-falsehoods-about-the-ukraine-invasion-and-how-to-stop-them-spre
We need to identify and forcefully rebut and isolate those Americans who are helping to spread Putin’s lies. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/2022/02/trump-shows-what-putin-gets-right-about-america
We need to identify and use non-violent strategies that will succeed against heavily armed, nuclear backed aggression. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/ Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela ultimately succeeded by using nonviolence against their armed aggressors. There are 46 million Ukrainians who oppose Putin’s war. They can become guerilla fighters and saboteurs resisting the Russian invasion and takeover, and/or they can use non-violence to counter Putin at every turn. I hope for and encourage sustained nonviolent resistance both in Russia as well as in Ukraine. Globally, we can and should all do the same.
During the Spanish Civil War, the Lincoln Brigades were formed of volunteers from around the world to fight Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Can this type of volunteer reinforcements find their way into Ukraine to help the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom and democracy? Worth a try.
Putin (and his cronies) must become pariahs with no support, the emperor with no clothes, the ones that all global leaders will shun at every turn and every gathering. We must accelerate the shift to alternative energy sources in ways that will paralyze the ability of Putin to finance his use of armed forces to invade his neighbors through oil and gas revenues.
We need to fortify and support all NATO allies along the Russian and Ukrainian borders. An aggressive Putin willing to use force instead of diplomacy, war instead of negotiations to resolve disputes with Russia’s neighbors has to be contained, restrained and made to pay a heavy price. Putin is now threatening nuclear holocaust to get his way in Ukraine.