A phone call means you won’t be buffeted by the bad news anymore. You are pushing back.
By Paul R. Huard
Monday marks the three-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
On Feb. 24, 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched an unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine under the direct orders of President Vladimir Putin.
It marked the first time since World War II that a European “great power” attacked and invaded another sovereign European nation. The result: 41,000 civilians killed, 14 million refugees, and as much as $155 billion in property and infrastructure destruction to date.
However, I readily admit that Ukraine’s battle for survival is more than a set of statistics to me.
I know many people there — and some of them as close friends. I have seen with my own eyes the results of indiscriminate warfare waged even on children, including the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv that was intentionally targeted by a Russian guided missile strike on July 8, 2024.
War crimes and near-daily bombings of civilians by Russia abound.
Tragically, I have seen America’s commitment to Ukraine as well as a rules-based international order dashed within the last two weeks by President Donald Trump. He states that Putin — a man with blood on his hands — should not only gain everything he wants through a “peace process,” but also should be seen as a potential ally.
(Trump’s idea may be an effort to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing as part of his China-focused foreign policy. I say that any U.S.-Russian alliance now would smack of the villainous 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact that resulted in Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin agreeing to spheres of influence where they carved up Central Europe between them.)
These events, and more, leave me in a state of white-hot fury.
Yet, I know Ukrainians — their resolve, their tenacity, and their bravery are my example.
When President Trump ridiculously claimed Wednesday that Ukraine started the war (a Kremlin talking point, by the way) Ukrainians were shocked and sickened. Then, they rallied around their beleaguered President Volodymyr Zelensky and their national cause.
“It is a like a breath of fresh air,” said my friend Sofiya, a Ukrainian who helps run a women’s refugee shelter near the Polish-Ukrainian border. “People have an optimism and defiance that I have not seen in months. We are Ukrainians. We are strong.”
In the face of such backbone, I have no time for dejection. I must take action.
I will continue to support Ukraine. I urge you to do the same.
If you are already an ally, I ask you to contact our member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Cliff Bentz, and our two U.S. Senators, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.
Call their Capitol Hill offices. (You can find the phone number using your preferred search engine.) Don’t use an app — make it a personal phone call and tell the staff member who answers that you want your elected official to hold President Trump’s feet to the fire when he uses falsehoods and out-right Russian propaganda to make his case for abandoning Ukraine. Say you want Ukraine included in any peace negotiations — now.
If you are sympathetic to Ukraine but feel overwhelmed by everything else now occurring in American politics, consider this: A phone call means you won’t be buffeted by the bad news anymore. You are pushing back. You making are a difference. Believe me, it feels great.
If you think the war is someone else’s problem, consider this:
Ukraine is not only fighting against Russian neo-imperialism. Putin has repeatedly proclaimed that Russia is at war with NATO and its strongest partner, the United States.
Russia meddles in our elections through disinformation and propaganda attacks. It routinely attempts cyberwarfare against our digital infrastructure. It possesses the largest inventory of strategic nuclear weapons in the world and Putin makes repeated threats to attack Europe and the United States.
Ukraine is the shield of Europe. If it falls, Europe is next — and twice in the 20th Century the United States came to the military aid of Europe not because we were nice, but because of the hard-edged political and economic reality that a totalitarian Europe would be a danger to our nation.
Those wars were the most destructive in human history and history doesn’t have to repeat itself if we know better.
Please join me in action. Ukraine’s fight is our fight. Ukraine’s survival is our survival.
Do not give up on the people who are fighting for us all.
Paul R. Huard worked as a reporter covering government and the U.S. military for Gannett Newspapers. His career also included grant-funded overseas assignments to report about Estonia’s role in NATO and the legacy of the Spanish Civil War. He now teaches U.S. history and literature at Ashland High School. From 2022 to 2024, he spent most of his summer breaks volunteering in Poland and Ukraine to assist Ukrainians suffering from the effects of the war. Last year, he received a fellowship from the Davis Center at Harvard University to develop secondary school curriculum about contemporary Ukrainian history. He will continue to volunteer in Ukraine when he can.
