Rallying Around Ukraine

Until a couple of weeks ago, 21-year-old Hlib Bondarenko was working in Ukraine as a computer programmer. But when Russian forces invaded his country on February 24, his world changed overnight. Like hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainians, Bondarenko joined the military to help defend his country.

“I wouldn’t really want to participate in anything like this, but I don’t really have any choice because this is my home,” he explained as he waited in line for a weapon with other volunteers eager to defend Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has turned life upside down—not just for Ukrainians like Bondarenko—but also for much of the world beyond Ukraine’s borders. People everywhere are watching in real time as a nuclear-armed authoritarian nation tries to take over a neighboring country of 44 million people with a democratically elected government. The situation has upended the international norms that have largely kept the peace in Europe for more than 75 years. 

The fighting has so far killed thousands, including many Ukrainian civilians, reduced thriving communities to rubble, and prompted more than 3 million Ukrainians to flee their country, with many streaming into Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and beyond. Diplomatic attempts to negotiate an end to the fighting are ongoing, but so far, they’ve been unsuccessful.

Seeing the war unfold has shocked the world into responding with a unity not seen since World War II. The United States has worked closely with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and New Zealand to impose harsh economic sanctions against Russia—the harshest ever inflicted on a single country, dwarfing those in place against North Korea. The U.S. has effectively frozen the assets of Russia’s central bank, kicked several major Russian banks out of the international system for electronic money transfers, and banned the importation of Russian oil. 

Beyond that, Putin’s invasion has transformed the European Union from a group of 27 often squabbling nations into a unified block that quickly agreed to provide Ukraine with more than half-a-billion dollars in aid for lethal weapons. Germany, which since the end of World War II has been reluctant to spend more than a token amount on its military, changed course abruptly and poured more than $100 billion into its defense budget. Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland have all abandoned their long traditions of neutrality and sided firmly against Russia. Even the often deadlocked U.S. Congress overcame partisan divides to pass a nearly $14 billion aid package for Ukraine that includes weapons and humanitarian aid.

“It’s a sea change,” says Anne-Claire Legendre, the spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry. “A new world has defied Putin.”

What did Putin do to provoke this unprecedented response? On February 24, after months of making threats and massing troops on Ukraine’s border, Russian troops invaded from the east, from the north, and from the South. Within days, apartment buildings and shopping complexes were being destroyed with artillery, and millions of Ukrainians were fleeing for their lives. 

Putin said he launched the invasion because the presence of NATO troops and weapons in countries along Russia’s border threaten Russia’s security. Experts say his underlying aim is to reclaim the international status his country had when the Soviet Union was one of the world’s two great superpowers (see “Does Russia Want War?” in the Feb. 21, 2022, issue of Upfront). 

But the Ukrainian military didn’t collapse within days. Resistance has been fierce, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an international hero for his refusal to flee or to give in to Russian invaders. 

“We will fight till the end, at sea, in the air,” Zelensky said in a video address to the British Parliament, echoing the famous words of Winston Churchill during World War II. “We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”

With each passing day, it’s becoming clearer that Putin dramatically miscalculated not only the grit of the Ukrainian people to resist militarily, but also the economic consequences for Russia. 

In addition to all the official sanctions, a growing list of American companies—including Shell, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola—have voluntarily announced that they’re no longer doing business in Russia. Mastercard and Visa have stopped operating there. The result in Russia has been a collapse of the economy, with people seeing the value of their savings evaporate and the Western brands and conveniences they’re used to disappear. 

In their entirety, the sanctions have in the space of a few weeks effectively undone 30 years of economic integration with the West. The Institute of International Finance, a Washington-based association of financial firms, predicts that Russia will see a 15-percent decline in its gross domestic product this year, which would wipe out much of the economic growth that Putin has presided over since taking office in 1999.

Many experts point out that sanctions, however, have a long history of failing to alter the behavior of rogue states or leaders. The question now is whether sanctions on this unprecedented scale can have an impact on Putin’s actions. 

The U.S. is in a tricky position: It wants to support Ukraine and punish Russia, but it doesn’t want to provoke a nuclear-armed nation into escalating the fight, military experts say. Although President Biden today announced an additional $800 million in military aid, he has vowed to keep American troops out of the conflict.

“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews—just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III,” Biden told a group of Democratic lawmakers.

Within Russia, Putin has choked off dissent. All independent news outlets were effectively shut down within eight days of the invasion. Official news sources give the Kremlin’s distorted version of events in Ukraine, calling the invasion a “special military operation” rather than the war that the rest of the world sees clearly. A new law was quickly passed that punishes any mention of a “war” on social media, in a news article, or in a broadcast with up to 15 years in jail. 

For all of Putin’s repression over the past two decades, Russia—until last month—remained a place with extensive travel connections to the rest of the world, a mostly uncensored internet giving a platform to independent media, a thriving tech industry, and a world-class arts scene. Slices of Western middle-class life—Ikea, Starbucks, affordable foreign cars—were widely available.

But when they woke up on the morning of the invasion, many Russians knew that all that was over. Dmitry Aleshkovsky, a journalist, got in his car the next day and drove to Latvia. He’s not alone. Tens of thousands of Russians have fled their homeland since the invasion. They’re outraged by what they see as a criminal war, worried about getting drafted into the army, or concerned that their livelihoods are no longer viable back home.

“It became totally clear that if this red line has been crossed, nothing will hold him back anymore,” Aleshkovsky says of Putin. “Things will only get worse.”

For Ukraine, the situation is already much worse. A European country that a month ago had a comfortable standard of living, a growing economy, and advanced technology is being reduced to rubble through indiscriminate bombing. But that destruction seems to be binding Ukrainians together more tightly than ever.

“Putin made a major miscalculation invading my country,” says Genevia, an 18-year-old Ukrainian from Kyiv. “Teenagers and 80-year-olds are taking part in resolving the conflict. Everyone is doing their part. Putin wanted to divide us. We’ve never been more united.” 

With reporting by Anton Troianovski, Patrick Kingsley, Roger Cohen, Damien Cave, and Julie Creswell of The New York Times.