First published in Ukrainian in the April 2024 issue of NV magazine.
For the past two years, the West has been desperately trying to avoid World War III.
It forbids Ukraine to use its weaponry to strike Russia. It does not even try to shoot down missiles that fly over its territory. It is horrified by the idea of sending instructors to Ukrainian training grounds. Time after time it repeats that we need to “avoid escalation”.
All along one can sense an attempt to keep the war within a bilateral framework. To limit it in space and geography. The West is desperately trying to preserve itself in the logic in which it has lived for the past decades. And it sees our war as the main obstacle to that.
That’s nice, but it won’t work.
History doesn’t repeat itself – it only rhymes. But if we look for an analogy in the twentieth century that could fit Ukraine, it is Czechoslovakia in the runup to WW2. The only difference is that in our version of history Czechoslovakia was not left on its own. On the contrary, Ukraine was helped with money and weapons. And in this sense, it is 1940, but the Wehrmacht has not invaded Poland, occupied France, or bombed British cities, because it is still blunting its military teeth against the army of Czechoslovakia.
This is the peculiarity of our situation. Our partners behave as if we were fighting our own war. They lose sight of the fact that only our resistance allows them to remain in a situation of peace.
Europe owes all its stability to Ukraine. We are buying their people time to rearm. It is we who give them a chance to increase their military budgets. It is our experience that allows them to adapt to modern warfare. Europeans have had the opportunity to learn what a war between two professional armies looks like – because before, all their military experience was limited to confronting guerrilla movements.
When they talk about the consequences of war, they are terrified of Russian defeat. They see in it the threat of a nuclear strike. The threat of an uncontrolled collapse of the empire. A second front in the Baltic States and sabotage in the center of Europe. But they would do well to ask themselves what happens if Ukraine is defeated.
Millions of refugees. Concentration camps and repression. Dozens of new Mariupols and hundreds of new Buchas. A humanitarian catastrophe and Russian tanks at NATO’s borders. And most importantly, Moscow’s conviction that it has managed to win the first act of the war with the North Atlantic alliance.
The West may not see itself as a party to the conflict, but more importantly Moscow sees it as a party to the conflict. Russia lives in its own logic – and in its description of reality, it has been fighting for the past two years not an independent state, i.e. Ukraine, but the vanguard of a hostile empire. Moscow will regard Ukraine’s defeat only as evidence of someone else’s weakness. And it may decide that this success should be built on.
The Kremlin has had time to say goodbye to the old era. Our partners have not. That is why Germany refuses to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles. That is why the United States asks Kyiv not to bomb Russian oil refineries. That’s why Poland calls for limiting Ukrainian exports to Europe. Against this background, France, which promises to give Ukraine decommissioned military equipment instead of scrapping it, looks like a model of determination.
But the point is that Ukraine is a bulwark. A bulwark that takes the brunt of the elements. That protects Europe from global war. The bulwark that, if it goes down, will force all the others to pick up their military uniforms and send their people to the trenches instead of flirting with their farmers.
Our war remains two-sided and localized only because we are still hanging on. As soon as we no longer have the resources to do so – the war will get to the rest of you. An empire has no borders – it has only horizons. And if the Russian president thinks the world he grew up in is ideal, you can look at maps of Europe from the 1970s.
Everything we now live throuh is not a deviation. Not an accidental distortion, not a mistake of history or the whim of a dictator. It is a reality that was meant for everyone, but in the path of which our country has been placed. If we lose, those who survive will always be able to say the sacramental “we warned you”. The main thing is that there should be someone to do it.
The question is not whether European weapons will do the fighting. The question is who exactly will use them. If it is Ukraine, then Ukraine’s neighbors could retain the comfortable role of rear, purse and repair shop. But if European voters “get tired of the war” and decide that Ukraine should defend itself on its own, then it may be the Europeans themselves.
If Czechoslovakia had not been abandoned, the onslaught of WW2 might have been in question. World War 3 is not starting only because Ukraine is still figthing.
Author: Pavlo Kazarin
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