Ticked Talk

Heart to heart

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I’m ticked off about a lot of things right now.  I’m ticked off that I’m forced to post this entry and not the terrific comic I’ve been working on, ticked off that I spent most of the day packing, not drawing, deciding what to carry and what to abandon. I’m ticked off at Putin and his 130,000 troops - and more every day - camping out on the border.

I’m ticked off that I am leaving Kyiv soon, not knowing if I’ll ever return, but also not knowing if it is really necessary. I’m going to the western Ukrainian city Lviv. It’ll be safer there, supposedly, and close to a friendly border. My family and US friends have urged me to leave. I appreciate the concern, but they don’t realize what they are asking - the emotional toll of being forced to leave home and the city I love. I have attachments here, friends, weekend plans, a daily routine, the red squirrels, all the things it’s taken me months to figure out how to navigate: my pool membership, the farmers markets, how to order water, how to pay the house-bills.

I’m ticked off with the western media. They - and I have to say a long series of alarming US statements are driving this also - have created war-fever far hotter than we feel here in Ukraine. They’ve featured several articles with luridly illustrated maps showing all the projected invasion routes. Every day their reports make it seem as though the tanks are on the way. On Twitter, news media hotshots are announcing their arrival in Ukraine as though they are here for a party. One gushed from a tony restaurant about eating Chicken Kyiv - like it’s the national dish. It’s not. 

I’m ticked off on behalf of my Ukrainian friends and students. These are the people, especially my young students, who yearn to live as we do in the west: with democracy, freedom, a normal economy, reliable infrastructure, a future for their children, high consumer, safety and construction standards, and bureaucracies that aren’t based on the Soviet model. This desire is what is driving events. Ukrainians want to become more western. Putin hates that.

My students are in the midst of life. Many are parents of small children. Many have relatives and friends living close to the Russian border. Two are about to move their young families into newly built apartments. One of their employers offered the opportunity to relocate to western Ukraine. Great, but what about his children’s school? Does he abandon his new apartment to the Russians and looters? Like window glass in a bombardment, accomplishments, hopes and lives can be easily smashed.

Another student just got a promotion. Two others are working on their masters-degrees in business management. A couple of my friends are entrepreneurs, daily struggling to pay the rent, trying to recover from Covid business losses. Another friend lives in a city two hours from the front lines. She has a 13-year-old son, parents in a nearby town, and a civic laboratory job she cannot afford to lose. What is she to do? 

Another friend is already a victim of the Russians, as many here are. Her family home is in the occupied territory. Her elderly mother lives there. Will she fall victim again? Imagine trying to sleep at night with the uncertainty and memories.

I’m ticked off at Germany for waffling on sanctions, and refusing to approve the shipment of some NATO arms to Ukraine. Financial ties between the two countries have made Russian economic issues into German economic issues - another clever Putin move. The supposed blockbuster sanction, removing Russia from the SWIFT banking system, has disappeared from the list.

I’m ticked off at NATO, which for thirty-two years - THIRTY TWO YEARS!! has watched Russia work NATO’s own rules against itself, starting frozen conflicts in countries that would like to join NATO. By the rules: “internal jurisdictional disputes” must be settled by peaceful means before a country can join the NATO club. So all Putin has to do is stir up an internal dispute with proxies, then refuse to make peace. THIRTY TWO YEARS of frozen conflicts in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. Yet NATO is still flummoxed by its own rules, run around by Putin like an elderly cat trying to catch a laser-light. 

I’m ticked off that Biden and NATO took military response off the table, and I’m ticked off that Russia has so successfully shifted the focus from the real issue: restoring occupied regions to Ukraine.

But what I’m most ticked off about is how much this looks like 1939 all over again, and no world leaders will admit it, even the leaders of the very countries who chose in 1939 to stand aside and appease Hitler. Down the drain are the lessons we supposedly learned: stand up to authoritarians with strength, not starched collars, and don’t think appeasement will do anything but delay the inevitable.