_Hardship makes people stronger._
This is true, but I am worried about Ukraine. They chose wrong 20+ years ago in not working hard towards becoming free like several other former slaves of Soviet Empire. While countries like Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Baltics etc.. have a reasonable prosperity after their hard work now, then Ukraine has known only hardship for the past 20 years. It is a hard sell for a politician to truthfully say you can change course now and expect 20 years of more hardship when he is opposed by populist liars with sweet promises that liars don’t even need to come true to get their payoff.
Especially considering that these now successful countries laid the foundation of that success at the time when Russia was not yet so full of oil money and thus could not so effectively take up punishment operations.
We can only pray, but my judgment is, this war has created a Ukrainian state. Things seem very different than they were before in that country. The patriotism and their embracing of a Ukrainian identity does not seem to me to be a temporary phenomena.