If Russia is losing, why did Zelensky bet for a no-fly zone?
Dragging all this out is killing Ukrainian civilians. And, the powers that be couldn't careless.
I’ve recently tried to put the growing civilian casualties in Ukraine in some kind of historic perspective.
I think that much of our reaction to the scenes from the war has us rivetted to our news sources and polarized in our opinions. We can imagine the horror of losing loved ones in a bombed out maternity hospital or a theater and our immediate reaction is, “Make it stop”. While the videos of apartment buildings getting hit by rockets or artillery make ghastly television, I don’t agree that we should be measuring the Ukrainian reaction to their own non-combatant casualties by American standards.
We don’t ask ourselves how many civilians died in the Blitz in London, or the bombing raids over Berlin. Through his policies, Stalin ended the lives of 5 million Ukrainians in the 1930’s through pogroms and starvation. I don’t see anyone getting to worked up about these much more horrendous examples of man’s inhumanity to man.
We can debate endlessly whether Ukraine is winning or losing, retreating or advancing on the battlefield. Some are certainly calling for Zelenskyy to surrender to end the civilian suffering. Others demand Western intervention to ‘make it stop’. Personally, I think that this action would cause immeasurably more suffering not just in Ukraine but perhaps across the face of the planet. But in the end, I think that the Ukrainians can decide for themselves the extent to which they are willing to accept civilian casualties and when it is time to say “enough”.
Just my 2 cents worth...