OPINION: We should value the good fortune that we live in a decent, peaceful country

IT was such a beautiful Sunday. Everyone seemed to be in good form, out walking in the brilliant sunshine, many of them young families marking Mother’s Day. Long, long queues outside an ice cream van, children running freely hither and thither, and their dogs. All seemed so well with the world, which of course it isn’t. It probably never is.

We should value the good fortune that we live in a decent, peaceful country. Yes, we have our irritants, everywhere has, but what we have witnessed on our TV screens these past weeks from Ukraine helps put those same irritants in some perspective.

This past month has been a horror show for the people of Ukraine but it has changed matters fundamentally for the rest of us in the western world too. It has introduced a new seriousness into public affairs, which is welcome. Maybe, as a result, here in Ireland we will treat elections to the European Parliament in future with greater importance. We may stop using such elections as an opportunity to cast a protest vote which can result in us sending clowns to represent us there.

One very positive result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that it has united the EU and NATO in a way few of us have seen before. Clearly this was not anticipated either by Vladimir Putin, any more than he expected to meet such stern resistance from the people of Ukraine or its heroic President Zelenskiy.

But this war has effected an even deeper shift in the western mind. There was a growing view that greater trade between nations, including those ruled by dictators, was in itself a way of helping good relations between peoples and countries. It is why so many EU countries, such as Germany and Italy, as well as those further east, came to be so dependent on Russian gas and oil. They believed Putin was someone you could do business with. Indeed, but who ever suspected that by so doing you would end up funding his wars, such as his invasion of Ukraine.

It is why those countries are now so desperately trying to wean themselves from Russian fuels. This must continue even if there is some sort deal bringing to an end to the present travesty in Ukraine. The economic sanctions imposed against Russia must remain in place regardless. That is deserved but should also be a lesson to other dictators who might contemplate brutally invading a peaceful neighbour.

But there remains a troubling question. Putin has been making nuclear noises, a threat to intimidate the West from escalating the war in Ukraine. In August 2012 US President Barack Obama was asked what could lead him to use military force in Syria. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime,” he said, “that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.”

Well Assad did use chemical weapons on his people in Syria and the West, including Obama, did nothing. The West will have to bite the bullet in such matters when dealing with dictators who threaten to use their nuclear/chemical weapons, otherwise nowhere is safe. The West will have to face down such threats and not be intimidated by them as is the intention of the dictator. It is what bullies do to get their way and will continue doing until faced down.

Let us hope we never live to see such a showdown because, there can be little doubt, many of us would probably not survive it. What was it Einstein said – that World War IV would be fought with sticks.

Meantime we must support the people of Ukraine in every way we can. It is shocking to realise that more than 10 million people there – a quarter of the population - have been displaced since the end of February, with over 3.5 million now refugees in other countries.

It is likely that every one of us will meet some of these Ukrainian refugees in coming weeks as they arrive in communities all over Ireland. People like Tetiana Komarova and her daughter Yana (6) who spoke to The Irish Times last weekend as they made their way to Tullamore where a family has offered to take them in.

Tetiana is from Kyiv. “I did not want to leave Kyiv. All of my life was there. My husband worked in IT. I was the editor-in-chief of a magazine. Yana was in school. We had a one bedroom flat in Irpin where my husband’s mother lived. She died two weeks before the war. Now, we don’t even know if the house exists,” she said.

“This is all I have now,” she added as she gestured towards her silver suitcase and the clothes she wears.

They spent 14 hours crossing the border to Poland, and Yana cried “all the way on the bus [because] she understood she was leaving her father behind. It was very hard for her… We’re trying to have a call every day. I’m trying to be in a good mood for her. I cry in the morning and at night when she doesn’t see me.” That’s just the experience of one small family sundered by this war.

Now in Tullamore, Tetiana left her country for Warsaw from where she flew to Ireland. Poland has taken in more Ukrainians than any surrounding country; it is estimated that of more than 3.5 million people who have fled the war, about 2 million have gone to Poland. Warsaw itself has seen its population increase by almost 20 per cent.

Back in Ukraine the Russians shifted gear at the weekend announcing, as their invasion entered its second month with no major city captured, that its focus would now be on taking the eastern Donbas region controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014.

Local Donbas officials said at the weekend that they could soon hold a referendum to join Russia, copying what happened in Crimea after Russian invaded there in 2014. In a vote not recognised by most countries, a majority of the electorate decided to join Russia. It seems likely now that Russia will concentrate its attentions on annexing the eastern Ukraine provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.

This is a recipe for a long war of attrition as the people of Ukraine are intent on not conceding an inch of their country to Russia.  No doubt, in this, they will be strongly supported by the West, militarily and financially.

As a prelude to a resumption of talks between negotiating teams from Ukraine and Russia in Turkey this week, President Zelenskiy mooted the idea of a referendum on neutrality. Currently a provision in the Ukraine constitution spells out its intention to join NATO. He has indicated this could be dropped by referendum as part of a peace deal with Russia.

But it is hard to see either him or his people agree to Russian annexation of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, particularly after the slaughter of the past month. That has created a new, much stronger sense of Ukrainian identity than existed before February 24. It is even said to now include very many among Russian-speaking Ukrainians who previously would have looked favourably on Moscow.