I think Western leadership, regardless the person be it government or the private sector, needs to remember where Ukraine’s national military was at the time of the Maidan. There was no Ukrainian military at the time of the Maidan.
The then president of Ukraine was a puppet for Russia and completely disarmed Ukraine. The national military was in name only. In place of the national military for Ukraine, Yanukovych established militias with the Ukraine oligarchs. Those oligarchs serve at the pleasure of the president, therefore, the Pro-Russia militias were in place to control the people during any armed insurrection.
What occurred at the Maidan was an extension of that oligarch directive.
When I hear President Zelenskyy speak about returning Ukraine to it’s sovereign borders including Crimea and eastern Ukraine I hear someone who has not only felt the oppression that Putin is trying to exert now, but, also a man who watched a disarmed Ukraine lose pieces of itself against it’s will.
What the West needs to understand about this, is the sheer will and determination the Ukraine military has conducted to reconstitute it’s strength and capabilities to civil fight a war after 2014, and to date repel an attack to annihilate any Ukrainian that was alive and breathing. That is a people to admire and realize the strength of people to demand a government where democracy and the Rule of Law matter.
Ukraine deserves every advantage the world can give it. They are a magnificent country to live through decades of disappoint and attempted oppression at a time when authoritarianism and dictatorial heads of state are raising their ugly heads in attacking democracy. Ukraine is literally telling the world that freedom and self-governance is the only path for civilized people.
