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The Ukrainian people are in disbelief about what is happening in the world arena. International communities once revered as top professionals have been exposed as nothing more than talking heads - the question is, whose talking heads are they? Germany, France, Italy and Hungary haven't failed to disappoint Ukrainians every single day for the last two months. They started peace talks with Putin but failed to include Ukraine. President Zelensky remarked that they might consider including Ukraine, but the sarcasm apparently went over decisionmakers' heads because the secretive talks continued among Putin's old pals. There is also a haze of disbelief that after 111 days of war there still isn't any offensive potential for the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian army is barely holding its own and has been forced to retreat and abandon positions. Giving up positions means not only miles of Ukrainian land, but also the people who live on that land. Retreating soldiers have no choice but to abandon people in their houses if these people refuse to move along with the front line. Once you retreat and the enemy takes your position you can't help but wonder that if you are shooting back, you are actually aiming at your own people who stayed behind. The reason why the Ukrainian army is forced to retreat is simple. There are two types of artillery actively used in modern warfare. The first is called active artillery, which are now mostly represented by howitzers. It's called active because the projectile is activated by an explosion that pushes the projectile out of the barrel. The second type is called reactive. This type has its own engine strapped to it and propels itself. Reactive artillery reaches distances of three to five times further. In a nutshell, Ukraine has limited active artillery spread out thinly over the 1,600-mile Russian border with Ukraine, whereas Russians have abundant supplies of reactive artillery that shoots at Ukraine from any which point they choose. And shoot they do, all day and all night, for three and a half months now. When the Russians shoot, they shoot a lot further than Ukrainians can ever hope to reach. Every day people ask why the West isn't helping us. This is all you hear on the news and in real life conversations. But no answer is forthcoming that makes sense to the people who lost children, parents, loved ones and friends, people who watched their homes shelled or bombed into debris. There is no answer that makes sense to them because there is no answer that makes sense. So Ukrainians have come up with an explanation: the West is not ready to live in a world where a malicious fearsome dictator has fallen at the hands of a field-grazing cow called Ukraine. The perceived conflict is, what will the world do next? Is the old Europe ready to acknowledge Ukraine as the slayer of the great Russian bear? Ukrainians think the West is just not ready to recognize Ukraine as David in the battle against Goliath. This conclusion is easy to understand. If a country wants to share the glory of good triumphing over evil - come join the fight. Ukraine invited anybody and everybody, but every country found a reason, nay, an excuse, to stand aside. As it turns out the world is not ready to face the new reality, so much so that we all rush to forget Bucha and all the other monstrosities that our old pal Putin created.
But this could be mere rationalization of the irrational, as people must find answers to explain why something so horrible as this Russian slaughter of the Ukrainian people is happening. Serge A is of Ukrainian descent, grew up in Brooklyn and is volunteering in Ukraine as a legally armed member of a Territorial Defense Group. He was a columnist for the newspaper at Pace University which he attended as an undergrad.
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