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GELFAND’S WORLD –
Let us not forget.
A brief reminder: Early in 2022, the L.A. Opera was just starting to come back from the long Covid-19 closure. One performance included the orchestra and singers, along with the Hamburg Ballet, doing their interpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. At the moment that the performance was supposed to be starting, someone walked on-stage, solemnly carrying a flag, and a group sang some hymn or anthem. Most of us did not know the flag or the song, but people began to figure out that this had to do with the embattled people of Ukraine, and slowly everyone stood and quietly applauded. Since that time we have learned what the blue and yellow flag represents, and we have watched the news in shock and horror.
It’s been a long time. December 7, 1941 through August 1945 was less time. The Great War, now known as WWI, wasn’t much longer than the Ukraine conflict has already gone on. As of February 24, 2026, it will be four long years of war in Ukraine. We should remember.
But more than that, we as the American people should demand that our government provide the supplies and armament to Ukraine that are needed to continue the war. If Democrats in the Senate are willing to shut down some of our governmental operations to protect the inhabitants of American cities from attacks by ICE, perhaps they will remind themselves that there is another horror – a much worse horror – continuing and soon to be in its fifth year.
The actual estimates of Ukrainian dead are of course inaccurate, but it is believed that somewhere between fifteen and sixteen thousand civilians have been killed by Russian bombardment. Another hundred thousand or more soldiers have died in the conflict, with something on the order of half a million casualties, including both the wounded and the dead.
If we want to consider Russian losses then we would have to add another several-hundred-thousand dead, and lots more wounded. The casualties continue to accumulate at a high rate.
The Russian invasion was based on nothing in particular other than a land grab engineered by Vladimir Putin. Apologists for Russian imperialism pretend that there was something about the existence of NATO that led to the attack, but the history of the past 76 years is that NATO has always been a defensive organization, originally put together to defend western Europe against a Stalin-era Soviet attack. The Russians have one small point, which is that following the breakup of the USSR into multiple independent countries, a number of these new states, formerly members of the communist Warsaw Pact, did a 180 and joined NATO. But that is a counterfeit point, just an excuse, because the reason for these countries joining NATO was to protect themselves against exactly what Putin has been doing to Ukraine.
There are 3 major questions that ought to be reviewed as of this coming 4th anniversary. They include (1) the damage to Ukraine and its people and how capable they are of continuing the war (2) the strategic approach being used by Ukraine and how effective it is and (3) what is the American policy towards the war and how it differs from what it ought to be.
Taking these questions in order, the response to the first question is that Ukraine has suffered terribly, with death and mayhem distributed between civilians and members of the armed forces, but that the country appears to be capable of continuing its own defense.
As for the second question: Ukraine is of course weakened in terms of fatigue and declining resources (pundits have been talking about the need for artillery ammunition since the opening days of the war) but it has been remarkably adept in developing a new kind of drone warfare that has been used to attack Russian energy supplies and refineries, both in Ukraine and in Russia itself. At the beginning of the war, lots of us naive observers expected the Russians to gain total air superiority within a matter of days. This never happened. Russian weakness in delivering supplies and food to its own army became apparent early on. There is a consistent continuing story of how decrepit much of the old Russian equipment was (and remains). One additional point is that the modern day Russia is smaller and weaker both in industry and population compared to the Soviet Union back when it existed. The USSR that sustained casualties in the multi-millions fighting Germany no longer exists.
And there is the third question, which is what and how the United States should be responding. We might consider that Ukraine, given sufficient arms and a few additional troops, could most likely drive back the Russians and regain much or all of its lost territory, even including Crimea. This is what the U.S. and western Europe should be doing.
There is an additional consideration (a small word used to convey a truly scary thought) that the Russians have been threatening the use of nuclear arms for much of the conflict. This is, in and of itself, something that should be intolerable in international affairs. Here is a totally radical, half-insane idea that would solve this problem: Supply Ukraine with a few nuclear bombs of its own. An alternative approach would be to seed rumors that Ukraine is already developing or negotiating for nuclear arms. Of course a solution that would be better for long term world peace would be for the EU and the U.S. to end this war by driving the Russians from Ukraine, admitting Ukraine into NATO, and making clear that Hitlerian tactics are no longer acceptable in this nuclear-armed world.
On this upcoming fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, let the people of the world march and protest. Let us commemorate the losses and the sadness.
Addendum
If Los Angeles really wants to pull out of doing the 2028 Olympic games, we have a good excuse in terms of the ugly treatment of one Ukrainian athlete who tried to commemorate the deaths of his fellow athletes in the war.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
