Two Years Later

February 24, 2022, is recognized by every Ukrainian, including Ukrainians in the Santa Barbara community, as a horrific day that marked the beginning of an unjustified and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by neighboring Russia.

Bombs and rockets began to hit our cities, villages and lands. Children and adults were murdered, tortured, threatened, and displaced. Hospitals, schools, museum, historic sites, protected lands, animal farms, and numerous civilian dwellings were purposefully targeted for destruction. Entire cities, such as Mariupol, and their citizens were almost entirely wiped off the face of earth.

An active campaign of dehumanization and demonization of Ukrainians was on the way: The Kremlin pronounced all Ukrainians as “nazis” and declared that they were committing atrocities as part of their “peace-keeping special military operation.”

In these last two years, one in two Ukrainians in Ukraine became a refugee or a temporarily displaced person. Human rights and genocide watch groups such as such as the Raul Wallenberg Centre conducted several legal analyses that classify Russian atrocities as a genocide. Human rights groups such as those from Yale University verified at least 6,000 Ukrainian children were abducted from their families by Russian troops while Ukrainian human rights groups have identified more than 19,000 Ukrainian children who are believed to be abducted and whose Ukrainian families are desperately searching for them. On Russian-occupied territories people are routinely tortured, raped, threatened, manipulated, put through “filtration camps,” and exploited.

Ukrainians have withstood and are fighting against this invasion of their homes and lands. Ukraine has been made by Russia the most mine-filled place in the world, targeting people and wildlife on both occupied and de-occupied areas of Ukraine.

All of us as Ukrainians in our Santa Barbara communities have lost friends or family members, family homes or treasured places. All of us have been supporting Ukraine since this invasion in every way we can. We have felt profoundly grateful to all of you in our community and beyond who has supported Ukrainian struggle to fight back this aggression and to recover, whether your donation was small or large.

Several weeks ago we gathered for our rally — to grieve the war, to support each other, and to continue naming Russia as the aggressor and the importance of fighting the injustice and its attempted genocidal occupation — with families, kids, grieving Ukrainians. Yet there came external calls for “peace,” “ceasefire,” and “negotiation with Russia.” Notably, none came from Ukrainians themselves. Because confusion and reluctance to keep the course of justice is growing (often fueled by continued propaganda about “separatists,” “NATO,” or “Nazis” in Ukraine), we as the Ukrainian community want to stress the following important facts in this war.

There is a clear, identified aggressor: Russia and its Kremlin totalitarian government. What true peace means in Ukraine is the aggressor (i.e., Russia) stopping its violence and being held responsible for atrocities. Importantly, if Russia stops its fighting in Ukraine, the war will be over; if Ukraine stops fighting in Ukraine, Ukraine will be over. And so, to those individuals who are confused by rhetoric of “peace” or uncertain about how to continue, we recommend always beginning with accurate information such as direct witness accounts. The Oscar-winning documentary 20 Days in Mariupol offers this. We encourage individuals to listen to Ukrainians themselves (and question any group which speaks on behalf of “Ukrainians” while excluding their voices). In regard to what peace means, we especially recommend listening to the 2022 Nobel Peace prize lecture by the Ukrainian human rights leader Oleksandra Matviyuchuk.

Moreover, to everyone wishing for “peace” and “negotiation,” we strongly recommend taking up the protests in Moscow’s Red Square so that those responsible for this war and atrocities can hear them most clearly (i.e., considering that even the mention of word “war” lands people in Gulags in Russia, possibly call for “negotiations” should be reconsidered with such groups). We also urge everyone fighting for “peace” to actively demand “justice,” such as the return of tens of thousands of abducted Ukrainian children, closing all the filtration camps and gulags in which Ukrainian (and other) political and war prisoners are being tortured, and demanding the end of genocide and ecocide in Ukraine.

In short, we Ukrainians hope that all of us together stand on the side of human rights and fighting for what is right, however arduous, long, and challenging it might be.