The war has taken the best of us; Ukraine’s future is up to the rest of us.
One of the most terrifying aspects of the war for me - up there with the graphic videos and the tiny burned bodies and the unfathomable casualty counts climbing higher daily - is the fear that russia has already won.
Even if Putin withdrew his troops tomorrow, too many of our best people are already gone. The strongest, the bravest, the most selfless. The ones who signed up to fight in the first days. The ones who volunteered to bring humanitarian aid into frontline territories. The ones who could have left but refused.
I find myself wondering whether it’s too late - whether russia has hollowed out Ukraine’s soul beyond the point of no return. Maybe the end game is not to win the territory or topple the government, but to cripple the Ukrainian identity. To take all of our heroes until the nation is a monolith of indifference, little people living little lives with little energy left over to care for their community or for their homeland.
It is Saturday morning and I am with my children at the “first bell” ceremony for our local Ukrainian school. Over 200 children and their parents - members of the diaspora, recent immigrants, and everyone in between - have gathered outside a school building in a bustling suburb. “Dear Ukrainian community,” our new principal starts the ceremony. Some go silent, but most don’t. As the principal tries to make her opening speech, dozens of families continue to laugh and talk loudly. Several people try to shush them, with limited results.
Later in the school year, the administration will beg parents to sign up for the mandatory family duties - helping in the lunchroom or monitoring the halls. These are essential tasks to ensure the school can run; if every family participates, each one only needs to volunteer three times.
But every family won’t participate. In fact, parents who spend the entire morning hanging out in the cafeteria will get up and run at the sight of someone trying to ask for help.
“The problem with our people”, a parent tells me, “is this entitlement. They expect everything to be handed to them. They don’t feel it’s their responsibility”.
The next Monday, I am scrolling through emails from my nonprofit’s volunteers, who meet with Ukrainians each week to practice English and offer a friendly ear. Among logistical questions and messages of thanks, I hear from volunteers who are distraught because their student keeps no-showing to sessions with no reason or apology, or complains that the sessions are boring without suggesting alternatives, or demands the volunteer give them double or triple the promised time.
That evening, I join a WhatsApp chat for an advocacy coalition planning to visit Congress to advocate for Ukraine. The group chat buzzes with introductions and announcements. But before long, one of the delegates chimes in to push their own agenda and undermine the coalition’s leaders. Others cut off this line of discourse, but the next day, it will pop back up.
All of these moments lead me to one thought. “Tens of thousands of soldiers died for us. Are we worth dying for?”
When we talk about Ukraine’s enemies, we focus on the evil invading from russia and the corruption gnawing at our democracy from within. But we have another enemy: our boorishness, our selfishness, our vulgarity.
In case I sound like I am lecturing, let me assure you - I do not abdicate myself of responsibility. Because my job is running a nonprofit, people sometimes view me with a saintly glow. It’s a mirage: I am no Mother Theresa. By nature, I am volatile, shallow, and hedonistic. I post stupid things online and occasionally avoid my parent duties at Ukrainian school.
But every day, I try to be better. Because I feel the ghosts of our heroes and I’d like to be deserving of their sacrifice. My ghosts are the Ghosts of Kyiv, Juice and Moonfish, fighter pilots whom I was honored to work with at the beginning of the war. Both of them gave their lives for Ukraine after successfully advocating for F-16 fighter jets to defend our sky - Juice just over a year ago, and Moonfish shortly after the first anniversary of Juice’s death.
I think about them regularly and I don’t want their deaths to be in vain. So, even when life gets overwhelming, I try to keep supporting Ukraine in any way I can. But also, on a smaller scale, I look for opportunities to help people around me. I try to be considerate and not obnoxious. To give others grace.
In the first days of the war, when we all formed frantic group chats on WhatsApp, Facebook, Signal, experienced volunteers circulated talking points for regular Ukrainians caught in media interviews. Be polite. Be grateful. Talk about your love for Ukraine, not how excited you are to be out of there.
They provided this advice for PR reasons - to ensure the world’s continued support, the weapons and sanctions we were begging for. But there’s another, bigger reason to be good people. Because, while we can dream that our land will return to us, our heroes will not. And so we have to be the heroes. For them.
Author: Kateryna Manoff