Letter: Ukraine deserves better support

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed ..."

This week in 1968, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its small western neighbor in order to crush that country's drift toward democracy.

With no support from Western allies, the little country's short resistance was quickly crushed under the tread of Soviet tanks, and the new "Moscow protocol" ushered in two more decades of bleak Russian occupation.

That country was Czechoslovakia, my home, from which I escaped in 1983, also on this day.

I have since wondered what the world learned from this event.

My answer came in 2022, when Ukraine bravely stood up to Russian tanks rolling through its streets.

They didn't know if anyone would stand with them and they still fought back. They fight still, outnumbered and outgunned because they know that backing down to Russian expansionism and brutality only begets more Russian expansionism and brutality.

Ukrainians paid attention in history class. Did Western allies?

We are in the third year of Russia bombing Ukrainian children, mothers and the elderly in their homes, in their sleep, and the West still debates, prevaricates, deliberates, contemplates and pontificates what kind of support to provide to Ukraine, or whether to provide any support at all.

The West also debates how much, whether it's going to arrive on time, or at all, or in good order, or ever again, or whether Ukrainians will be allowed to use it efficiently, as they see fit to defend their own country.

We ignore history at our peril. And those who fail to learn from history are doomed to watch it roll back in on newer tanks.

Ukraine not only fights to restore its sovereignty and liberate millions of its citizens from the Kremlin’s brutality, it is defending democracy by holding the line in eastern Ukraine

Ukraine deserves our support and our gratitude.

Markéta Vorel

Founder, Sunflower F.U.N.D.

Anacortes

Full Letter to the Editor