A Greeting to Arms

Ukrainian article of the week published in the 66th edition of the "What about Ukraine" newsletter on February 27th, 2025. The column was written by Pavlo Kazarin for The Ukrainians and was translated for n-ost by Tetiana Evloeva. Find the original article in Ukrainian here.

Photo credit: The Ukrainians. 

The War That Changes Us is a series of op-eds launched to mark the third anniversary of the full-scale war, which tries to understand how the war affects us all. What scars and impressions does it leave us with? How much have we become intertwined with the war? What has changed over the past three years? What were we like before, and which parts of us are lost forever?

We tried our best to answer those questions, and asked our colleagues — historians, journalists, activists, military personnel, human rights advocates, writers, cultural managers, researchers and opinion leaders — to share their take on the matter.

Below we publish an opinion piece by Pavlo Kazarin, journalist, political writer, and a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

There was a time when I was certain that my generation was fated to live in a post-historical era.

Back then, I was under the impression that every event had already taken place, and every rule had been set in stone. Empires had collapsed, independence had been gained, and wars had ended. It was easy to believe that history was firmly on track, and that everyone and their mother could predict their future trajectory in life.

Our country was perceived as something that others had suffered for before. It had been something scooped out by the people depicted on our banknotes and in our memorials. We were under the impression that all my generation had to do was to regularly dust those pedestals and polish those plaques.

I was wrong.

Turns out my generation was fated to live during the most volatile period of our country’s history. That our decisions or inaction make all the difference when it comes to our future. That our independence is a theorem we must prove every single day.

Over the past three years, the names of some of my friends have become street names, while other friends have been commemorated in monuments. My grandchildren will be taught at school about the people I’m now chatting with on messenger. Our banknotes will feature the portraits of our contemporaries, and the only way to prevent this from happening is if Ukrainian banknotes cease to be printed.

While each of us used to be just a caretaker of our history, now we are fated to co-author it. Compared to the current challenges, our pre-war problems seem ‘lukewarm’ and ‘cosy’.

Our turbulence happened to coincide with upheaval all over the globe, rendering previous rules and guidelines ineffective.

There are fewer and fewer adults in the room.

We used to see the United States as the guardian of democracy and world order — yet the American voters elected someone as President who threatens allies and strikes deals with dictators. The country that has spent decades investing in ‘soft power’ is now squandering its assets of leadership and reputation on cheap trinkets which offer the quick-fix of populism.

Russia has spent a lot of time positioning itself as the antithesis of democracy, claiming that values were nothing and that a price tag was all that mattered, and that the world was based on cynicism and self-interest. Now, Donald Trump’s victory will convince the Kremlin that they have been right all along. In this new reality, strong-men leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico no longer look like vestiges of a bygone era, but prophets of a new one.

Add to that the rise of the right-wing forces all over Europe, and the radicalised agendas in old democracies, electoral surprises born out of social media (as in the case of Romania’s presidential elections at the end of 2024) and divisive discourse in EU member states — and we understand the backdrop against which Ukraine is fighting an empire.

The old fault line has shifted dramatically worldwide.

After World War II, that line ran between the market democracies and state-planned dictatorships. It was believed that open markets and prosperity were sufficient precursors for freedom, and as soon as a state was included in global trade, it would inevitably become part of the democratic world. That belief proved to be a mistake.

Today, the fault line runs between market democracies and market dictatorships, with the latter breaking free from the hereditary diseases of their predecessors. They are good at competing, trading and being efficient, and at the same time, they learn from their mistakes. Today, they can offer their citizens not just the bare victory of Marxism, but also tangible prosperity.

This fault line between democracies and dictatorships has become slimmer. While it used to be synonymous with economic models, today, transition from a state of freedom to its absence has become more subtle, as it comes hand in hand with the dismantling of institutions and checks and balances, rather than poverty and scarcity.

It fell upon Ukraine to fight a war where rules no longer apply.

It used to be easier. We were living in a world based on the post-war legacy, where any event could be cross-referenced with history. Today, the old rules increasingly cease to be in force, while the new ones will depend on the outcome of our war. Russia’s success will inspire other empires, while our defeat will terrify the continent, creating a demand for politicians eager to try their luck in studying Putin’s eyes for any sign of peace.

Should we be defeated, the aftermath will go far beyond millions of refugees in Europe, and even beyond dozens of new Mariupols and hundreds of new Buchas. That defeat will result in a growing fear of brutal force, and a growing willingness to bow to it. Under such circumstances, the 2030s would be eerily indistinguishable from the 1930s.

The problem is that the old European states have long lived in a reality of excessive security. Their inviolability was guaranteed by the United States, without looking over their shoulder in search of possible military threats. Today, they have to re-learn this skill, arm themselves, and accustom their citizens to the idea of not just having rights, but also fighting for them.

We could teach them a lot.

In this new reality, we unexpectedly found ourselves in the vanguard. We alone possess the skill of sinking guided missile cruisers and downing strategic bombers, burning tanks by the dozen and destroying over-the-horizon radars, initiating air-to-air engagements and intercepting hypersonic missiles.

Only our army has the recent experience of fighting a war with a nuclear power. It was us who destroyed the horde of tanks created to advance all the way to the English Channel. Each of our infantrymen fighting near Pokrovsk has experienced more war in a month than an American marine in their entire career.

This war has taught us that while culture is the nation’s collective memory, its propensity to bear grudges is its collective immunity.

We often blame ourselves for not being good enough while facing the challenges of this invasion. However, all criticism boils down to one simple fact: we have nobody with which to compare ourselves. Over the past 70 years in Europe, we alone had to face that kind of challenge.

There are no more adults around. We are the adults now.