Editor’s note: Michael Boshurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a world affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to his CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.read more opinion On CNN.
Lviv
CNN
—
Few places embody the decades of suffering Ukrainians have endured more than the Lychakiv cemetery in the western city of Lviv.
The rolling hills are the final resting place of many figures of Ukrainian independence, from the famous poet Ivan Franko to the composer Volodymyr Ivasiuk, who was found hanging from a tree in 1979. KGB brutality.
These days, Lychakiv has become the burial place for hundreds of military personnel and women killed in Russia’s latest wave of invasions. The sensation of pain is obvious. When I visited a cemetery a few weeks ago, the howling of winter winds competed with the heartbreaking cries of mothers and wives mourning the deaths of their loved ones. Many of the fighters shot down were in their 20s, in their prime working years.
I have been coming to Lychakiv since the early weeks of the war to better understand the human cost. Amid high-level diplomatic disputes over long-range ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter jets, this is the true picture of the conflict that is often ignored in international headlines.
Here in Ukraine, the losses are so great that they affect almost every household, contributing to the fatigue that blankets the country like a blanket of cold snow.
It is time for Western countries to recognize the human cost of war: not just the dead, but the wounded, the displaced, and the tearing apart of social fabric caused by the massive disruption. My friends in the medical profession tell me that when soldiers return en masse from the battlefield, there will be a devastating tsunami of mental health issues.
With no end in sight to the war and Lychakiv and other cemeteries falling apart at the seams, authorities are being forced to free up space to build new graves. The number of war dead remained a closely guarded state secret until recently, but President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday put the number at 31,000, far lower than the 70,000 that U.S. officials had cited last August. It has been confirmed that they are the ones who have been silenced. It’s a reminder of the amount of blood shed in the battle to push back the Russian army.
“There are cemeteries like Lychakiv all over Ukraine,” Lesia Krepiakevich, a community activist and Lviv resident, told me. “The pain is great, but there is also great pride because those who volunteered to go to war did so to protect us. Today, this place has become a place of pilgrimage to gain spiritual strength. I am.”
Several people told me that the small villages around Lviv have completely dwindled in population. The wave of volunteers who flooded recruiting centers at the start of the war has all but disappeared. What makes me wonder is the large-scale mobilization of those who died, those who were permanently sidelined by injuries, those who fled overseas, or those who paid officials to remove their names from draft rolls. If introduced, who will remain? (Under Ukrainian law, men between the ages of 18 and 26 can serve as volunteers, but cannot be conscripted into the military.)
Now, as Republican lawmakers return to work after a two-week recess, it remains to be seen whether Speaker Mike Johnson will approve a blockbuster supplement bill approved by the Senate that includes $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. It’s opaque. The country has been mired in political deadlock for weeks under the direction of former US President Donald Trump.
As they consider how to proceed, Mr. Johnson and his Republican colleagues must recognize the number of Ukrainians who paid the ultimate price not only to protect Ukraine, but to seize their land and slow the creeping onslaught of Russian authoritarianism. should be noted. The battleground is Ukraine, but the stakes for democracy transcend borders.
The Biden administration has so far struggled to convince Americans of the magnitude of military aid to Ukraine (about $46 billion). At a cost of about 5% of the US annual military budget, the Ukrainians managed to destroy about 50% of Russia’s conventional military capabilities. Stealth attacks on Kiev’s virtually navy-free Black Sea fleet allow Russian commanders to move ships to safer waters, break Russia’s unilateral blockade of the western Black Sea, and transport food to global markets. The waterway was reopened.
There is a dangerous disconnect between those who oppose aid to Ukraine and the reality of what could happen if Putin gets his way. Millions of Americans feel they are suffering economically, and that suffering will be exacerbated if Russia closes Ukrainian ports such as Odesa, which are critical components of the global food supply chain. There is a possibility that it will happen. Look at how the bottlenecks created by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea are disrupting supply chains.
Perhaps that is why French President Emmanuel Macon did not rule out the idea of sending European troops to Ukraine when asked on Tuesday. Although other European countries quickly poured cold water on the idea and Russia responded with threats, Kiev feels it has no better friends than its European neighbors if the US backs off its involvement in Ukraine. This is an indication that it will happen.
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Tying Ukraine’s hands in this David-and-Goliath battle will come at a terrible price, far exceeding what Washington has paid since Russia’s full-scale invasion began two years ago. In fact, along the 1,000-kilometer front, guns aimed at advancing Russian troops have already fallen silent due to lack of ammunition.
For the United States to abandon Ukraine now, as some Republicans hope, would be to abandon the United States itself and its representatives. In many ways, this is also America’s war – except that Ukrainians are fighting and dying there.