St. Petersburg, Russia, is 655 miles – as the drone flies – from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. It’s closer to Helsinki, Finland.
And yet, the home region of Vladimir Putin found itself under attack this week from drones launched by the Ukrainians.
If I had written that sentence four years ago, when Russia launched its war against Ukraine, expects would have said I was nuts. I would have thought I was nuts. There was no way Ukraine could outlast what was then perceived as one of the world’s two or three most powerful militaries.
Shame on the experts. Shame on me.
There are few things to feel good about in 2026. One of them is the valiancy of the Ukrainian people and their leader, the Winston Churchill of the 21st century, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They have survived far longer than anyone believed possible when Russia started rolling tanks across their border.
In fact, there are many experts who believe Ukraine is winning this war. The drone attack on St. Petersburg, undeterred by Russia’s supposedly impenetrable air defense, is a prime example. Ukrainian drones have struck Moscow and other parts of the vast country as well. Their range is growing.
And Ukraine has become a leader in anti-drone defense, franchising its technology to other countries looking to fend off unwanted attacks.
According to the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia has paid an amazingly high price for its aggression. The estimated death toll is something in the area of 300,000. By contrast, the United States lost 58,000 people in the Vietnam War – and we thought that was a disaster. Counting those injured, Russia’s casualty count exceeds 1 million.
That’s got to reach the point that it affects every town, village and hovel. Where almost everyone knows someone who has suffered from this debacle.
Russia’s economy is shattered. Its reputation in the world is wrecked. But just like in Pete Seeger’s song about Vietnam, “The Big Muddy,” the big fool – in this case, Putin – says to push on.
Not that Ukraine hasn’t suffered. Far from it. Many of its cities are piles of rubbles, resulting from aerial bombardment, missile attacks and drones. Way too many civilians – and way, way too many children have been killed or maimed. The scars of this will take generations to heal.
Ukraine has been bolstered by the help from the world’s democracies. Particularly the European Union, Canada and Japan, with unflinching support from London to Warsaw to Ottawa to Berlin to Tokyo to Rome. The bad guys in World War II are the good guys this time.
We used to be among the good guys. President Joe Biden and many in Congress, on a bipartisan basis, stood up for Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians. They were treated like the world heroes they are – Biden traveling to Kyiv clandestinely to show his support, Zelenskyy speaking before a joint session of Congress.
Now it’s hard to tell which side the United States is on. Zelenskyy is probably still smarting from the humiliating treatment he received from Trump and Vance when he came to the White House last year.
And Republican talking points on social media include posts bragging – bragging! – that Ukraine is no longer getting generous funding from the U.S. When I saw one of these posts on my feed recently, I was tempted to ask the poster what the weather was like in Novosibirsk.
Of course, Trump has been too busy causing trouble in the rest of the world. There’s the idiotic war against Iran, the grab for oil in Venezuela and the saber rattling against Cuba and – and this is even more confounding than thinking Ukraine would stand up to Russia – Canada and Greenland.
Hopefully, the midterm elections will change some of this trajectory. But November seems like forever away. Five more months of death, destruction and Trump still seeing Putin as some kind of model for world leader conduct.
As frustrating as are all the domestic debacles perpetrated by the second Trump mishegas, the fact that we are the wrong side in plain battles of evil vs. good is pathetic. When Ukraine wins its war against Russia – and I’m among those now convinced that it’s Zelenskyy, not Putin, who holds the cards – we will not deserve the credit and the gratitude that others in the West will garner.
Not from the country that, in 2026, is becoming the leader of the free world.
SUBJECTISM 