As the year draws close to its end, it is clear how 2022 came to be dominated by brutality.
A year haunted by horror.
The steady brutality of Putin – with the consent of the majority of Russians, willingly or unwillingly – and the shame they will have to endure for the rest of their lives.
A year haunted by the absurdity in the neutrality of nations who use such stance to cover their fear of the wrath of the Russian dictator.
A year haunted by China’s rulers’ increasing despotism and naked ambition to dominate the world.
By Iran’s clerics, who in the name of god, keep unleashing their violence upon their own, and on citizens of those countries which they have infiltrated.
A year haunted by Myanmar’s military’s massacring their own with impunity.
A year that has seen, once again, primitive regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, continuing to cruelly tyrannize their peoples, leading to punishing poverty and mass emigration.
No, it has not been a good year.
And yet, Ukraine has shined. Their sacrifice in pursuit of their freedom has drawn an unmistakable distinction for others to follow.
Their example tells us that this is not a time to waver.
I’m reminded of a statement by a leader of Singapore, who said his nation should not be forced to choose.
But this is a time to choose.
The cruelty of Putin is the cruelty of Hitler, nothing less.
With his repeated attacks on Ukraine he keeps telling the world, ‘Go screw yourselves! We will take what we wish when we wish.’
The cry of a desperate man, who’s slowly cornering himself, yet a man who could disguise himself well enough to have fooled Germany and many in Europe that he could be relied upon as a source of steady energy supplies.
It is not the first time Europe is fooled. We all hope it will be the last.
Still, the cry of the Ukrainian sacrifice is heard all over the world.
Tell me, reader, do you not hear it, too?
When will it end? Their pain, their anguish?
Ukraine keeps dying, every day, dying for their freedom and refusing to submit to the atrocities that Putin and his supporters keep inflicting on them.
Now that Ukrainians have made gains in the battlefield, there are those who are rushing in to ask that negotiations be started with Russia to end the conflict.
But Ukrainians do not want to negotiate. They want their land back. All of it. What Putin took at the start of this invasion and what he took in 2014. And they want Crimea back, too. And why not? It is theirs.
Cries will be heard in the West complaining that we have sacrificed enough. But we have not.
The problems we had not solved with the resources we have given to support Ukraine, will get solved, but today is Ukraine’s day. For they keep doing the daily dying. The daily sacrifices that have shone a light for the West to find its way.
Ukraine has united us. The blood they have shed keep reminding us that theirs is the noblest of causes, and that together we shall march forward as one.
There is but one choice to make.
The torch we keep lit will spread its light to every corner of the world.
For there is but one way forward. Not two or three or four. Only one.
The way of freedom.
Oscar Valdes 