Erin Molan: Now more than ever we must fight for Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is in its second year and we are in danger of becoming desensitised to then human tragedy that continues to unfold, writes Erin Molan

Last month, air raid sirens woke a mother and her eight-year-old daughter, though in a war zone it’s hard to imagine either were sleeping that well.

They were in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and panicked. They left their home and ran through the streets toward a bomb shelter they knew was located just down the road. It was under a clinic but imagine, if you can, their attempts to get in and the despair of realising the door was locked. Both were found dead outside this catastrophically inaccessible refuge.

Just last week, a weeping father stood over the coffin of his 14-year-old twins. Anna and Yulia were both wearing white wedding dresses, a tradition in Ukraine when young women die. They were killed by another Russian bomb.

Imagine, as a parent, the desperate attempt to protect your child, knowing full well that the prevailing danger extends well beyond any control you have over the situation.

The fear, the horror, trying to shield that from a child who has already seen so much pain, death and destruction.

I cannot imagine. I get upset thinking about my five-year-old daughter feeling a bit anxious about a pre-school drop off or that another child might say something mean to her or that she might miss me when she’s safe and tucked up in bed at her dad’s home. Imagine the fears you have now about your children and then imagine, if you are able, those fears including your innocent little child being blown off the face of this earth by a Russian bomb.

When this war first began, it captured the hearts and minds of an entire nation.

We couldn’t get enough information and analysis and in a good way — by that I mean Australians were heavily engaged and invested.

Olga Srednyakova, 51, a single mother of eight children, hugs youngest daughter Vera, 8, in Konstantinovka in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

We watched in horror as bombs dropped in suburban streets that resembled our own.

We related to those images of evacuation goodbyes, imagining ourselves on those buses farewelling our fathers, husbands and sons, clinging on to our children as we fled for their, and our, lives and acutely aware of the fact that we may never see loved ones again, even if we survived the carnage ourselves. Nearly a year and half on and, understandably, we have become somewhat desensitised to the atrocities. Not our fault really.

It’s not front of mind anymore. It doesn’t lead the news like it used to.

The images are now more common, we’ve undoubtedly been conditioned, and the shock factor is largely diminished. But critically, it’s now that we should care more.

Not just individually, but as a nation. Australia has been a generous supporter of Ukraine, donating nearly $800 million in varied forms of assistance. This sounds like a lot and the Ukrainians have publicly expressed their gratitude, which is undoubtedly sincere, but those with more than a basic understanding of the strategic and tactical difficulties of an international conflict of this nature proclaim emphatically that it’s nowhere near enough.

Pete Shmigel wrote an insightful piece recently where he spoke about Australia’s ‘war windfall’.

A Bloomberg analysis reveals that “since the invasion began the spike in energy and other commodity prices has given Australia around a $150 billion export bonanza”.

We are benefitting financially off the back of this atrocity, so quite simply I reckon even 1% of that amount is worth somehow giving back to try to end the conflict? I’d like to think the majority of my fellow Australians would recall the most poignant and provocative images we’ve seen of this brutality and resolve categorically to sacrifice profit for peace.

Citizens shelter in the Metro as Russia launches another missile attack on Kyiv.

Europe might seem very far away but our world is increasingly small. We are now connected in ways that would have been unimaginable even 20 years ago.

Cyber threats make distance and borders almost completely redundant. We have already been victim to countless Russian cyber attacks and that’s just the start.

We shouldn’t be piling into Ukraine because we are ‘good people’. That’s just a bonus.

We should be ‘piling in’ because we have just as much to lose as they do. Strategically, this matters.

Only the very naive, foolish or absurd would believe that the horrors in Europe could never happen to us in Australia. The geopolitical world in which we live is unstable and every step is fraught with danger.

Remember how quickly rumours of a Russian invasion turned into a full-scale war? We are not immune.

The Chinese Communist Government is becoming increasingly bolshy, with no consistent evidence that they respect our sovereignty or governance.

They are reputedly placing bounties on the heads of our citizens. The strength of the world’s opposition to the invasion of Ukraine must be part of any potential deterrent to China to attack or, indeed, invade Taiwan, territory much more “in our own backyard”.

Weakness is opportunity. We have a sad history of involvement in wars that we should never have been a part of and many everyday Australians are still paying an enormous price for those ill-advised decisions.

We lament their experience but let’s not let that deter us from doing what we must in the wars we should.