Ukraine, A Nation At War Becoming a Military Power

"Ukraine is now capable of striking Crimea, threatening Russian supply lines."

"Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine is still suffering. Russian missiles have so long hit civilian targets that it is no longer even remarked that such were once recognized as war crimes."

"More sobering, while Ukraine fights on, it is not evident how the war might end. It is entirely possible that Ukraine may not lose, but still not win definitively."

Fr. Raymond J. De Souza, National Post 

Ukrainian infantry soldier in Donetsk trench. Reuters

 

When Russia first fully invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Poland received almost two million fleeing Ukrainians. No refugee camps resulted. The Poles welcomed the refugees into their homes. A million such Ukrainian refugees are still left in Poland, sheltering themselves from constant Russian bombardment of missiles and drones over Ukraine's cities in the Kremlin's direct targeting of civilian populations, a noted war crime. 

 

More recently, a revival of Polish right-wing populism has arisen and with it hostility to Ukraine, shifting to viewing Russia's Vladimir Putin with a measure of tolerance. Memories are not dead in Poland to the reality of Ukrainian World War II alliances with Hitler's death squads, helpfully assisting in the murder of Poles and Jews through the auspices of the Waffen SS, where an SS battalion of Ukrainian volunteers was formed, during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. 

 

Nachtigall Battalion in 1941

Ukrainian auxiliaries were involved in the murder of Ukraine's Jews. Some of their leaders are still heralded as war heroes in Ukraine to the present day. Poles were their victims as well, while the Soviet military eventually became their liberators from the Nazi extermination project. Russia's President Putin has used that history to explain his full-scale invasion of Ukraine; 'liberating' it from the neo-Nazis still presumably governing the country from Kyiv.

 

Even the Trump administration's soft spot for Putin expressed by President Donald J. Trump has had its influence, which  tended to view Ukraine with suspicion and Russia with a degree of admiration. There has been a levelling off of President Trump's expressed fondness for President Putin now that Ukraine's resolute self-defence has finally put Russia's plans on the back foot. No one appears to have realized that the Russian territorial grab of 2014 when it annexed Crimea and incited rebellion in the Donbas would lead to a full-scale invasion.

 

February 28, 2026 joint strikes by U.S./Israel on Tehran, Iran.  Reuters

 

Ukraine now is recognized as an Eastern Europe military power, producing its own armaments even while it continues to rely on military aid from Europe and North America. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been welcomed as an adviser for the Gulf countries under attack by Iran in response to the U.S.-Israel 2026 aerial attacks. Ukraine's formidable counteroffensive while producing millions of advanced drones, has enabled it to hit Russian targets from Moscow right up to Siberia. 

 

Ukraine's fervent wish to become a member of NATO will be realized, post-war. There have been errors in judgement made by President Zelenskyy and he has been brought up short by public anger over them, as when his appointed defence minister and the chief of the Ukrainian military were at loggerheads, the former opting for a new approach in meeting the enemy, the latter wedded to the tried-and-true conventional responses with conventional weaponry. 

 

When given an ultimatum to make a choice, the president fired his popular defence minister only to face days of demonstrations by furious Ukrainians, forcing him to reverse his decision. And the war goes on.

 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS