The only thing to celebrate on the first anniversary of Russia’s war is the scale and courage of the Ukrainian resistance, which has surprised everyone, including Ukraine’s allies and maybe even the Ukrainians themselves. Through self-defense, Ukraine is achieving self-transformation.
“People’s desire for justice at home has not diminished,” the Ukrainian journalist Kateryna Semchuk observes. “If anything, it has got stronger – and rightly so, since most citizens are risking their lives to fight the genocidal threat posed by Russia. People have such a personal stake in Ukraine’s future, they are more sensitive than ever about what kind of country we are becoming and how things should be after the war.”
Apropos of this new mood, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently fired several top officials who were suspected of graft and other offenses. But it remains to be seen if Ukraine’s anti-corruption campaign will grow into a more radical questioning about “how things should be after the war.”
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