Russian drones threaten Ukraine at 600 km/h - an existential attack on civil society

600 kilometers per hour. It is impossible, sitting in a quiet office space in Sweden under the autumn sun, to even try to imagine the speed with which the new Russian drones travel, on their way to civilian Ukrainian targets. I read Ukraine's former foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, explaining that Vladimir Putin appears to have given up on winning the war meter by meter on the battlefield, and is bent on "smashing Ukraine's entire economy and breaking the fighting morale of the population by terrorizing city centers. The aim is to make life in the cities so unbearable that residents and businesses flee, as well as to break the logistical connections between metropolitan areas" (Foreign Affairs 30/9). Kyiv is bombed day and night. On September 23, eleven flight alarms went off, the following morning a warning continued for nine hours straight. The population spends more and more time underground. How will they cope with this?

In Ukrainian grocery stores, many shelves are gaping empty, following Russian attacks on stocks of everything from Coca-Cola, infant formula and wheat fields to high-heeled shoes and medicine. In August, a warehouse containing eight million books, many of which were educational materials for children, burned down after an attack. Russia is targeting the population, economy and every vestige of Ukrainian culture. How would you have reacted to such a purely existential threat?

Russia is targeting the population, economy and every vestige of Ukrainian culture.

I think of how some opposed arms deliveries with the argument that one should invest in diplomacy. How others have tried to explain the war of invasion by saying that Putin could be scared by the expansion of the NATO defense alliance. Complex reasoning and Kremlinology make people in the stands see a bad peace and occupation as better than continued defensive war.

I think that such theories can be dismissed by starting from the existentialists', perhaps a little naive, credo "existence precedes essence": the idea that man is only his actions, that we are what we do.

Because Putin has shown who he is: someone who invades other countries, without respect for the lives of the civilian population. One who chooses violence over diplomacy. In Russian-occupied Oleshky in southeastern Ukraine, famine-like conditions are reported, all while Russia is blocking food shipments from reaching the town (Le Monde 9/27).

Ukrainians have also shown who they are by what they do: fighting, standing up, standing up for the rest of us. They see in their everyday life what life under Putin means, and say no thanks.

We also have to show who we are. Listen to Ukraine's desire for help, stand by their side as long as they need it. We must remember that when the Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom, they are also fighting for us, because Putin's vision does not stop at Ukraine's border.

600 kilometers per hour is an unimaginable and brutal speed, but the war is not fast. It grinds on, terribly slowly. Over the years, attention has, of course, occasionally waned. But we must not forget that Ukraine needs us to be able to continue - to continue.

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