It’s unclear whether the well-known saying “May you live in interesting times” is
truly a curse that stems from the Chinese or whether it has been attributed to them
by the British.
However, a year after the full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine, we
can be sure of the fact that we wish for tamer, quieter, safer, and more predictable
times in the world. Shock, fear, anger, resistance, hurt, empathy, helplessness,
hopefulness… and these are only some of the emotions and feelings that have come
upon us and that we’ve experienced during the past year. Evil and terrible violence
are two things that we should never get used to.
Russian dissident, Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia, confirmed in an interview
with Estonian Television that yes, first and foremost, Ukraine has to win this war, but
that is not enough; Russia has to change. “The Russian people have to go through
a very difficult and very painful recognition of the past, something that should have
been done in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union — not only over the
last two decades now but over the entire 70-year Soviet period. We cannot turn the
page and establish a democratic government without this process.” War criminals
have to be prosecuted, and “these public trials would have to be carried out to help
people to understand what had been done, very often in their names, what crimes
have been committed, in which they have been complacent by being silent.”
Tamer times are unfortunately not on the horizon just yet. Take this as an
opportunity to exercise your sense of humanity and keep standing with Ukraine.