To the watching world, the Ukrainian resistance has been a crash-course in the heroic – a call for us to apply the same courage, whether physical or moral, in grappling with the many crises of our age
The Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion has had repercussions far beyond that country’s borders, prompting urgent reconsideration of everything from energy policy to authoritarianism to European history. For me, it’s also been a crash course in the heroic, as we watch Ukrainians risk and sometimes lose their lives to defend their country, their homes, their principles, their rights and their future. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was much admired for refusing to leave Kyiv as the Russian army marched toward it, but ordinary people have also demonstrated courage, defiance and commitment.
Often they did so with wit and panache, as with the Ukrainian sailor’s famous “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” reply to a demand to surrender. People studied first aid, made molotov cocktails, joined the resistance, helped neighbors and strangers. While millions have fled the country, the great majority of Ukrainians remain, some of them sheltered by strangers in safer parts of the country, some taking refuge in basements and, in Kyiv, subways and bomb shelters. Maryna Hanitska, the new director of the Borodyanka Psychoneurological Nursing Home, stayed with the facility’s residents for the weeks during which Russian soldiers pointed guns in her face, the buildings lost heat, water and power, and some died of the cold and used her hidden mobile phone to send information to the Ukrainian military.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
