Reader’s Note:
The following article contains vivid hypotheticals involving war crimes and trauma. These are not included for shock value, but to highlight the profound moral imbalance at the heart of this war. If peace is to be truly fair and just, we must first face the unbearable realities that victims endure.
In September of 2024, Donald Trump reportedly told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he wanted a “fair deal for everybody” regarding Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Earlier this year, the president of Türkiye, Erdoğan, reiterated his desire to “continue to work with all our strength to establish a just and lasting peace.” On February 20 after a EU meeting on Ukraine, the leaders of European countries reasserted their support for a just and lasting peace. The president of the United Nations followed suit as reported on March 6 of this year, but of course, with Russia still on the U.N. Security Council, no official statement from the impotent organization could be emanated. It all sounds well and good, but let us take a deeper dive into this sentiment to see what they are really saying.
The word just implies justice. So what exactly would a just peace look like if it was possible to obtain? Will Putin and his ilk be held accountable for the myriad of war crimes they have committed? Will Russia extradite the murderers of civilians that plague its ranks? Will the Verhovny Sovyet in Moscow vote to compensate the thousands of families that have lost loved ones and had their homes destroyed? Will Russian authorities arrest the marauders and marauding soldiers who stripped Ukrainian homes and flats and sent the wares to their wives, mothers, and to markets in Russia. Will those who knowingly bought stolen goods at “Ukraine Markets” in Russia be forced to return their goods and be put on trial for criminal fencing? Will Russia return the tens of thousands of children that have been kidnapped and trafficked to all parts of Russia? Will the aggressor support their re-education and initiate a program of trauma counseling for these young souls? Will Russia compensate Ukrainian POWs for the food and creature comforts that were afforded to Russian POWs, but not to them? Will the Russian people take full responsibility for the rebuilding of Ukraine? The measures necessary for a just peace seem unending and highly improbable if not impossible.
Of course, these are senseless questions. Russia will not even compensate victims of plane crashes resulting from their aggression and incompetence. How can this evil empire be asked or even thought possible of enacting any recompense that would come close to resembling justice.
If a just peace seems unlikely, a fair peace would require even more stringent measures and perhaps be entirely inhumane. Fairness requires a tit-for-tat mentality. If we are going to speak of a fair peace, we must ask different questions, such as:
- How many women would Russia be willing to turn over to be raped by Ukrainian soldiers?
- How many Russian children would Ukraine need to injure and kill to make things even?
- How many tens of thousands of adult civilians could Putin offer up to Ukrainian bombs and bullets?
- How many Russian men would be tortured, electrocuted and sodomized for a fair peace?
- Would Ukraine be given the right to terrorize the entire European population of Russia for a few years?
- Will they give Krasnodar to Ukraine in exchange for the damage done to Mariupol?
- How many “Dresdens” will it take for Ukraine’s wrath to be satisfied?
These questions are not meant to be answered, but rather to show us in no uncertain terms the absurdity of seeking to establish a fair peace. If Ukraine was a barbaric country whose population had been culled repeatedly like their neighbor to the north, then perhaps a fair peace would seem more attainable. However, Ukraine is a peace-loving, generous and kind country whose chief cultural values include hospitality and helping others. The crimes which are standard fair for the Russian barbarians are unthinkable to Ukrainians.
The world leaders that seek a just or fair peace are chasing a myth. There simply is no such thing that can be had. So let us do away with the absurd notions of justice and fairness, and let us be honest with ourselves – either we seek a peace that is neither just nor fair, but will be acceptable and tolerable to both Ukraine and Russia, or we should seek Russia’s defeat.
Eric Yodis has served through WorldVenture in Ukraine since 1995. After nineteen years in eastern Ukraine with his wife, Beth, they fled the war of Russian aggression in June 2014. Since 2015, they have lived in the Kyiv Oblast, but have once again been forced to evacuate due to the continuing war of Russian aggression against the peace loving people of Ukraine. Currently they split their time between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Eric Yodis 