Our Ukraine

By Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science:

"Condemnation has mostly been based on an entirely correct reading of international law. The Russian war is an unprovoked attack on a neighbor, an independent and sovereign state. It is clearly illegal. It is also, and this is more important, unjust—it is a crime not only legally but morally, too. Imagine the crime this way: the Russian invasion is an act that forces peaceful, ordinary men and women to risk their lives, to fight and die, for their country. Putin seems to have believed that most Ukrainians would not do that—because, he said, Ukraine isn’t a country separate from Russia. In their hearts, Ukrainians are Russian, and the war was meant to remind them of that. But the actual Ukrainian response on the ground, on country roads and city streets, has shown Putin to be wrong. Ukraine is indeed a country; the proof is the willingness of its citizens to fight for it. To force them to fight—that is the crime of this war."

Read more at Dissent.