Ukraine's agony: a personal perspective: Andrew Wierzbicki comments on the Russo-Ukrainian War and advocates unequivocal backing for Ukraine from its Western supporters.

• Author: Wierzbicki, Andrew
• Position: COMMENT

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has now been going on for six months. That it has lasted this long is as much a testament to Ukraine's determination to resist President Putin and his Russian forces as it is about the under-performance of the Russian military.

When Russia invaded Ukraine there was little expectation that Ukraine could hold out for long. Russia's resources and the size and supposed sophistication of its military far outweighed those of Ukraine. Moreover, the poor performance of the Ukraine military when Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 was still a fresh reminder of the imbalance between the two countries and the likely outcome of the invasion. This undoubtedly influenced Putin's strategy in deciding to invade Ukraine. It will also have been in the thinking of the rest of the world when the invasion started.

What no-one had factored into the equation, though, was Ukrainians' spirit, pride in country and resolve to resist the aggression. Ukraine's national anthem, now one of the best known and admired around the world, shows how badly everyone miscalculated. The words of the first verse epitomise the Ukrainian character:

Ukraine's glory hasn't perished, nor her freedom Upon us, fellow compatriots, fate shall smile once more. Our enemies will vanish, like dew in the morning sun, And we too shall rule, brothers, in a free land of our own. As Ukraine's south and east now bear the brunt of the fighting, the rest of the country has become a staging post for supplying Ukrainian forces and providing a way out for refugees. This is especially the case for Ukraine's third largest city, Lviv (with more than 700,000 people), in the country's west, not far from the border with Poland. A city with long roots reaching back centuries, it has had a variety of political masters. In modern times, it has been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, Nazi Germany, Ukraine as part of the Soviet Union and currently independent Ukraine.

For me, there is a particular resonance when it was part of Poland between the world wars. This was highlighted in the May-June issue of this journal (vol 47, no 3) in the photograph below which accompanied one of the articles on Ukraine in that issue: 'Awakening bad memories'. In the photograph, Soviet troops are shown parading in the streets of what the caption referred to as Lviv, though at the time it was known by its Polish name of Lwow (in Russian, Lvov) and had formerly been Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian Empire). This parade took place after the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September 1939 in accordance with the terms of the non-aggression pact agreed between Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on 23-24 August 1939. This pact, which included provision for Poland to be divided between Germany and the Soviet Union once it was subjugated, was the green light for Germany's invasion on 1 September 1939. Two days later, the United Kingdom and France honoured their earlier pledges to come to Poland's support in such an event by declaring war on Germany.

Family journey

The photograph is deeply personal because my father was born in Lwow. It reflects the end of the city being part of Poland and the beginning of six years of suffering as it was fought over during the Second World War. In the redrawing of boundaries in Eastern Europe that followed the end of the war, it was incorporated into Ukraine, then one of the Soviet Union's numerous constituent republics.

The immediate consequence of the Soviet invasion of Poland, on 17 September 1939, was the killing...