As days stretched into weeks, our news screens have been bombarding us with images of brave and determined Ukrainian civilians seeking shelter and sometimes getting killed as Vladimir Putin’s war of choice exploded over their homes, schools, hospitals.
As we watched, we were all Ukrainians. Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the brave leader who made us all want to fight for what is right. And this week we all grieved but could not look away as our screens filled our safe lives with unspeakably horrific pictures of Putin’s military demolishing a Ukraine maternity hospital. We saw bloody pregnant women on stretchers and knew that other women and probably newborns had to be somewhere under the rubble. We heard TV anchors and correspondents saying — and read our most famous newspapers reporting — it was a “bombardment,” an “airstrike.”
Our news screens recycled Zelenskyy’s weeks of frustration that the United States and NATO would not provide the “No-Fly Zone” that could help Ukraine stay safe or at least survive. We tensed with rage, but understood, as our president and other NATO leaders explained that if our military enforced a “No-Fly Zone” it meant shooting down nuclear Russia’s jets — and that could plunge us into a nuclear World War III.
