Please don’t mistake empathy and compassion with inaction. Each ruzzian soldier has a family and a life. Each of them deserves our compassion and sympathy after they stop fighting. Ether via surrender, injury or death. In that order of preference.

The “it’s not that simple” argument has been puzzling me since the moment of the full invasion. I must confess having family and friends in Ukraine, really helped with the perspective.

See, just when it started, I saw pictures of people walking for hours and days with tiny suitcases, trying to escape death. Walking into a complete unknown, which is still mostly the case for them even today.

In the other hand I was talking to ruzzians who were against the war, but the extent of their action was from confirming “well, this is awkward” to saying “I would have left, but”. Basically also saying it’s uncomfortable, but doing something is even more uncomfortable.

And now suddenly they are fighting for their life, but not with a suitcase, but with a machine gun.

So three years later, when I see ruzzians stop fighting because of surrender, injury or death, I feel sorry for the situation they’re in, but I also see that they are in this situation because if the choices they were making for the last three years.

And majority of those fighting against Ukraine in Ukraine today are still making a choice to continue. Because the alternative is uncomfortable or even because they want to.

What I concluded regarding empathy is that our approach needs to be that of a surgeon - they know that they will cause damage, but their goal is to minimise the overall damage.

I hope they would choose surrender, but when not, incapacitation and death are our next best options.