Opinion
Beware the feel-good narrative being spun around Ukraine’s resistance
Julia Baird
Journalist, broadcaster, historian and authorOne of the most peculiar parts of the Crimean War of 1853-6 was the fact that well-to-do tourists used to bring sumptuous picnics onto the fringes of battlefields to watch the action, like some kind of sick spectator sport. They travelled for weeks to get to battles like Balaclava, Inkerman and Alma, telescopes in hand to get a better view of the “killing fields”.
British soldiers were slaughtered in trenches and blown into the air by explosions, “their bodies appearing in the distance like birds on the wing”.
Dragoon guards during the Crimean War. Nineteenth century sightseers came to watch the battles on the peninsula.Credit:Fairfax Media
Huzzah! Thousands of men died before the observers’ eyes as they cheered, booed or argued over strategy, peering at scattered limbs through opera glasses.
Touted as civilised practice, it was in fact grotesque, and the image of the merry picnickers gorging on Fortnum & Mason hampers as their countrymen were massacred – which also occurred in the US Civil War – has never left me.
The ethical question remains this: when we observe the carnage of war, how much do we tolerate before joining the fight? And, today, how long can we cheer and fear for Ukrainians without committing more to the fight?
Because, despite their most fervent efforts, Russia is losing the propaganda war.
“I’m racking my brain,” wrote advisor to the US Congress Paul Massaro on Twitter, “for a historical parallel to the courage and fighting spirit of the Ukrainians and coming up empty. How many peoples have ever stood their ground against an aggressor like this? It’s legendary.”
Other prominent commentators mused similarly.
(Of course Massaro’s question was bonkers. There are plenty of other examples, including the fight of Indigenous people across the globe, those in Hong Kong and the many others pointed out by the good people of Twitter.)
Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:SMH
It’s true the spirit of the Ukrainian people, their resolve in the face of Russian invasion, has been stunning. The President, Zelensky, has become a viral stoic hero, with images of him in camouflage gear swarming social media (including taken two years ago but touted as current). He quickly became an icon of the kind of leadership many yearn for: bold, fearless, strong. A leader who would not leave his country when it was on fire as our Prime Minister did when he went to Hawaii, or Ted Cruz when he flew to Mexico as a severe cold front froze his state of Texas.
When the Americans offered Zelensky safe passage out of the country and he responded: “I need ammunition, not a ride”, his standing soared, and it was again clear that the former comedian had been underestimated by allies and enemies alike. He has displayed the kind of machismo presence that throws a shirtless, horse-riding Putin into the shade.
His grit has bolstered morale and fostered community in a country where octogenarian grandmothers have taken up arms, grandfather volunteered to fight and schoolkids learned how to make Molotov cocktails. Civilians have swarmed and stared down invading tanks, pushing them out of towns. One video seemed to show an older man asking soldiers who had invaded Melitopol: “What the f--k are you doing here? … Don’t you have problems in your own country to solve?”
Which is a very good question. I mean, frankly, in an era where public figures so rarely air their true thoughts all the plain talk has been refreshing – the politician who, when asked how he responded to the Russian Foreign Minister saying peace negotiations could begin once Russia had restored democratic order, said: “F--k you Lavrov”. The Snake Island troops who told Russians on a warship to “go f--k themselves” – and survived despite reports they had been killed.
The Ukrainian national emblem, the sunflower, has become a symbol of hope and resistance, with a woman – who after asking Russian soldiers – “what the f--k are you doing here?“, offered them seeds to put in their pockets, “so at least sunflower seeds will grow when you all lie down here”.
But in admiring Ukrainian courage, we run a significant risk of lionising the besieged, glorifying those subjected to a campaign of terror and absolving ourselves from responsibility of giving more support. Do we want to believe they can and will survive by sheer guts?
Because the Ukrainians are fighting bravely, but they fight alone. We cannot draw comfort from the fact that people in serious danger are heroically fighting for their lives while dallying about sanctions or which Russian banks to shut out of SWIFT, or deify Zelensky without listening to his claims that our support came too late.
No one wants escalation, no one wants a world war, especially with the threat of nukes. But we should be almost as wary of the feel-good narrative of the first weeks of the war as of the persistent Russian propaganda (its claim NATO is aggressive and responsible, that Russia is only defending itself, that the Ukrainian government is riddled with Nazi ideology and is committing genocide against Russians within their borders, that Ukraine has been part of Russia since “time immemorial”.)
Photos have been posted without context, video games woven into footage, and old videos used. Like the “Ghost of Kyiv”, a fighter pilot who the Ukrainian government claimed had shot down 10 Russian fighter jets. He may exist, but many of the videos claiming to show him are fake. Or the shared images claiming to depict Ukraine which have included a photo taken at an English air show three decades ago, one from Iraq in 2003 and a 2010 video from Afghanistan. Snaps of Ukrainians praying in snow were several years old, and a photo of an injured girl who was assumed to be Ukrainian is from last year in Gaza.
American estimates of deaths of Russian soldiers are significantly lower than the figures cited by the Ukrainians.
The onus is on all of us to verify facts before we share – and if you are uncertain, and there has been no word from fact checking groups like First Draft, Snopes, Reuters, Bellingcat, ukrainefacts.org, don’t share it. There are other sites run by Ukrainian International Fact Checking Network signatories which are helpful, too, called Stop Fake and VoxUkraine.
But the most important question is: what more can we do?
Social media has made us all gentlemen observers now; we need to be extremely careful that we do not just seek out images that soothe and entertain us, rather than those that challenge our own postures, our own isolationism, our own reluctance to act.
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