'Tis The Season

Turkey eaten, it is now finally time to dive head first into planning for the holidays. Plus what to read & listen to, some thoughts on the current situation.

My family and I had the pleasure of enjoying a huge Thanksgiving turkey and all the traditional trimmings at a charity dinner hosted by the Vienna Maria Theresia Rotary Club, with proceeds to benefit two wonderful organisations helping Ukrainians both in Austria and beyond: Vienna Mission for Ukraine and Kleine Herzen. As soon as the event was over, it occurred to me: now it is officially the holiday season.

I’ve been really busy this week doing something a little out of the box for me, namely, organising holiday events for Ukrainian kids in the Vienna area. We are not repeating the Secret Santa deliveries this year as the team of moms who had acted as “elves” across the country are not available. So I decided to try something different, and together with a group of very creative and energetic volunteers, we are planning two holiday parties for twenty kids aged 5-10 on December 29 and 30. Train of Hope kindly offered to host us at their community centre. The young children will do cookie decorating, ornament making, and go on a scavenger hunt. I also received a message from a Ukrainian mom this morning offering to bring a giant 3 meter tall polar bear. A metaphor of sorts for how my week has been answering texts and doing sign-ups and making sure I have a phone number of the adult responsible for each kid.

For the older children, I had the idea to do an ice skating evening at a local rink. It has since taken on massive proportions, as I had no idea so many teens aged 11-15 would be interested in an evening of ice skating. Who knew?! Thanks to your generosity — I asked for €800 towards holiday projects this week and we received even more, thank you — and one local rink, Wiener Eislaufverein, offering to throw in 20 free tickets and skate rental, we will now be taking 45 Ukrainian teens ice skating on Friday, January 5. I am now desperately calling in volunteers to help! I received a wonderful message this morning from a Ukrainian woman who is a hobby figure skater, as is her husband, and they offered to both come and help on the day. What a relief!

I am really looking forward to these events and am also super grateful that they will be after the Catholic Christmas here. December can be very stressful. I am happy to focus on these activities once my own kids are on school break.

On a separate note but still in Austria, a fellow volunteer, Jenia, who has become Austria’s leading expert for Ukrainians on calculating the opaque formula as to how much money they can legally earn while not losing their meagre benefits, and yes, this formula is different in each federal state and depends on what kind of housing you live in, and no, the rules are not clearly published anywhere, unfortunately, had an idea. Jenia kindly drafted a very polite and very well written letter in German, with all the correct doctor doctor master master academic titles, asking the responsible Austrian federal ministers to meet with us to discuss issues Ukrainians here face, including the number one looming question: the-long term legal resident status of Ukrainians now living in Austria under blue cards which have only been renewed through March 2025. I am genuinely curious is this approach will get us a meeting. If it does, I look forward to it. If it does not, I suggested to Jenia we write an op-ed and at least try and get it published in a local paper. Let’s see. Maybe they will offer us a Christmas miracle after all…

There is one image I cannot get out of my head, and I carry with me to my discussions this week, and that is the impression I was left with after watching one evening of network TV news in America recently. I walked away with the distinct impression that Ukraine and Russia simply aren’t even on America’s radar screen anymore. I spoke with a Ukrainian last night who told me she came to that same conclusion much earlier, during a recent semester abroad in the U.S. I have been madly trying to consume academic and think tank op-eds and the like to see if my gut feel is being reflected in what is happening now, namely, those with authoritative voices finally saying the quiet part out loud. Seemingly, overnight, it became ok and politically acceptable to talk about “cease fire” and what a “negotiated peace” might mean. I am personally stuck with the vision I have in my own head of a paranoid Putin who, per Kadri Liik on this podcast, “never managed to understand Ukraine for what it is”, cannot in anyway be seen as an honest negotiator, and therefore I don’t understand what from a technical perspective these calls for peace mean. I do understand that everyone is exhausted, that, as (yes, I know he is controversial) Samuel Charap mentions on this podcast, Ukraine didn’t really make any significant territorial gains over the past year. I understand from my own conversations with ordinary Ukrainians that more than you think would just like the war to be over.

But there are too many impossible questions with no good answers. There is no way for Zelensky and team to justify any kind of agreement that results in the today status quo with 18% of Ukraine’s territory lost to Russia. How do they explain that to the tens of thousands of families who lost loved ones in the war or whose friends and family lost limbs? The idea that Ukraine would fight until total victory became so mainstream that it will now be hard for many people to accept anything less, even though, it would seem, really unrealistic to ever take Luhansk or Donetsk regions back, for example. Those residents who stayed made their peace with living in Russia. They have Russian passports and many receive Russian pensions. They have grown used to living in a war zone, as much as one can. They have known nothing but since 2014. You become used to a parallel reality. You forget what normal felt like.

Many Ukrainians also talk now about the fact that Zelensky and team decided not to hold elections. There is also louder and louder talk of the corruption scandals emerging from within his own government. It is a really tricky position when you run on an election platform which essentially promises you won’t be like all those other professional politicians and then people on your own team essentially cannot help themselves and do just that, during a war no one actually expected to happen. Not that Austria should be pointing any fingers. The country is dealing with its own pretty damning politicians, both present and former, meddling and cutting shady deals for cash scandals at the moment. And unfortunately, the headlines don’t even raise an eyebrow. We have become collectively numb to them.

I saw just before going to bed last night the news from Ireland, and my first thought was “this is Russia” which I sent to a friend and then promptly deleted because I realised it sounded ludicrous. But then this morning, I thought, maybe it’s not so ludicrous at all. Every far right victory, like in the Netherlands earlier this week, is a win for Putin. He truly believes those politicians share his world view. And in many ways, they do. I would love for the day when smart western observers stop calling these far right victories “shock” or “surprise” because they are neither. They are the direct result of Europe not getting its act together and not offering voters who are hurting economically and socially a viable alternative.

I would really like to be a fly on the wall during high level EU conversations to hear if they truly understand what it means when the U.S. inevitably pivots away and focuses on China, Israel, domestic politics, anything but what is happening here, finally deciding to say “let the Europeans handle it, it’s in their backyard”. I don’t have the impression Europe is ready to handle it. Like the Ukrainian flag waving, there are high profile visits to Kyiv, lots of tough talk, but actions speak a different story. Military and financial aid is slow and incomplete. Ukraine has been saying for nearly two years what it needs “to win” and has been left to wait and wait and even basic stuff like artillery production has not been ramped up in this time enough to meet demand. Russia doesn’t have to beg. It just makes more or buys more from places like North Korea.

This morning I was walking in the gloomy rain towards my local Bill to pick up a few things and I passed a mother walking her young son to kindergarten (day care). And I thought for a second that just a few years ago, a mother would have been walking her son to kindergarten in some Ukrainian city, and she would not have ever expected that they would have to flee overnight. I asked myself: what is to say that would not happen here too? How many Austrians would really get up and leave should a far right government be elected into a power, a German-speaking Orban protege, a pivot towards Russia, how many people would really say, I don’t want to live here anymore, and where would they go? Because in the case of some European countries, Russia would not have to drop bombs. It just uses its soft power and influence and economic levers and racist, white nationalist local politicians.

So when I see the images out of Dublin, not knowing anything about the details, I smell Russia lighting a match.

In order to feel how the tone is shifting, I would like to share a bit of what I have been reading this week. I really think it is important for us to consume viewpoints we do not instinctively agree with. I think some of the problem is many of the loudest voices on Ukraine have been living in their own echo-chambers and have not been willing to do the mental gymnastics necessary to accept reality as it changes. I think those prone to this perhaps spend more time speaking to others in high ranking positions also in echo-chambers, rather than ordinary folks on the ground. I always try to ask ordinary people what they think, and take the temperature, as unscientific as it sounds, I feel it is such an important exercise.

This is a long but worthwhile, balanced read:

Why “Not losing" is not tantamount to winning

This, on the other hand, sounds more like wishful thinking:

Yale historian says west can break Ukraine stalemate with more military aid

I understand it is incredibly difficult to separate from the mindset that victory should be Ukraine’s for a plethora of very good reasons. I just know from my own life experience that it is not the case that the good guys always win. Yes, karma does come back to haunt the bad ones, but that can take some time. In the meantime, the bad guys do sometimes win, especially when the good ones don’t get enough firepower from friends in high places.

Professor Synder makes some more powerful, in my opinion better arguments, in this piece here he published a few weeks ago. And he is absolutely right about Americans not being present, and what could happen to the rest of Europe should Russia win. And yet, I still don’t think the collective west will get its act together in time. I of course hope I am wrong.

Would you sell them out?

The below was published in Foreign Affairs on November 17, and I as I said on Twitter, I really could not have imagined it being published just a few months prior. But now, it would seem, it has become socially acceptable in the west to at least talk publicly about the elephant in the room:

Redefining Success in Ukraine: A New Strategy Must Balance Means and Ends

And yet, I still come back to this:

“I really struggle with visions of Putin and his quarantine buddies obsessively consuming false history books in a bunker in the Urals and how this translates into a lasting peace. Frankly, it doesn't. Takes me back to what I said from day one, unfortunately.”

The U.S. chooses its priorities, and at the moment, I just don’t think crushing Russia in Ukraine is one of them. Ending the war swiftly maybe yes, ending the way Ukraine would like to see it end? I’m not so sure.

Polish truckers have been blocking Ukrainian trucks from entering the EU for weeks now. European artillery production is nowhere near where it needs to be to actually help Ukraine in a long war. In short, it is a little bit like the omnipresent flag waving which drives those of us working on the ground on the refugee response a bit mad — it’s a lot of talk and little action.

I ask every Ukrainian I get the chance to speak to in person what they really think. I try to probe for honest views. I try to consume local news from inside Ukraine, even though as one person put it “there is no such thing as independent media in Ukraine even now”. I try to read what the bloggers and Telegram channels are focusing on. It is so important not to forget what a challenge these past two years have been for most Ukrainians economically, not to mention the sacrifice many families have made paying the highest possible price in losing loved ones. All while many wealthy Ukrainians are simply waiting out the war in warmer climates. This too has not gone unnoticed.

Some of them are even now living on my street. Most Austrians would not notice a driver waiting in a car every morning from 9am, but I do.

Gosh, that was quite the potpourri of totally unrelated topics. Sorry. It does reflect what I am working on at the moment. I still have a few more grocery cards to send out, and requests do still come in. A mother and son wrote this morning. They arrived recently and are living in a group “hotel” in Lower Austria. I know the address and sighed, putting a card in the mail immediately.

I received this lovely video of thanks on Thanksgiving morning. Perfect timing. Thank you all for your continued support of Cards for Ukraine and our many “side projects” much of which (I have come to joke) I take on first and then think them through later.

Let the holiday fun begin! I will be avoiding the high streets today, but some of the Ukrainians in my Telegram group are already sending around BLACK FRIDAY memes which must mean that nature is healing.