And, just like that, Vladimir Putin replaced COVID-19 as the most evil and unpredictable force on the face of the planet.
Just like that, the squabbling over masks and vaccine mandates seems petty as we watch missiles fired and tanks roll into Ukraine.
Witnessing Russia’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine is unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes: families huddled in subways to escape air strikes from a neighboring country so closely tied to the one it is bombing.
An inexperienced but resolute president vowing to fight like hell while begging his global allies to not leave his people stranded on a figurative island quickly being surrounded by a large military led by an egotistical madman.
While this blatant and bloody assault is occurring far away from us here in the Fox Valley, there are people living in our communities who feel the horror much closer to home.
For the past two decades Paul Kucher has lived in this area, most recently in Naperville with wife Luda and four children. But the heart of this 43-year-old pastor and owner of a construction company is in his homeland of Ukraine where, as of Friday morning, a sister and her family of nine, including a small grandchild, are desperately trying to escape the capital of Kyiv, joining a large number of other refugees seeking safety across the borders.
What Kucher wants us to understand is what’s going on in his homeland is nothing short of “live streaming genocide” that will only get far worse.
“There are no words,” he said, “to describe the evil that is happening right now.”
The biggest issue, Kucher told me, is the number of Russian rockets that are randomly raining down on so many parts of the country – including his hometown of Lutsk – in an effort by Putin to “break down the morale of the people.”
Already, he said the number of casualties is far higher than what we are getting from American news which, he insisted, “are only reporting about 5% of what is happening on the ground.”
Kucher has been receiving his information from the BBC and other stations that are working with newly-united conservative and liberal Ukrainian channels. Those 24/7 live updates, he said, far more accurately depict what is going on in the country right now, which includes some positive information about the strength and resolve of those under attack.
The resistance from the Ukraine people is “much stronger than what the rest of us are seeing,” Kucher said.
And the Ukrainian army, he added, includes more than half a million “battle-ready” reservists, some of whom have been through eight years of an ongoing armed conflict with Russia in the eastern part of the nation, making them “trained and ready to go.”
Plus, thousands of volunteers are stepping up to defend their country, he said, so many, in fact, the biggest need is for weapons and ammunition, which, if shipped to Poland, he said, could be in the hands of the army “in two or three hours.”
Because Ukrainians have been living in a state of war since 2014, “many were prepared for this,” Kucher said. And, while “no one expected this size of an invasion … we are willing and ready to fight.”
The Russian and Ukrainian people have nothing against each other, he said, noting how closely their histories are tied together.
“Make no mistake,” Kucher continued, “this is all because of one psychopath who has an ego” focused on “the rebirth of the Soviet empire, even if it means sacrificing hundreds of thousands of his own people … he does not care.”
The fact Putin spouts his desire to free the Ukrainian people from fascist rule is especially galling to Kucher. He not only points to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage, including a grandfather who died during the Holocaust, but his own Jewish mother and her family, who spent 15 years in Stalin’s Gulag.
“After World War II, we said never again. Apparently, we are repeating the same mistake,” Kucher said. “If good people choose to do nothing, how long will this go on?”
Even as I type this paragraph – and certainly by the time this column is posted or printed – things will change in Ukraine. But as long as those cellphone towers remain in operation, Kucher will continue to talk multiple times throughout each day to his family as they make their way to safety.
The one word that describes their state of mind? “Terror,” he said, “absolute terror.”
When I asked Kucher, who helps his brother lead Christian Worship Center in Downers Grove, what he wanted most from the rest of us, he suggested that we reach out to politicians because the West “has much more leverage than they are willing to engage against Putin.”
The sanctions put into place by Biden and other world leaders, Kucher said, might take a month to kick in, but “those people on the ground don’t have a month to live with ballistic rockets indiscriminately coming down on them.”
Which is why he hopes his number one request will have a more immediate impact.
“I ask that you pray,” he said, “as much as possible.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
