The World According to Sally: Bread or Guns?

A protester puts a gas mask on a young woman behind a barricade on Grushevsky Street in downtown Kiev during clashes with riot police on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014.

In the past few months, all I’ve been seeing on the news is how Ukraine and Russia have been on rocky ground since the rebellions in Ukraine hit a record high in March of 2014. As summer rolled by, it seems the relationship between the once closely allied Slavic countries has done nothing but gotten worse. Recent outreach attempts made by Moscow to rebuild its relations with Ukraine have experienced serious rejection. First aid trucks sent from Russia with supplies for the now starving cities of Ukraine have been stopped some hundred miles from the Ukrainian border.

It is understandable, and maybe even expectable, for Ukraine to show resistance to Russian aid. The Ukrainian government seems to be running out of options about how to solve their country’s growing problems. The Ukrainian cities, Donetsk and Luhansk, have reached critical humanitarian conditions whilst under the control of Russian separatist groups. Nearly 250,000 citizens have been living without power, electricity and sewage for nearly two weeks now with only small rations of food and water.

Ukrainian leaders are worried about the possibility of Russia attempting to hide weapons and other ammunition in their first aid convoys. With Russian president Vladimir Putin’s history, this is understandably a cause for unease in Ukraine’s eyes. Personally, I think that if Russia was going to transport weapons to separatist groups in Ukraine, they could find a less obvious way of doing so. For the past six months, Russia has been restocking and supplying the separatists through another border. This is a much more secretive way to go about things and obviously the way Russia will continue to restock their Ukrainian separatists.

At this point, with the constant depression of living conditions in Ukraine, the country should accept whatever help it can get, even if that means accepting aid from the enemy. Once refueled, Ukraine can continue its struggle with Russia. However, in its current state, Ukraine would be smart to let go of its pride in order to save its people.

It’s crazy to me that after Ukraine’s nearly three decades of struggle and perseverance  after the fall of the USSR, that now the government, or should I say lack of government, is allowing for the tragic and inhumane treatment of its people. The people are the country’s strength, although at this point Ukraine is standing by as the people slowly regress into weakness.