What do you with an exhaustion that compels you to give up but you know you can’t?
Tired
Canadians explain their waning attention to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by saying that they are tired of this war.
We paid attention in February 2022 and every so often when the media airs a clip about another massive drone strike on civilians. But for the large part, Ukrainians are “not my people, not my country, and certainly not my war.”
However, I also get asked questions like:
How are Ukrainians hanging on?
When will the war end?
What kind of war is it?
Timothy Snyder is an American historian on Europe, author, and professor at a University in Kyiv. He’s been in Ukraine for 30 years and since the war started has made six trips across Ukraine, spending time primarily in areas near the front. He writes on Substack. I’ve seen much of what he describes. 
Responsible Parties
Snyder gives some answers to the above questions in this 9:34 video, filmed on September 11, 2025. If you start at the 4:15 mark you will hear a succinct but clear description of what this war means to Ukrainians and Canada. To you and me.
He closes his explanation with the comment, “We, beyond Ukraine, are not merely observers who can ask questions, but responsible parties whose actions (and inaction) make the difference.”
The full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022, so for Ukrainian kids there was no gap between germs and bombs. Millions of Ukrainian boy and girls still have some or all of their school days on line, because the Russians fire rockets and drones at schools. It takes time to adapt basements and build new schools underground.
Ethics in Wartime
Snyder says, “In Ukraine, and in other war zones, and amidst other catastrophes and difficulties, parents raise children, or mourn them. And what is to admire, or what I admire at least, is parenting that teaches children how to be with others, how to do things, and also how to imagine a world that is different than this one, that is better.”
Ukrainian soldiers have much to say about the moral construction of the world, and it has an eloquence that goes beyond any one slogan. In Dnipro I was talking to an infantryman serving in Pokrovsk. His picture was taken. He said, “Maybe I can smile when this is over.”
It matters that Ukraine has not fought the war the way that Russia has.
The Russian approach has been criminal from the beginning: the invasion itself was illegal, and the kidnappings and bombings of civilians are war crimes, as is the systematic terror and executions in occupied terrains.
Educated by Destruction
We are educated by this, sadly: too often we look at the ruins of a building in Ukraine or elsewhere and think that this is simply war.
That reaction is an effect of exhaustion. We have a the choice to embrace exhaustion. Ukrainians don’t.
As Snyder says, we are responsible parties whose action can make a difference. What can you do? Talk about Ukraine. Learn about Ukraine. If you attend a prayer meeting at church or in a home group, when prayer requests come up, ask for prayer for Ukrainian congregati9ons. Support the charitable work of Loads of Love.
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