Kaspars Ģērmanis
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I have encountered questions asking why Ukraine has not ended the war. Those asking believe that ending the war at any cost would benefit Ukraine. However, such a scenario would not be fair or even merciful.
London, Paris, Sevilla, Dakar—The Same Question Comes Up Everywhere
At the end of November 2023 in London, I heard the question—”Why is Ukraine not searching for peace?”—asked by a taxi driver on my way to the airport. He is not alone in his thoughts. It raises another question: “Why, even acknowledging that Russia is an aggressor, do some people question the responsibility of Ukraine?
The taxi driver was an Afghanistan-born Londoner who left his country due to a permanent and never-ending war. He viewed war as the worst thing, to be avoided at all costs. A few weeks later, in Paris, I met a young French man who rhetorically asked why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not attempting to reach peace with Russia. At the end of February 2024, a Spanish man in Sevilla remarked that Ukraine should find peace since Europe has contributed much to it. Finally, in Dakar, Senegal, in January 2025, local professors expressed skepticism about whether Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s aim is the destruction of the state of Ukraine, suggesting that peace is a solution. Here, I must stress that the Senegalese did not insist that Ukraine was responsible for the war.
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