It has been a little while since my last update, but I have not been idle. In addition to promoting the petition and sharing it on social media I have also contacted the Ukrainian ambassador to New Zealand and Australia.
I noticed the other day that quite a few of you have chipped in to the petition. Thanks a lot for that, it has made a measurable difference to the size of the petition.
A bit of a recurring theme I have heard from some people is that they don’t agree with military aid on ethical grounds or that they think only humanitarian aid saves lives and military aid simply kills people. This is incorrect and I would like to take a minute to explain why.
When your country has had a full scale invasion launched against it, particularly one as brutal and medieval as the Russian one against Ukraine where they basically level cities and use siege warfare, military aid always has the potential to save lives.
For example, if I started a petition to gift humanitarian aid to Ukraine most people would have no ethical problem with this. If I started a petition to give Ukraine highly accurate 155 mm artillery or MLRS systems some people would object to it on moral grounds. But the humanitarian aid would only be able to help people after cities had been flattened. The artillery could take out the Russian artillery that is causing all the damage to the cities and hence prevent the cities from being flattened in the first place. In this case the military aid actually has the potential to save more lives than the humanitarian aid, but some people have either not thought it fully through or are prepared to deny Ukraine the military aid it needs even though it could be highly effective at dealing with the actual root cause of the problem. Humanitarian aid is good but it is insufficient by itself.
The same goes for armoured vehicles. I have even had one person refer to these as “obsolete murder machines”. People like this are completely missing the point of this petition. The point is not to kill as many people as possible, the point is to provide the Ukrainian army, who are fighting for their country’s right to exist, the right equipment to do their job both relatively safely and effectively.
I have seen video footage of Ukrainian fighters driving around in commercial vehicles with machine guns mounted on the back. The problem with this is that this type of vehicle offers no protection from mines or gun fire. An armoured vehicle would.
People objecting to military aid may also say that the answer is negotiating rather than fighting. The problem here is that you need to be dealing with someone who wants to negotiate for negotiations to work.
Another potential objection to military aid is that the problem could just be solved overnight by placing a full embargo on Russian oil and gas. This idea also has issues, for several reasons. Yes, a full embargo on Russian oil and gas should happen, but even if it did it would not cripple Russia’s army overnight. It would take months to be effective and in the mean time Ukraine would still need military aid. In addition the partial embargo that has so far happened has had almost the opposite effect to the desired one. Although Russia is exporting less energy, the supply shortage has caused raised energy prices and hence Russia is still able to make a lot of money from its smaller energy exports.
What all of this is trying to demonstrate is that military aid is absolutely necessary and in fact it is the main form of aid the Ukrainian government is pursuing, which is understandable in the situation it finds itself in. The reality is Ukraine needs humanitarian aid, military aid and economic aid. All of these, not one or two.
Cheers,
Finn