New Zealanders have not had to dig trenches because of the war in Ukraine, which started four years ago this week. Nor have we had to don gas-masks.
However, as this senseless, needless conflict has worn on in Ukraine New Zealanders have come to know those people well.
We have watched their travails as the might of Russia illegally stormed their borders, admired their fortitude as they not only brought the invasion to a halt but pushed the Russian armies back, and sympathised deeply as they have counted the economic and human cost of doing so.
There is also great respect for Ukraine’s leader Volodymr Zelenskyy. Bullied by Vladimir Putin, berated by Donald Trump and forced into a war not of his making, he has shown steel that one might not have expected from a former performer and Dancing With The Stars winner to keep his sorely-afflicted country together during its terrible struggles.
New Zealanders have dug deeply into their pockets to help. On top of private donations to organisations such as the Red Cross, taxpayers have contributed $45 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the past four years, and members of the New Zealand Defence Force have helped train Ukraine troops.
Some New Zealanders have made individual contributions and fought on the front lines or assisted the work of aid agencies. Some have paid the ultimate price for doing so.
Ukraine is not a small nation — 39 million people live there — but here, on the other side of the world, many New Zealanders feel an empathy with its plight.
Our national fortunes have often been held hostage to the geopolitical posturings of other, larger nations, and it affronts our sense of decency and fairness that Russia has turned to illegal invasion when it could resolve its differences with Ukraine through democracy.
With three of the world’s largest powers being governed by ambitious and unpredictable leaders, many opinions have been offered as to whether the international rules based order, on which many smaller states such as New Zealand depend to defend their interests in the face of foreign behemoths, can still function as it has for several decades.
For all its weaknesses — for a start, it could not prevent this war — international law is still the strongest tool available to rein in the excesses of overly ambitious countries, be they military or economic.
New Zealand has been a staunch advocate of the system that has evolved over time. Generally, it has served us well, and any erosion of it would leave us and many other countries vulnerable. It must not be a victim of current political tides.
No-one knows precisely how many people have died as a result of what Russia still, laughably, calls a ‘‘special military operation’’, but varied estimates suggest about half a million civilians and combatants, from each side, may have been killed.
The question ‘‘what for?’’ might reasonably be asked at this point. Ukraine at least has the knowledge that its combatants were acting to defend their country and compatriots; Russians can only look at the limited territory gained since the invasion and the near stalemate which was ensued and wonder whether anything has really been achieved in four years of conflict.
Despite the best efforts of US President Donald Trump, who claimed he would end this war within 24 hours of the start of his second term in office, blood continues to be shed and lives shattered in a conflict which far from concluding.
Russia will keep fighting because its leader wants to; Ukraine will keep fighting because it has no choice.
The rest of the world can only keep watching, keep shaking its head in despair, but not forget the people of the Ukraine whom we have now come to know.
