Leo Simonetta

I often hear from Westerners that Russians are victims too, that they live in an authoritarian system and can do nothing about the war. That is simply not true, but this post isn't about that. This post is about timing, acting before your democracy turns into a pile of ash and a mad old dictator suddenly starts sending you to war. Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was the annexation of Crimea. Before that, the invasion of Georgia. And before that, political prosecutions, the dismantling of democratic institutions, the takeover of the press, and police violence ignored to the point of turning the country into a police state. The time to act was back then. Years ago. Instead, we watched Russian society slowly degrade into a crowd of obedient little sheep. I saw people horrified by police violence jump into their cars and trains to head to the capital to protest and demand change. I saw them stand their ground, refusing to budge even when snipers started shooting. Those people are my people, and that revolution started the beginning of our long, hard fight for our democracy and freedom. And I saw people swallow police violence, repression, and the takeover of the press, until one day, their army started marching through the fields of Donbas, and all they could do was blink like idiots and ask, "What can I do?" Well, duh! America is at the beginning of this road right now, but it is the exact same road. Today, they choose whether they want to fight for their democracy or let it die. Because their time to act is now, not when the police start shooting at peaceful protesters in the streets and their army starts bombing their neighbors.