Feb. 24 marks four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For some, this feels like distant news tied to a faraway war. But here in San Diego, it isn’t.
Our region is home to Ukrainian families and refugees who carry this war with them every day. I still think about the maternity hospital bombed in Mariupol in 2022, shown in 20 Days in Mariupol — pregnant women carried through rubble, a place of life turned into horror.
Since then, thousands of Ukrainian children have reportedly been taken from their homeland. Even now, maternity hospitals continue to be struck. These are not tragic accidents. They are choices.
Over the past three years, I’ve spent time helping and speaking with Ukrainian refugees here in our community. One conversation stays with me. I asked a woman named Anna how many people she had lost in the war. She paused and began counting.
Seconds passed. I realized the number was already in the double digits. She said it depended on whether she counted close friends, classmates or people from her city. Loss on that scale is hard for most Americans to imagine.
How this war ends matters far beyond Ukraine. If the world allows a powerful country to invade, destroy cities, target civilians and then keep what it has taken, we send a message that force prevails over law. That is not peace — it is permission for this to happen again.
I am American, and I support Ukraine because I believe in protecting civilians, defending democracy and resisting brutality. Supporting Ukraine today is about the kind of world we choose to uphold — and the values we Americans claim as our own.
Craig Gresbrink
San Marcos, CA
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