Why I Sympathize with Ukraine

By Hicham Bou Nassif | Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College-California

Vladimir Putin has said more than once that Ukraine is not a country. Hafez al-Assad made a similar statement about Lebanon and Syria — “We are one people with two states” — which essentially meant that Lebanon was redundant.

In the case of Ukraine and Russia, which mirrors that of Lebanon and Syria, we face a larger country denying a smaller neighbor its right to exist and invading it to reclaim what it sees as a lost province.

This is why, as a Lebanese citizen, I sympathize with Ukraine. In some emotional corner of my mind, the image of Russia merges with that of Syria, and the image of Putin with that of Assad.

A few days ago, US President Donald Trump sought to humiliate his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the White House.

What particularly struck me about the confrontation was the moment when a Ukrainian diplomat pinched the bridge of her nose while Trump berated her country’s leader.

That scene encapsulated what I most reject in political relations, and in human relations in general: the strong preying on the weak.

In this case, the strong/weak equation is a binary between a superpower like the US and Ukraine. In other instances, the same equation pits a religious majority against a minority, a man against a woman, or non-LGBTQ individuals against LGBTQ individuals.

I understand, of course, that this is nothing new, and that the strong have always preyed on the weak. I also understand that the formerly weak often succumb to the same oppressive impulses they once suffered under if the balance of power shifts — consider the “achievements” of Alawite rule in Syria between 1963 and 2024, or Shiite rule in Lebanon between 1990 and 2024. But all of this remains regrettable.

Beyond the emotional and ethical dimensions, I stand with Ukraine on a values-based level. After Joseph Stalin starved Ukrainian peasants, leading to the deaths of millions in the 1930s in Soviet Ukraine, and after the Communists ruled with an iron fist, Ukraine gradually embarked on a path of democratic transformation after the Cold War.

The 2014 popular uprising in Ukraine demonstrated broad alignment in the country with the European Union — as a set of values, relationships, and systems.

Then, Zelenskyy became president in 2019 through free elections, which Russia lacks.

In this sense, Zelensky is the antithesis of Putin, in that the Ukrainian president is the product of his country’s progress toward democracy, while Putin is the product of democratic regression in Russia. Moreover, Western liberal democracies supported Zelenskyy, at least until Trump came to power.

As for Putin’s allies, they include the Chinese Communist Party, the Iranian mullah regime, and, of course, the North Korean regime.

In the global confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism, a Russian victory would be a step forward for the autocratic axis over the democratic one. If we recall that the group of those who despise Western liberalism includes figures like Stalin, Hitler, and Khomeini, the choice between the two axes becomes clear.

I side with Ukraine for a practical reason related to the desire for peace. One need not delve deeply into international relations to know the following: The sustained stability in Europe since the end of World War II is the exception, not the rule, in the continent’s history; and this stability has been based on rules that Europeans have adhered to, including respect for international law, international organizations (of which the European Union is the highest expression), and the rejection of using force to resolve international disputes.

All of this, along with US backing, has protected Europe and the world from the world wars sparked by European conflicts in the past. This system was shaken the day Putin’s armies invaded Georgia, then Ukraine. Will this shaking turn into a crack due to Trump’s policies? If it does, international relations will revert to what they were in the 19th century: a struggle without constraints among great powers and without the essential brake of solidarity among democracies.

Perhaps those who rejoice in the Putin-Trump duo should remember that what has been termed the “long 19th century” ended with a world war, followed soon after by another.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.