One question has been eating away at me since February 24, 2022 — the day Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine and began stealing mile after mile of Ukrainian territory, claiming it as rightfully belonging to Mother Russia. And that question is:

If Russia is ultimately allowed to keep the territory it has succeeded in occupying, what will happen to all of the Ukrainian people living there who will suddenly find themselves the newest residents of Russia? What, if any, options will they have?

Much, of course, will depend on the terms of the final peace treaty; perhaps there will be a provision allowing those who wish to leave to do so. But where will they go? And what will it mean to them to be uprooted from the homes and the lives they have built?

In the Donbas area, for example — which encompasses the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions — there are quite a few Russian sympathizers who will choose to remain under Russian rule. But they constitute a minority of the total population (currently estimated at 6.5 million). It is difficult to imagine a mass exodus of that magnitude.

So, for the millions who are unable or unwilling to leave, but who oppose the Putin regime, what will the future hold?

First, of course, will be the “award” of Russian citizenship and the issuance of Russian passports.

The Russian language will become dominant; eventually, speaking Ukrainian may become illegal.

The children will quickly be “Russianized.” New school curricula will be instituted immediately, teachers retrained, and children’s “clubs” formed to augment the indoctrination process, similar to the Soviet Komsomol and Pioneer groups. They will be trained for future military service. Their young, vulnerable minds will be molded to form the next generation of good Russian citizens.

Young adults will become eligible for conscription into the Russian military, possibly sent to fight their own Ukrainian people in some future conflict.

Communications — the press, TV, internet — will be restricted in accordance with Russian laws.

Friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers will be encouraged to report any expressions of political dissidence or resistance, creating an endemic atmosphere of suspicion and fear.

I shudder to think of what will happen to the Ukrainian Orthodox churches in those regions, the historic Ukrainian monuments and memorials, and the libraries filled with Ukrainian books.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

*. *. *

These are the images — in addition to the relentless death and destruction — that keep me awake at night.

I see my grandparents, and millions of others — honest, decent, hard-working people — fleeing the tyranny and the pogroms of the tsar in the early 1900s, courageously coming to a strange land to learn a new language, a new way of life.

But the doors that were open to their generation are being slammed shut today; there is no longer any room for them, any “promised land” to run to . . . not in those numbers.

That lamp has been extinguished.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/20/25