Two incompatible leaderships: one looking to the future and the other to an idea of a lost past Kiev’s values are linked to Europe, Moscow’s to nationalism
Thereit is a not too underground but generally neglected aspect of this terrible war of Russia against Ukraine and it is the age contrast between two leaderships: the Ukrainian one, which offers us the image of a president, of an entire government, of representatives of the institutions that tend to be young, prepared, motivated and determined, which do not lack an idea of the future, and which show themselves ready to pay a high price to defend it, together with the values that are connected to it. Ideas and values that this young leadership sees represented by Europe, and realized in it, certainly partially and imperfectly but realized. On the other hand, there is a rather old autocracy – mastiff faces, sometimes a little redone but no less “lived in” – which openly defends an idea of the past, of lost greatness, of nationalistic values and ostentatiously religious (and Christians, but also the Ukrainians are Christians, another senseless aspect of this conflict!).
Not that young people are proportionately far fewer in Russia than in Ukraine; on the contrary, the age structure of both populations does not differ much, presenting, even to an accentuated extent, the demographic trends typical of European countries: decrease in fertility, (slow) increase in longevity and population reduction trend. It cannot therefore be argued that Russia is demographically an older country than Ukraine and that, therefore, it is the demography, which also matters a lot for a country’s prospects, that makes the difference.
What rather distinguishes the younger Ukrainian generations from the Russian ones is a different “exposure” to the values of freedom, which the Ukrainians have been able to directly experience, albeit in troubled and non-linear ways, while the Russians have largely experienced it through the media and that bit of “Americanization” of consumption and lifestyles (which Putin complains today), allowed by the improvement in economic conditions and trade. So it cannot be said that they are not also the Russian boys, victims of this war, whom they did not choose, who do not understand, who are light years away from that world of openness and freedom that they have begun to know anyway.
If wars are always a human tragedy – and they are, in causes and consequences – which spreads its costs without saving anyone (if not perhaps the powerful), it is above all young people (men, in particular) who pay the greatest price. , with the sacrifice of human lives, the taking of children from parents, husbands / companions / brothers from women, fathers from children. This war, already too long, is no exception but with a profound difference between the young people of both sides because the young Ukrainians know why they fight and share the motives of the “resistance”, while the Russians put their own on the line. life, and I often forgive it, without having the opportunity to ask / ask oneself openly: “But why?”, and hearing Putin and the other members of the autocracy of their country irriaveragely distant. They know that it is not for their future that they are called to fight, while the Ukrainians have at least the hope of defending it.
And as the costs of war go far beyond the time and boundaries of fighting, far beyond the immediate cold numbers of dead, wounded, refugees, destruction and ruin, it is not just these young people who are now facing each other on the ground who will pay the consequences. There are the economic costs of rebuilding physical and human capital, the reduction of economic activity and the volume of trade, the reduced availability of resources that can be used to improve social well-being, finance education, create jobs, the fight against poverty and inequalities. The possibilities for recourse to debt are not infinite and in any case, in one way or another, the debt always falls on the younger generations.
And there are still other costs, less visible but more subtle, consisting in the reduction of opportunities for young people exposed to war and in particular for their poorest part, since the rich have more and more possibilities to defend themselves, even from a conflict. A recent World Bank study provides disheartening, but certainly not surprising evidence on the devastating, wide-ranging and lasting effects of conflicts and violence on the life chances of the younger generations involved, on intergenerational mobility, i.e. on the ability of children to reach and perhaps overcome the economic conditions and the social position of the parents. There are so many reasons why conflicts should be rejected and, when unfortunately they have begun, do the utmost to ensure that they end as soon as possible. It shouldn’t be difficult to put first the human, social and psychological cost that, once again, we are inflicting on the younger generations.
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