As of this writing, the people of Ukraine remain valiantly engaged in the defense of their homeland from Russia’s invasion. Since Feb. 24, everyday Ukrainians, led by their unlikely president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have withstood attacks from both land and air. Food, weapons, military veterans, and sundry aid are arriving in earnest now from other European nations, even as Russia has begun to make inroads in southern Ukraine. On March 2, under heavy bombardment, the
city of Kherson
was captured by the Russians, making it the first Ukrainian city to fall.
The Russians have not yet been able to put the capital city of Kyiv under siege, though they have closed the distance in recent days. As National Review’s Mark Antonio Wright
thoroughly detailed
last week, there are several reasons the Russians have struggled thus far in their advance, such as poor tactics, insufficient training, and operational inefficiency. The Ukrainian defenders have wreaked havoc on Russian cargo and mechanized columns. The Russians have been unable to establish air superiority, thanks largely to Ukrainian anti-air batteries, which the Ruskies neglected to neutralize through what is known as a Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses campaign and, to a lesser extent, the skill and heroics of the Ukrainian air force themselves. One fighter pilot, who has already become mythologized as the “Ghost of Kyiv,”
reportedly
shot down six Russian planes in the span of 30 hours, according to one Ukrainian member of Parliament.
The
fog of war
that plagues the battlefield also obscures perceptions of the fight from afar. It is difficult to ascertain a clear picture of reality in a war, exponentially more so one that is playing out in viral clips on social media, snippets of competing reports, and in proxy propaganda campaigns. Stories that emerge from war, such as that of Mr. Ghost, can run the gamut from being an intentionally propagandistic creation to being based on some small truth that gets inflated upon repetition to being a true accounting of individual or group heroism.
Heroism pervades our historic and cultural memory of sieges and last stands. The consequences of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., when Leonidas and his 300 Spartans spat in the face of the innumerable hordes of Xerxes’s Persian army, are hard to understate. The three days the Spartans held the Hot Gates changed the course of history: Logistically, it gave the Greeks time to retreat, regroup, and amass troops, particularly with regard to Themistocles and his navy. But less materially, the to-the-last-man bravery of Leonidas and his men was almost as vital in the Greek resistance to the Persians, both as a tale of inspirational propaganda and as an existential confirmation of their ability to wage this civilizational conflict.
One of the most crucial battles in Japanese history was the siege of Fushimi castle in September 1600. Threatened by the advancing forces of his rival, Ishida Mitsunari, the daimyo and eventual Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu was forced to escape to his castle at Edo, where he could gather the rest of his troops and allies. Trapped, Ieyasu left his friend Torii Mototada at the castle fortress of Fushimi, which controlled the road east. With only 2,000 troops, Mototada was outnumbered by Mitsunari’s forces by roughly 20 to 1. In his final message, Mototada wrote, “It would not take too much trouble to break through a part of their number and escape. But that is not the true meaning of being a warrior. I will stand off the forces of the entire country here and die a resplendent death.” Mototada’s forces held out for 12 days and, according to legend, kept fighting until there were only 10 of them left before committing honorable seppuku.
Against-all-odds siege situations have a way of bringing out a certain type of human valiance that slips from its contextual reality and transcends into part of historical and national legend. Let us pray Ukraine survives long enough for its current heroes to become legends.
