Marwan Safar Jalani writes:

When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, I rushed to a protest organized by Ukrainians in Oxford, England. I, along with fellow Syrians, brought the Syrian revolution flag to the protests to demand an end to the invasion.

At the time, I struggled to put into words why I felt so strongly about Ukraine. Before long, I found out about the forceful Syrian participation in protests across Europe and the United States against the invasion. Pictures of the Syrian revolution flag appeared alongside Ukrainian flags waved at the demonstrations, showcasing identification with the values of freedom and democracy that Moscow is attacking yet again.

Those very values were obliterated when Russia intervened in Syria in 2015 to prop up the authoritarian and brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad. With the help of Moscow, the Assad regime forcibly displaced millions of Syrians; committed crimes against humanity and war crimes by bombing hospitals and schools in Idlib and Aleppo provinces; was largely responsible for killing at least half a million through indiscriminate shelling, massacres, crimes of torture, and sexual violence; led mass disinformation campaigns to depict the Syrian regime’s war against the Syrian people as a “war on terror”; and covered up the use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Syrians are well aware of the stark differences between Syria and Ukraine, and their solidarity with Ukraine doesn’t only come from a shared experience with Russian military occupation. This solidarity, or better yet, “identification,” with Ukraine, as Syrian political commentator Yassin Swehat calls it, comes from the increasing recognition that Ukraine’s plight arises from the world’s indifference to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Syria. Thus, Syrian solidarity with Ukraine comes from a belief that the invasion of Ukraine could have been averted had the world stopped Putin in Syria. [Continue reading…]