EDITORIAL: Concerning Ukraine, heavy hearts require clear heads

Apr. 4—Witnessing Russia's brutal attack on the brave people of Ukraine is horrifying. But recent polls revealing that roughly half of Americans want the United States to create a no-fly zone over the country and become further involved in military action are troubling.

Since Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his military forces on several major Ukrainian cities, at least 1,200 civilians have died, 112 of them children. Consider those numbers with skepticism. The United Nations warns that its published statistics are far short of the actual death toll and it will be years before the real picture comes into focus.

In Mariupol, for instance, fuel ran out, so ambulances and other rescue vehicles can't get to attack sites to assess the damage. People are trapped in their apartments without food and water, dying of starvation unbeknownst to anyone. Those deaths cannot be counted.

Meanwhile, more than 2.3 million people — nearly all women and children — are forced to make long, arduous journeys to Poland and elsewhere, their families ripped apart as the men, and sometimes women, stay behind to fight. At the outset, many said they were destined to stay for a short time with family, then return home. That was shock speaking. By now the reality has crashed down on them.

A national survey by the University of Massachusetts at Lowell's Center for Public Opinion found a bipartisan 46% of those polled support a no-fly zone over Ukraine, requiring U.S. and NATO forces to attack Russian fighters if they enter the airspace, despite Putin's very real threat of nuclear attack. In a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week, a bipartisan 55% of Americans supported sending more U.S. troops to Washington's NATO allies in central and eastern Europe.

"Americans like an underdog," John Cluverius, associate professor of political science at UMass Lowell and associate director of the university's Center for Public Opinion, told Statehouse reporter Christian Wade.

"They don't like the idea of Russia, in particular, invading another country and they share a deep dislike of Russian President Vladimir Putin."

President Joe Biden remains adamant he will not send U.S. troops to Ukraine, but he is supplying weapons to Kyiv. Other nonviolent but impactful actions are his ban on U.S. imports of Russian oil, among other sanctions, and the deployment of thousands of additional troops to Europe to support North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in case of an invasion.

Congressman Seth Moulton, D-Massachusetts, cautions against more forceful action.

"I think it is fantastic that so many Americans support the Ukrainians' fight for freedom. But this is a complicated geopolitical situation, and a no-fly zone bears too much risk of escalating this into an all-out war against Russia," Moulton told Wade.

"There's a big difference between a proxy war and World War III."

Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security recently simulated in a four-plus minute video the outcome of an escalating war between the United States and Russia, using what they describe as "realistic nuclear force postures, targets and fatality estimates."

Their prediction? Ninety million people will die or be injured in the first few hours. Ninety million people.

Former NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said he, too, believes Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons is meaningful. And, he pointed out, the trigger most likely would be as simple as "any accident or misstep that the Kremlin mistook for war."

"The prospect of nuclear war is now back within the realm of possibility," Antnio Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, warned last week.

Like Vershbow, he said it would not be deliberate escalation, but a misunderstanding or provocation that spirals out of control.

Vladimir Putin is wildly unpredictable and proves time and again he cannot tolerate being crossed. In these troubling times, universal compassion must be tempered with reason. It will never be prudent to purposely provoke a madman.