Dionysis Savvopoulos, in an ERT broadcast raising money for Ukraine, said among other things: "Ukrainians, like all of us, were looking after their own lives, their work, and their family, and suddenly they acquired an epic consciousness. Only with the psychology of an epic can you go and die for those lofty things that are also very tangible, and are called homeland, freedom, and democracy. Prosperity is good and so is its relative carefreeness. But it seems that at the critical moment the road that saves the world is always the same, and there is only one: sacrifice. Ukraine is now suffering for all of us. Do not remain silent. Follow the road of the heart. Help the Ukrainians in whatever way each of you can. It is their sacrificed blood that now comes to save what no one, no totalitarianism, will ever manage to defeat: the greatness of life. I bow before Ukraine, lower my head, and chant with it..."

Some want to equate the perpetrator with the victim. Yet reality cries out. Facts speak and facts are sacred. Our judgment about the facts is free.

Others place the blame on Ukraine because it resisted the Russian superpower. They seem to forget that David confronted Goliath and prevailed. They forget that in 1821 a handful of barefoot people confronted the Ottoman Empire and, had there not been civil wars, they would have prevailed. Then there would have been no need to seek protection from the Great Powers.

Others shout, complain, and rage because electricity and natural gas prices have soared. Yes, they have soared. But every war has consequences. Europe and Greece also bear them. Even so, the whole West, including the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, and others, stands with Ukraine. Sacrifice saves the world.

The war is between Russia and the West. Ukraine is fighting for the West. The West helps as it can. It is a war between authoritarian and democratic regimes.

As for rising prices, the populists of politics have gone wild. They are so many that they twist our minds. In their effort to win a few votes they violate both logic and reality.

We should realize that we are living through historic moments. The new division of the world will be between democratic and authoritarian regimes. Fortunately, with the agreement of the great majority of political forces, our country aligned itself with the right side of history.

Putin's Russia cannot reconcile itself with the post-Soviet condition, with the new reality. It longs for the past. And since the Soviet past is impossible, it longs for imperial Russia.

By contrast, Ukraine made a 180-degree turn toward Europe and democracy. This is what authoritarian Putin could not tolerate.

The threat from Ukraine was not military but civilizational. It should be recalled that in 1994, under the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine handed over its nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia.

Putin could not tolerate the idea that a country until recently tied to the Soviet chariot and considered inferior to Russia could become European and surpass Russia. This is Russia's deeper fear, and not NATO membership or the other pretexts invoked by Putin.

After the war, relations between Russia and Ukraine will be difficult. Can a European democratic Ukraine coexist with an authoritarian Russia? Can there be freedom in Russia while it tramples on the freedom of another country? Might the answer lie in the democratization of Russia?

Finally, Putin threatens Greece as well, even if other countries have sent more help to Ukraine. Perhaps this is because he regarded Orthodox Greece as a given, even while he allies himself with Islamic Turkey against Orthodox Ukraine.

Paul Marantos

marantosp@gmail.com