I am not going to fling mud at you, WeeJoe. You have always seemed a very good person to me. But I have issues with the trivialisation of the much larger war. The idea that what is happening in Gaza is worse, I have issues with that.
The problem is that you are unaware of the facts and have your truth (which is not the same as facts) and that you do not understand the demographic catastrophe in Ukraine nor the wide reaching geopolitical, economical and security political consequences, caused by the unprovoked Russian invasion. That the Ukrainian civilian population can, in general, withdraw from combat zones when Russia approaches is generally true, while the population in Gaza of course cannot (this was not true when Russia bombed encircled Aleppo as an example, with cluster munitions, but after the Siege of Mariupol, Ukraine has hurried to try evacuate civilians when the Russian army draws near). This is not however due to Russian kindness, but because Ukraine forcibly evacuatees citizens when the Russian army gets too close, something any sane state will do if they are able to.
The idea that Ukrainian military casualties do not count in comparison to Gaza civilians is also completely alien to me and makes no ethical sense. This is not a war of choice, it is not as if Ukrainian men can just run away without being labeled traitors, they fight because they must. A Ukrainian man or woman who fights has the exact same worth and none of them asked for this war. It has been forced upon them. The Ukrainian population has shrunk with more than 10 million, a very large number of whom will never return (unless we in the West help Ukraine actually win, very few will return). This is a demographic disaster in a shockingly short time completely incomparable with anything in the world today (certainly Gaza, which still has a very high population of younger people). More than 50 000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and sent to Russia to add to their demographic, it seems as if you are not aware of any of this. The number of civilian dead in Ukraine is unknown, but everyone agrees it is several thousands higher than the estimates from the UN (who do not count Ukrainian civ cas, no one does, but the idea that Gazan civ cas is 4 times as high is certainly an ugly myth. Not all of the 41-42000 in Gaza are civilians either, as an unknown but too small number, are Hamas). The siege of Mariupol alone, a small city, where bodies were everywhere, the United Nations were only able to count 1348 dead (!) because they had no access (they did not have access and the UN does not count Ukrainian civ cas like the do in Gaza) but admits that the real number was “several thousands higher”, yet this is the number that you have in your figures, as it’s the “official one”. Ukraine documents more than 25 000 civilians dead in that short and extremely brutal siege, Associated Press says it could be 3 times as high as that. The operation early in the war designed to shock Ukraine into surrendering and the Russian efforts into erasing the mass graves of civilians have been well documented (Russia scrubs Mariupol's Ukraine identity, builds on death | AP News ).
Since Mariupol, towns and cities are forcibly evacuated when the Russian army approaches within assault range. These are facts. Whatever number you have seen is inaccurate.
The scale of fighting, the scale of infrastructure destruction, in Ukraine is vastly, vastly greater. It is painful to see a European, who should have maybe been some what aware of the realities of what is going on in Ukraine, since it directly affects our security, our economy, focus on climate change, our everything after all (with socioeconomic and sociopolitical domino effects in almost all European countries, destabilizes developing countries with massively higher food and fuel prices etc etc.), minimise and trivialise the largest war in Europe since 1945.
It is an industrial war. Casualties, ammunition production, refugee flood; the numbers are so high it is into the realm of statistics. Who wins is about ammunition output, logistics and manpower, that is the scale of it!
I wonder what you think would have happened to Ukrainian civilians had they not been evacuated by their own state. I wonder if you have seen Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Soledar, all the towns, villages, most of whom were wiped off the map. I wonder if you know what it means that the Russian army advances into a village. When they do, only the odd house is standing, if that. They advance under a carpet of artillery fire and 500 kg bombs. Slowly, inexorably and in their wake there are no people left alive but the prisoners they take and later mistreat in captivity. The odd civilian who refused to evacuate, living in basement without running water. Very much like in Gaza, just empthy and on a far larger scale.
Ukraine is a very large country. The bread basket of Europe. If Russia wins, it will have enormous consequences on a macro scale for not only Ukrainians, but for the entire world.
So yes, unfortunately, on every relevant measurable parameter of any value, the disaster happening in Ukraine is worse. It affects global food supply, it affects fight against climate change, it affects the entire world outside the battlefield, and of course Europe to a very high degree. However, in the microcosmos of Gaza, the situation there is of course much worse in that specific small area for civilians specifically (because civilians cannot flee to another country). But the scale is vastly different.
There is some truly disturbing disinformation at work in the media sphere, where some parties seek to trivialise the cataclysmic disaster with it’s epicentre in Ukraine. A media “competition” for attention. It should be possible to have focus on everything, but mass media doesn’t seem to work that way, as it’s always the next bright shiny disaster that everyone should care about more than the previous one.
Anyway, my impression of you as a person is very positive, you seem kind and well meaning and also thoughtful. But it is disturbing how little Europeans seem to know about the war in Ukraine and the domino effects (not just you, in general, there is systemic ignorance), despite it is directly happening next door.
