Dear Editor,
Tuesday, February 24, 2026, will mark the fourth anniversary since Russia invaded its neighbor, Ukraine under the guise of a ‘Special Military Operation’, and with the aim to ‘demilitarize and denazify’ the country run by ‘neo-Nazi’ regime.
But there is no way that a Special Military Operation could last for four years, which means that this was an overt attempt to seize the country. And this is why what Russia has done to Ukraine in the last four years should be a wake-up call that Russia does not represent or value freedom. Like its predecessor, the former Soviet Union, it represents repression, suppression and oppression.
Fortuitously, then President Joe Biden, despite signs of aging, rose to the challenge and awakened a napping NATO to provide a robust response to Russia’s invasion by providing military, financial and economic support, which have so far denied Russia its goal of a complete takeover of Ukraine. In fact, some observers have since concluded that, had it not been for a NATO response, Russia would have taken Ukraine enroute to other countries.
But what really stands out in the last four years has been the sheer will of Ukrainians to fight and die for their freedom. Conservative estimates put the number killed and injured to-date at around 60,000, but they have come to epitomize what it means to ‘die fighting on my feet than live suffering on my knees’. And it is not that Russia lacked the military wherewithal to subdue or defeat Ukraine because Russia retained the massive military stockpile from the Soviet era.
In my opinion, the problem Russia has today is exactly what its predecessor had during the 1979-1989 invasion of Afghanistan to ‘support a socialist government from collapsing’: A lack of strategy. Despite having a military that served as a superpower counterbalance to the United States, the Soviet Union had no strategy in Afghanistan and wound up withdrawing in humiliating fashion with 15,000 soldiers killed and another 40,000 wounded.
Today, Russia has spent the last four years waging unrelenting attacks in Ukraine, and has even had to resort to China, North Korea and other nations for help. To an observing world, Russia has no relatable message even if we now fully comprehend by its true motive and mission at great cost in terms of its loss of soldiers’ lives and injuries (1.2 million) as of February 2026. Which government leader in their right mind will want to do business with a Russian leader having such a mindset?
I do have deep reservations about President Donald Trump’s manner of talking and tactical maneuvers, but I will give Jack his and say that, unlike Ukraine, Guyana owes a debt of gratitude to the United States for averting a potential invasion by Venezuela by removing Nicolas Maduro from office on January 3, 2026. But what was also rather disturbing to note during Maduro’s years of antics over our Essequibo region, Russia maintained a deafening silence while providing political and military support for Maduro’s illegal hold on power.
As a Guyanese, I developed a twin view that Russia never stopped Maduro from threatening Guyana because it was guilty of doing to Ukraine what Maduro was threatening to do to Guyana, and that Russia (along with China, Cuba and other players) saw Venezuela as a springboard to the Latin America-Caribbean region in event there was a revival of communism.
It also didn’t help that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Caracas and held reassuring talks with Maduro in February 2020, April 2023 and February 2024, and never once did he make a cross-border visit to reassure Guyana’s political leaders. That was a potent stab in the back with a repeated twisting of the knife, it really did hurt to think Guyana is home to a Russian Embassy.
I want to close by urging Guyanese everywhere to lend your voices and take a stand in defense of freedom everywhere because freedom is never as free as it looks. People have fought and died for it. People are fighting and dying for it. And people will fight and die for it because some antonyms of freedom are captivity, dependence and subjection.
While Ukrainians fight and die for their freedom, and while Guyanese breathe a sigh of relief from the western border, Guyana is not quite out of the woods yet, as Venezuela’s acting President and Opposition Leader share the same belief that Essequibo belongs to Venezuela. Against this backdrop, Guyana’s leaders need to take strategic advantage of America’s great favour and build a national defense system commensurate with a national development programme.
Development without a durable defense is a diagram for division, defeat and disaster. David slew Goliath with a stone, so Guyana needs leaders with boulders! Remember Ukraine in its hour of war for survival. And Happy Mash Day!