OPINION:
On April 7, two buses in southern Ukraine became the sites of Russia’s deliberate violence.
In Nikopol, a drone struck a civilian bus, killing four people and injuring dozens more. Hours later, Russia struck another bus in a nearby community.
Just three days earlier, Russia launched a drone attack on a market in the same city, killing five civilians. These attacks form part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s preferred method of waging war: systematically targeting markets, roads and churches to maximize the risk to civilian life across the country.
Mr. Putin’s style of warfare reflects a worldview deeply rooted in Soviet ideology, which consistently devalued human life.
Soviet thinkers and leaders envisioned the creation of a utopian society through the formation of the “new Soviet man”: a transformed individual fully submissive to the collective order.
Marxist architects believed that the ideal citizen would be selfless, disciplined and entirely devoted to the state. Personal identities, including religious faith, family ties and moral conviction, were expected to yield to the needs of the system.
Within this ideological framework, the present could be sacrificed in pursuit of a promised future. Human beings could be reshaped, disciplined or entirely discarded. The result was not only political repression but also a deep erosion of the value of the individual.
That view of human life did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In our work in Ukraine, we have spent years confronting the consequences of this viewpoint. One of us advances religious liberty; the other works within Ukraine’s orphanage system to restore families and strengthen care for vulnerable children.
Together, we have seen the lasting damage of seven decades of Marxist ideology, including broken family structures, weakened civil society, and generations shaped by systems that trampled personal dignity.
We also have seen something else: Ukraine choosing a different path.
Since independence, Ukraine has deliberately turned toward recognizing the value of the individual. Religious freedom has expanded. Civil society has been strengthened. Families are now the bedrock of communities.
Ukraine’s trajectory stands in stark contrast with Russia’s direction under Mr. Putin, where the state continues to subordinate the individual and suppress personal liberty.
This divergence is essential to understanding the current war.
Russia’s intentional targeting of civilians reflects continuity with a system that treated people as instruments and systematically disregarded human value. Soviet ideology’s elevation of the collective over the person remains visible in how Russia is conducting this war.
The use of first-person-view drones to identify and strike civilian vehicles demonstrates Russia’s view of the expendability of civilian life.
For those working with Ukraine’s most vulnerable populations, the consequences of this type of warfare are immediate and deeply personal.
Every strike on a bus or in a city center means children are left to navigate profound loss. A parent is gone. A caregiver is gone. Russia’s war is creating orphans each day of the war.
As Ukrainians observe Orthodox Holy Week, Russia is intentionally escalating its war, motivated to inflict as much civilian devastation as possible.
The contrast is on full display as we approach Orthodox Easter. While the Soviet project sought to create a new kind of human being by subordinating the individual to an abstract ideal, the Christian understanding of the person affirms that each life is inherently valuable, not because of its usefulness but because of its inherent dignity.
Ukraine’s trajectory in recent decades has aligned increasingly with that latter vision. Russia’s conduct in this war reflects the persistence of the former.
Too often, observers in the United States misunderstand the nature of this conflict. Russia’s war of aggression is not simply a geopolitical dispute; it is also a clash between fundamentally different views of the human person: one that recognizes individual dignity, and one that fundamentally rejects it.
Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilians constitutes a war crime. It also reveals the endurance of an ideology that denies the value of the individual.
The buses in Nikopol carried ordinary people living their daily lives. Their deaths call for a renewed commitment to defend the dignity of every human being.
Even in the fifth year of Russia’s brutal war, Ukrainians continue to choose to reject the communist denial of human worth. They should be supported in their fight to do so.
• Gary Marx is the host of “Peace & Power Ukraine” on the Federal Newswire. Shonda Werry is the president of Ukraine Orphan Outreach.
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