Father Andriy Zelinskyy, SJ, on the troubling moral questions the conflict uncovers

A WAR ALWAYS has its own philosophy, and every philosophy starts with a set of honest questions. Since the early morning of February 24th my city, my country, my world and I have been plunged into such an intensely dark abyss that it may take a lifetime for the next generation to find the light at the end of the tunnel. While analysing the facts of the conflict through the prism of news outlets and social-media platforms, and when focusing on its political and economic aspects, we are at risk of missing the war’s more profound implications. Already they influence our perception of the world. In this context it’s important to seek the truth, and ask the right questions, about what is going on.

What really bothers me every time I consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is what seems to be an extreme degree of brutality and violence. All wars are violent, but the absurd ones are particularly so. When I see the mutilated corpses of civilians scattered in the streets of Bucha, the half-burnt bodies of raped women lying beside the road, the mass graves of the innocent people in the suburbs of Kyiv or in Mariupol’s theatre, I can’t find proper words to explain my horror. But what makes it even worse is that all this brutal violence was unprovoked, unnecessary, irrational and inhumane. The first question that immediately comes to my mind is: “How come a human being today is capable of so much violence and of so many lies?”