Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of The Asahi Shimbun.
March 19, 2022 at 13:30 JST
A woman walks past a burning apartment building after Russian forces shelled Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 13. (AP Photo)
I am filled with dread when I think about how the residents of Mariupol in southeast Ukraine are coping in the face of the Russian siege.
The city’s drama theater, which was being used as an evacuation center, was leveled in a Russian airstrike. Nearly 1,000 people could have been inside at the time, according to reports.
The entire city is under siege.
More than 350,000 people remain trapped, but there is no way to deliver food and water to them.
Begging for an end to what is tantamount to a starvation tactic, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred in a speech to the historic tragedy of the Siege of Leningrad.
During World War II, the Russian city of Leningrad was besieged by German forces for nearly 900 days, and countless citizens perished from starvation.
The German-Soviet Union war was brutal enough. But this was an especially tragic episode.
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mother and his older brother--then a toddler--were in Leningrad.
Putin later recalled in an interview that his brother succumbed to an illness, and his mother nearly starved to death: Having fainted from hunger, she was presumed dead and laid out among corpses.
In “First Person,” a compilation of 24-plus hours of in-depth interviews, Putin is quoted as saying to the effect: “(My mother) moaned, and that saved her life. I believe it was a miracle that she survived.”
His own family had suffered terribly before he was born. But is this dictator at all aware that he himself is now inflicting the same pain on many people?
Putin appears to be obsessed with his egocentric view of history. He has asserted that Ukraine is a part of Russia’s history, and that the West has always treated Russia rudely.
His viewpoint has an imperious tone.
Has he learned nothing from the agony forced on ordinary people?
--The Asahi Shimbun, March 19
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
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