For three and a half years, Ukraine has been resisting Russian efforts to take and keep portions of the Donbas region. A ceasefire is technically in effect but the Russian side continues to kill and continues to hold the ground taken.
Is it a forgotten conflict?
Well, there are no "days of rage" in Europe to protest the Russian invasion and occupation.
Ukrainians and people in Russian-occupied Donbas can be forgiven if they might resent how the Palestinians were elected queen of the prom by the sainted international community.
Ukrainians would love a fraction of the attention.
On the other hand, America and Europe have led sanctions against Russia.
American energy production has crippled Russian finances by driving oil prices lower.
America is training Ukrainians and keeps American troops in Ukraine for this purpose.
America has sent equipment to Ukraine and recently approved the first weapons sale.
America has led NATO to reinforce the east which provides some cover for other countries to quietly assist Ukraine. I'm reasonably sure Poland has taken advantage of this. Perhaps Romania, too.
So Ukraine has gotten concrete help. They don't get the high profile UN General Assembly outrage that Palestinians still get even if nobody works up a proper rage even in the Arab world:
The curious case of the street that did not rage in the day. Perhaps a lot of Arabs are wondering whether in an age of Iranian and jihadi terror killing Arabs every day it was wise to make the Palestinians queen of the prom. Indeed, their appeal has become more selective.
Of course, Ukrainians should heed the warning of the Palestinians who got so much support over the decades but squandered that help to hope for the destruction of Israel rather than get an actual state smaller than they'd like.
If Ukraine can retake the Russian-occupied Donbas, that's fine. It is surely morally right and proper under international law.
But if liberation is a longer-term project that requires strengthening Ukraine's economy and military by suppressing corruption to actually join the West in reality and not just with a common Russian foe driving us together, Ukraine needs to exploit the help given to make Ukraine so much more prosperous than Russia that the residents of Donbas one day agitate to escape Russia's grasp.
If you want to talk forgotten conflict, you'll want to bring up Russian-occupied Crimea, which was the first victim of Russian aggression already annexed and considered by Russia to be part of the rebuilding Russian empire already. Nobody talks about freeing that conquest. Not even Ukraine.
