War is personal

April 11, 2022

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Unlike wars that were read of in recorded history that may be found fascinating, modern wars cannot be viewed as such, certainly not as mere push and pull of crazy peoples that could be waved off but as serious events with costs to individuals that are serious and very personal. The world is watching with horror, how lives and livelihoods are being wasted in the war between Russia and Ukraine but not as mere onlookers but also as joint losers, although of much smaller things yet there is a cost to almost everyone at a personal level.

Losses of lives are horrendous and the pains in the hearts of soldiers, their families, and individual combatants are grave but other kinds of losses exist and quite often, individuals will measure the impact of any conflict according to the extent of disruptions to them personally. There will be those that will bear the consequences of this war for a long time, despite not being at the war front. From the aged people abandoned in homes while other able-bodied people fled to a planned wedding that simply did not hold; not that it was called off, everyone is just on the run because survival is the pressing matter of the moment.

The reverberation of the war is felt worldwide in disrupted lives and distorted supply-chain because truly, the world is. Oil and gas prices went up with everyone paying more as the reserves were running low in many nations, but the impact on individual pockets is beyond that since energy is a major direct input into many manufacturing plants, costs of goods and services go up accordingly in many countries, despite not being anywhere near the theater of war,

No country is an island to itself anymore because a finished product in one country could be a raw material in another. Farm produce like wheat, where Ukraine excelled, but is currently not able to be processed and bagged will lead to a higher cost of bread in Africa; just as many needed goods will be stopped from entering Russia and many good things will never be sent to Ukraine because it is a war zone.

Great Russian citizens abroad, athletes, and businesspeople will become Pariahs on many streets of the world. The proud flags of Russia and its beautiful people will hide their nationality for a while because this is a time when to be a Russian is to be considered a villain. In this season that Russia is considered the aggressor, their nationals living elsewhere can expect to lose businesses, be ejected from their homes, be beaten, or even experience worse.

In the war zone, the costs to international students, businesspeople, and locals caught in the unwholesome situations will stagger as they will suddenly find themselves as refugees, exposed to dangers and exploitations. The cases of missing family members will be rampant as people flee in all directions, seeking shelter from raids and bombs. The breakdown of law and order will break fragile spirits, transforming otherwise good people into monsters

Weakness, sudden death from lack of sanitation, medications, and inability to access medical help will lead to death in addition to people with terminal cases and other ailments that are heavily medicated and monitored, wars make these simple things impossible, imposing another kind of costs to such persons. While for many people, the war between Ukraine and Russia is one of bombs and bullets, for others it is the losses of loved ones to heart failures, exposure, and truncated dreams. What had caused many sorrows also included a truncated future and a safe people converted to begging refugees suddenly, wars impose personal costs, and it is not a distant story but the problem for all here and now.