Should I Feel Good When I Hear About Russian Soldiers Getting Killed by the Thousands?

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been a terrible thing —- one of the most evil developments of our time. I want that effort to fail—and to fail so decisively that it could bring Putin down. His impact on the contemporary world has likely been more profoundly destructive than that of any other individual (until Trump now).

I want the Russian military that Putin is wielding to be fail, to be defeated. And especially given the way the Russian rulers treat their soldiers as expendable, wanting history to take the right path in the Ukraine war means wanting a lot of young Russian men to be killed.

The fact is that my response to the news of Russian casualties is to welcome it. I get into the same way of looking at things during my years of growing up when — in the World War II films — OUR side would succeed in blowing up the Germans. That’s just a fact: I want to win, and I look at the scoreboard to see how each side is scoring.

But that reaction raises a deeper question: how should we feel about the destruction of human beings who are serving evil that they themselves did not choose?

The Russian men dying by the tens of thousands didn’t choose this war. And mostly they never chose to become meat for Putin to throw into the meat-grinder.

But even when people willingly align themselves with evil, I find myself uneasy about feeling gratification at their destruction.

Even if those Russians ground up in the meat-grinder were completely behind Putin’s empire-building assault on the Ukrainian people, I would feel some sadness that these human beings are being shot and blown up when they might have lived out their lives, as I want for myself.

I recall that I aligned myself with President Reagan when he included the SS men in a cemetery he was visiting “victims.” As I saw it, those men lived in a world that made them what they were, and in that — which led to their deaths — they were also, fundamentally, “victims.”

It was truly necessary to put a lot of such people in their graves. But ultimately, it is about sadness, as well as triumph.

One could argue that the SS men “got what they deserved.” But the idea of what people deserve is more morally complicated than we usually allow.

Once we recognize that people are the fruit of the world that made their genetic heritage and the world that shaped what they would become as they experienced the world, the question of “deserve” becomes much less straightforward.

But if we accept the generally accepted idea that people must be held accountable for the choices they make—which implies that they are in some ways to “blame” for their bad “choices”—then it becomes necessary to distinguish between people who supported the evil they fought for and those who were compelled to serve that evil.

But the question of what people “deserve” arises not only with individuals but also with whole peoples and nations—whether “blame” attaches to them for evils done in their name, and whether the bad consequences that follow are what they had coming.

It is often said that a people gets the government they “deserve,” and while history shows that peoples often have had limited control over the governments that rule them, it IS true that Hitler rose to power through getting roughly a third of the vote; and elections played at least some role in elevating Vladimir Putin to the power he eventually used to invade Ukraine.

And then we come to the United States, where the whole nation will suffer for what Americans chose through the constitutional process meant to express the will of the people.

Many of America’s long-time friends are probably thinking that if Americans end up paying a high price for Trump’s actions in the world — launching a war of choice without even a modicum of the strategic planning that should have gone into that decision — the sufferings and deaths of Americans are just what we deserved.

At one level, it can certainly be said that Americans bear responsibility for what has been done in their name by a leader who had already shown his nature clearly before the people made their choice.

But ultimately, the terrible price Americans—and perhaps even their descendants—may end up paying for that choice should evoke sadness rather than satisfaction, compassion rather than gratification at the loss and suffering.