By Will Stark
A truck rumbles down a lonely dirt road, dust flying up in its wake. Other than the hum of the vehicle, everything is silent, save a few faint booms in the distance. The surroundings aren’t much to look at. There is no green; everything is dead. There are soldiers inside the truck, huddled together in the back. They are retreating from the city of Avdiivka, close to the eastern border of Ukraine. This is just one of many trucks leaving the city after Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander in chief of the Ukrainian military, gave the order to retreat. The city is empty, now that the troops have left. All that remains are the smoky skeletons of buildings. The glass is missing from the windows, leaving behind gaping black holes. The streets are a mess, with debris and boulders covering the roads. There is no color, no life left in this town. It is empty and forgotten, just like the weary soldiers coming from it.
The Ukrainian War is now over two years old. The war has created around 500,000 casualties, 2,000 of which have been children, internally displaced 3.7 million individuals, and caused 6.5 million people to become refugees. Despite all of this, we find media coverage about the conflict to be surprisingly sparse. The conflict is a very big deal, and yet it seems like almost no one cares about it anymore. Is this even the case? As it turns out, public awareness about what is happening in Ukraine is decreasing. The biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two is not getting as much awareness as it used to. Why? Reasons for this include the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza Conflict,a decrease in articles published mentioning Ukraine, and a growing sense of apathy among western populations.
When preparing to write this article, I conducted a survey to find out about public awareness about Ukraine. I asked a bunch of people about how often they thought about the conflict in Ukraine, and then asked them how often they thought about the conflict in Gaza and the 2024 election. As expected, a majority of students reported that they thought about the war in Ukraine somewhere between once a week to once a month. Many of them added on, saying things like “I don’t think about Ukraine as much”, or that they felt bad that they didn’t think about it as often as they should. By comparison, most students reported that they thought about the conflict in Gaza multiple times a week. One student remarked that they hadn’t seen as much in the news about Ukraine as they had about Gaza, and another reported that they were “distracted by what was going on” in the Middle East. Also, it turns out that teenagers think about the election about as often as you’d guess. Almost never. Lots of people said “I can’t vote” and therefore “I could care less.” Overall, however, it is definite that there is a much lower level of awareness about the Ukraine War as there has been, or as might seem appropriate.
It turns out that not only are people not talking as much about the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict, they also aren’t writing about it. A study by Statistica showed that articles mentioning Ukraine have steadily decreased since March 2022, in which around 400,000 such articles were published per month. However, in January 2024, only about 40,000 articles about Ukraine were published per month, marking one of the lowest months yet. This is important because it’s the news that gets people thinking about places far away. When you take that away, people won’t be thinking about Ukraine nearly as much. Without awareness, there can be no support.
Another factor for this lack of public interest is also the fact that the Ukraine War is over two years old. Pathetic as it might sound, people simply are not interested in hearing about this anymore. When I conducted my survey, no one asked me what I meant when I asked about Ukraine. Everyone has heard about it, and that’s exactly why Ukraine is losing support. It’s old news. People have short attention spans, and simply aren’t interested in a faraway war in some tiny country, no matter how big the implications of it are. This is especially the case if it’s bad news that’s being repeatedly shoved under their noses. They just don’t want to hear more bad news and would much rather ignore and forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind. This explains why Buzzfeed articles like “10 Ways to Know if Your Cat Loves You” can beat coverage about the war in Ukraine for spots on the news apps. In the end, all it comes down to is the fact that people are tired of hearing of people fighting in Ukraine.
In the movie Hotel Rwanda, there’s an interesting piece of dialogue that I think reflects well onto the situation here. The main character, Paul, played by Don Cheadle, is thanking a UN reporter, Jack Daglish, played by Joaquim Phoenix, for filming the horrors of the Rwandan Genocide. He insists that because of his efforts, the world will intervene and stop whatever is happening here. Daglish smiles sadly, and corrects Paul , saying “I think if people see this footage, they’ll say ‘Oh my God, that’s terrible’. And then they’ll go on eating their dinners”. What Daglish is doing here is remarking on how detached we as human beings are from the suffering of those around us. The scary fact is, he might be right. When we read about what’s happening in Ukraine, most of us simply take in the information, barely pausing to think, “Oh, that’s awful”, and then continue with our lives. As a public, we are allowing Russia to sweep through Ukraine, barely offering Ukraine a place in our minds. We are too busy with our schedules, our problems, our assignments, and our things that we need to do that it’s far too hard to spare them a thought. As a result, we are unable to give Ukraine the support they need. How can we convince our lawmakers to take action when we ourselves do not?
Despite the dreary outlook, all is not lost. That war is not yet over, and although Russia continues to gain momentum, they still are sustaining heavy casualties. There is still time for the West to give Ukraine the support it needs. All that we have to do, as a public, is to ensure that the War in Ukraine receives just as much attention as the other pressing issues of our day, and that it isn’t left to the back burner. All we have to do is remember Ukraine. Do not let them be forgotten.
