The photo up there, from the Reuters news agency, has made the rounds. It is of Roman Oleksiv, age eight. He is worth getting to know a bit. Putin’s assault on Ukraine is not a mere abstraction; it has consequences for millions.

Roman, as this report relates,

is back at school in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, another step in an unlikely recovery from life-threatening burns and shrapnel to the head that he sustained in a Russian missile attack in July last year.

Roman was waiting to see a doctor with his mother when a cruise missile struck the central town of Vinnytsia, in one of the deadliest single attacks since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began early in 2022.

She was among 28 people killed, while Roman suffered shrapnel wounds, a broken arm and burns over 45% of his body.

A lot of people get very upset when you talk about victims, and especially if you show pictures of them. (I know this from experience.) But we may want to ask: Why was Roman’s mother killed? Why was Roman so badly injured?

To satisfy the psychic and political needs of the dictator — the monster — in the Kremlin. No matter how much smoke the Putinists, Orbánites, and Buchananites blow, that’s what it comes down to.

I further think that Roman Oleksiv stands for the resilience of the Ukrainian people. I hope they can repel this monstrous invader. I hope they can hang on to their country and remain free.

If you don’t know what Russian forces do to people they occupy, you would be shocked.

• Over and over, American opponents of aid to Ukraine speak of Putin’s invasion as a “border dispute,” or a “territorial dispute.” Here is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, for example: “I wish the D.C. elites cared as much about our border as they do about the Ukraine-Russia border.”

My hunch is, DeSantis knows better. (He demonstrated as much in the pre-Trump era.) I think he knows he’s playing the demagogue.

About J.D. Vance, the senator from Ohio, I’m not sure. Here he is:

Here is another taste of Vance, talking to Steve Bannon (of course):

Vance replaced Rob Portman in the Senate. Portman was the Republican co-chairman of the Senate Ukraine Caucus. He and Vance come from different planets. Certainly, their moral outlooks are radically opposed. I can think of no better, no starker, illustration of the trajectory of the Republican Party than the switch from Portman to Vance.

• There are many, many supporters of Vladimir Putin in the Free World (just as there were of the Soviet Union). There are sympathizers too, who outnumber the outright supporters. (Again, this was true in the Soviet era as well.) Some of the supporters and sympathizers are true-believers. I know some, I’m sorry to say. Others are dupes of propaganda.

Here is a report of note:

A Russian propaganda campaign involving thousands of fake accounts on TikTok spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine has been uncovered by the BBC.

Its videos routinely attract millions of views and have the apparent aim of undermining Western support.

Users in several European countries have been subjected to false claims that senior Ukrainian officials and their relatives bought luxury cars or villas abroad after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

And so on and so forth. Kremlin disinformation never rests. And efforts to counter it seem weak. (I wrote about this issue in an October 2020 piece, “Dezinformatsiya,” here.)

• As there is Kremlin propaganda abroad, there is Kremlin propaganda at home, relentlessly. It is worth getting to know what ordinary Russians are consuming, through the state media. (Putin has banned independent media in Russia.) Julia Davis, of the Russian Media Monitor, and Francis Scarr, of the BBC, spend full time on this.

People on Russian television are amazingly — amazingly — frank. They leave nothing to the imagination. Their intentions toward the Ukrainians are unblushingly genocidal.

A sampling can be had here:

Some more can be found here. And here is one of the most notorious propagandists of all — a Putinist pasionaria:

Obviously, few people have the time to become experts on Kremlin propaganda (whether the propaganda is directed at foreigners or at Russian citizens). But we should at least be aware of it: its nature and scope.

• Between the Ukrainian struggle and the Israeli struggle, there are differences. One difference, as Bernard-Henri Lévy points out, is that the Ukrainians are not fighting in their enemy’s territory; they are fighting only at home. The Israelis are able to take the fight to the enemy, where they live. But there are similarities between the two struggles as well.

Last week, Lévy published a piece headed “Ukraine and Israel are in the same fight,” here.

• In my view, this is good news:

• When the Kremlin needs an ally in the EU, Orbán is pretty reliable:

• Orbán is of course a darling of our Right here in America: CPAC, Heritage, and the rest. Trump hailed him in his latest rally. Ronald Reagan doesn’t live here anymore. Still, there are Reaganites, lurking about. Here is a voice from the Heritage diaspora:

• Last week, my friend and colleague David French published a column titled “To Support Ukraine, Persuade the Elephant.” Patiently, thoughtfully, he explains the importance of backing the Ukrainians — and the consequences of abandoning them. Ukraine, he says, is

a country that is standing against a great evil. It does not even ask us to stand with it on the field of battle. It merely asks that we place a sword in its hand.