Trust is all too easily misplaced, often shattered, and very difficult to regain once lost. It is key to all successful relationships, be they romantic, working or political ones.

There is a fine line between trust and hope.

There are very few things any of us can truly trust will happen (death being one), even if we place our trust in some sources, people, or actions in the hope that we have not misplaced it.

Blind trust is nothing more than a disaster waiting to happen. Whether you trust that a violent spouse will stop hitting you, that an employer, who never gave you a raise, will finally see your value, or that democracy and human rights will soon thrive in Russia; you are  trusting and hoping against reason, which is just wishful thinking bordering on self-deception.

So much trust and hope has been lost lately in the Western world.

We may have trusted that adherence to the rule of law would remain a constant cornerstone of Western democracies –  but that was before Donald Trump.

We may have thought that the world stood a chance of agreeing globally on measures needed to solve climate change issues and promote peace on Earth – but that was before the pandemic taught us that borders could be closed as easily as they were opened, and the war in Ukraine taught us that wars could start and escalate out of control at our door step with little warning.

The loss of trust and hope is a global phenomenon. It is felt all over. African countries are left vulnerable as China, Africa’s largest creditor, tightens lending taps. Suddenly, we are back to “every country for itself”.

The outpour of solidarity and concrete help to countries that face aggressive wars or natural disasters may still give us some hope. But our trust in a brighter future and global co-operation has suffered severe set-backs as hard-fought agreements aimed at safeguarding human rights and peace are being ignored as if they never existed.

We tend to hope against hope, when the alternatives are too gruesome to be considered.

Many Floridians were reminded of this the hard way recently as they hoped that hurricane Ian would not make its way to their home or business; that if it did, it would not be too bad; that even if it was bad, they would be fine because they had survived hurricanes before and were well-prepared; and even if the worst was to happen, they would get the aid they needed. In all too many cases none of these hopes have come true.

I listen to my friends pondering the Russia-Ukraine war, hoping that the Russian people will soon realise  that Putin is not to be trusted. As if most Russians didn’t realise this already. They just aren’t prone to wishful thinking. They see no better alternative in the horizon, so they gravitate towards the known “evil”. It is what they have always done. The Russian people are not prone to rebellion, they are fatalistic. They have seen time and time again that little good comes out of trying to rebel. They do not trust the West anymore than they trust Putin.

I listen to the Western media celebrating the successes of the Ukrainian army and speculating on what a dreadful loss this and that is to the Russian army. Personally, I just see losses on both sides. In addition to the lives lost one both sides, the Russians (and those Ukrainians, who have ended up under Russian rule) are fast losing even the remnants of their human rights. There is no peaceful solution to the Russia-Ukraine war in sight.

The Chinese are credited with the understanding that even if you are aggressively furthering you own agenda, you should try to do it without actively provoking deep enmity in your counterparts. Cornered enemies are the worst possible enemies. They have little to lose. I find myself acting like the regularly battered wife in search of a why; wondering whether we (the West) did something to provoke the war in Ukraine. Let’s face it, the West has a tendency towards off-putting self-righteousness at times. Can the war really be attributed to a psychopath leader strong enough to convince millions of people that several wrongs make a right?

I opted for the latter explanation as I watched the reactions of the crowd that gathered in Moscow’s Red Square to celebrate the (forced) annexation of four Ukrainian regions to Russia. Many in the crowd could be seen applauding in all seriousness as Russian Putinist actor Ivan Okhlobystin gave the performance of his life as MMFM  a.k.a. Mad Man Frothing at the Mouth. Some additional cheers may have been added when editing the Twitter clip, but the crowd was definitely not protesting.

Okhlobystin, who is famous for quotes like “I would happily put all the gays alive in an oven”, called for a “holy war”, whipping the crowd into action with pearls like: “Fear old world! Deprived of true beauty, true faith, true wisdom; operated by madmen, perverts, satanists! Be afraid, we are coming. Goyda (a cry for immediate action), goyda !!!”.

To be clear, the old world in this scenario is the Western world.

While most of me was appalled by the performance, there was a small part of me that was having a quiet laugh. To a Finn Okhlobystin’s “goyda, goyda” call sounded like someone with a severe head cold hollering “koita, koita” i.e. try, try. Which seems apt, as it’s what the Russians have ended up doing in Ukraine without much success.

Your guess is as good as my guess, when it comes to what happens next. If the Red Square celebrations represent the truth of Russia today, the country is careening towards total unreason. It is ironic that Putin has described the war in Ukraine as a fight against the Nazis. This is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It’s the black pot calling the kettle a black pot.

I am in mourning. I mourn a – presently  bygone – world that I had high hopes for; hopes that I am rapidly losing. Yet I recognise that this is not the time to lose hope –  if we do, more will be lost.

We need to continue to do what we can to ensure that the democratic values prove resilient and that global co-operation in key matters is not endangered because of mistrust and fear.

At the same time we need to recognise that each country has its own set of values and a right to build its own future as its people see fit as long as it doesn’t endanger others. I have some trouble buying into the idea that it is up to the West to plan the future of post-Putin Russia. It is up to the Russians to do so. The only thing others can do is aid them in ensuring that such decisions are freely made based on freely accessible true information, not guided by fear and misinformation.