This is a battle for democracy

A power-mad autocrat has started a war because he feels threatened by the new democratic ideals of a neighbouring nation

Democracy means debate. Democracy means dialogue. Democracy means compromise. Democracy is underpinned by the principles of openness, transparency and accountability.

All of these things appear terrifying to leaders who cannot handle being told that they are wrong, who cannot admit that they do not have all the answers, and who cannot conceive the idea of having to justify and persuade and convince people that they are the right person to represent them. It is terrifying to these leaders because all they want is power, for power’s sake.

Vladimir Putin sees Ukraine as a threat because he does not want the Russian people to see up close what a successful democracy looks like. He does not want them to believe that they could have something better. He does not want the media to be free to scrutinise him and for the Russian people to be free to select their own leader, to determine their own future. Other democracies in Europe seem far away and alien, but Ukraine, as a neighbour and as a former Soviet state, is too close to home. Democracy has to be destroyed there, at any cost.

Because Putin does not understand the concept of democracy, and its appeal to populations who enjoy having a say in who governs them, he did not ever imagine that by invading Ukraine, and attempting to capture its political system, the country’s citizens would so strongly resist. Now he is discovering that democracy is not only popular in Ukraine, but that people are prepared to die for it. They do not want to go back to a time when the media was simply a propaganda arm of the state, when they could not speak freely, when they could not protest, when they could not organise, and when they could not exert any influence on the future direction of their own country.

Russia has no culture of openness. Its people have never been given a taste of democracy, of freedom. They have lived under autocratic tsars, autocratic emperors, autocratic revolutionaries and autocratic presidents. In this time they have been told what to think, told what to do and told repeatedly that democracy is something to fear.

Russian soldiers are fast learning that the country they are being ordered to invade and “save” from tyranny is in fact led by a popular, elected leader, who continues to show incredible courage and heroism. A rapidly rising military death toll abroad and a rapidly deteriorating economy at home will teach many Russians the truth about what their government has done, undoing a lifetime of state propaganda. The war in Ukraine may, if anything, finally open the minds of the Russian people to the reality of their autocratic state; its lies, its manipulations, its violence.

Further west, we have taken our democracies for granted. We have allowed them to stagnate and regress. Instead of pursuing democratic reforms — fair, proportional elections; curtailing the influence of private money; diversifying media ownership — we have turned a blind eye to the creep of autocratic tendencies within our own borders and watched on as our leaders have embraced fully-fledged autocrats beyond them. We have forgotten how fragile democracies can be.

Ukraine is fighting for its democracy, but so must we fight for our own. This is not just about tanks and guns; democracies are vulnerable and, as Putin has shown, they are easy to undermine and manipulate. Using the new weapons of the digital age, democracies the world over are coming under attack. Autocrats recognise that the internet’s openness has the ability to empower and educate coerced populations, which is why they censor it. But they also recognise that this openness gives them the ability to engage in cyber warfare in countries whose democratic values they find threatening.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an attack on democracy, not just in Ukraine but far beyond it too. We must make sure it fails not just for the sake of the Ukrainian people, but for the sake of everyone, everywhere, who values free speech, free elections, human rights, civil liberties and an open society.