When President Joe Biden laid out his vision of a global battle to save democracy at the Munich Security Conference in February 2021, his call for democracies to join together to “fight for, … strengthen, and renew” their governing principles struck many as just another intellectual flourish.

And when the newly inaugurated president added with confidence that “democratic partners working together” would be able to “meet every challenge and outpace every challenger,” the assumption in his audience was that the central challenger he referred to was China.

As Mr. Biden travels in Europe this week, he is encountering a continent stunned by the war unleashed in its midst by a powerful autocrat against a fledgling democracy. Many on both sides of the Atlantic say Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine gives urgency and new meaning both to the battle for democracy and the need for U.S. leadership.

Moreover, a rising chorus of voices now say that the stakes in the 21st century’s first war for democracy are such that Western and other democracies cannot afford to lose it. And that means, some add, that Mr. Biden is going to have to take greater risks to ensure that Ukrainians’ aspirations for the freedom to determine their own future are not defeated.

“When President Biden first talked about his vision of a confrontation between autocracy and democracy, for many people it sounded a little bit theoretical,” says Michal Baranowski, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and director of its Warsaw office. “But now we in Europe are experiencing a real front in that war,” he adds, “and that gives a very clear and understandable reality to this existential fight [Mr. Biden] has been talking about.”

In Brussels Thursday, President Biden attended an emergency summit of the leaders from NATO’s 29 member countries that included participation via videoconference of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That was followed by a gathering of G7 leaders that Mr. Zelenskyy also addressed, and a European Council summit bringing together the 27 members of the European Union.

For some analysts, the very high stakes and existential dimension Mr. Biden has assigned to the battle embodied in the Ukraine war mean that the president’s trip to Belgium and Poland has to do more than show moral support.

“In many respects what is happening now in Europe vindicates Biden’s view of this central confrontation of democracy and autocracy, but the fact he is proving to be right only underscores that his trip needs to be more than symbolic,” says Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe in Brussels.

“We need strategies on where to take this crisis next and how to address the many challenges we’re going to face going forward. But this kind of global thinking belongs more to the U.S.,” she adds, “so there is a need for U.S. leadership.”

Peter Klaunzer/Keystone/AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is displayed on a screen during a demonstration against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in front of the Swiss parliament building in Bern, Switzerland, March 19, 2022.

More than a show of solidarity

As others see it, a trip that many analysts characterize as a defining moment in Mr. Biden’s presidency could end up a disappointment if it fails to move beyond symbolism.

“This should be a moment for rallying and reinforcing European democracies, but [Biden is] going to need to do more than that,” says William Galston, a democracy and governance expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Noting that “this is not too early to begin serious discussions about how this war could end,” he adds that “if Biden doesn’t move the discussion forward, some people will wonder why he bothered to make the trip.”

Others agree, saying the president has to go beyond a show of democratic solidarity to specifics.

“If Biden is only looking for spiritual unity from this trip … it will look like a bust,” says Stephen Sestanovich, senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

“The big test for Biden” will be “to make sure the policies of democracies work,” he adds. “If Biden is able to make progress on operational unity, … the trip can come off a success.”

The back-to-back NATO and EU summits are intended to demonstrate Western unity in opposition to Russia’s aggression – and to underscore Mr. Putin’s isolation. However, some point out that the world’s democracies are not fully in line – with India, South Africa, and Brazil among those remaining on the sidelines.

On Friday Mr. Biden travels to Poland, where he will meet Saturday with Polish President Andrzej Duda as well as visit U.S. troops who have been deployed to NATO’s eastern flank. Humanitarian groups will also provide him an on-the-ground look at Poland’s widely praised efforts to welcome millions of Ukrainian refugees.

On Thursday the U.S. announced it will accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and provide an additional $1 billion to help Europe meet its largest refugee surge since World War II – moves designed in part to convey solidarity and a sense of burden-sharing with Europe.

At the same time, the U.S. announced $320 million in new funding to launch the European Democratic Resilience Initiative, intended to “support societal resilience and defend human rights in Ukraine and neighboring countries,” according to the State Department.

Bipartisan pressure at home

Still, in the days leading up to his European trip, Mr. Biden faced mounting pressure – from both sides of the aisle in Congress and from a growing number of national security experts – to do more to support Ukraine’s military in its existential fight and to worry less about how stronger U.S. assistance might provoke Mr. Putin.

If Mr. Biden is serious about his campaign to strengthen democracies, some say, he cannot start that battle by allowing a European country to lose its sovereignty and its right to self-determination.

Petros Giannakouris/AP

People who fled the war in Ukraine rest inside an indoor sports stadium being used as a refugee center, in the village of Medyka, a border crossing between Poland and Ukraine, March 15, 2022. The United Nations says more than 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine in the first month of the war.

“The United States should recognize that excessive fears of provoking Putin were the primary reasons Western capitals withheld vital defense assistance from Ukraine for so long,” says Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power in Washington.

Faulting that “reticence” for increasing the likelihood of aggression, Mr. Bowman adds, “We should spend more time in the future helping beleaguered democracies before invasions and less time worrying about provoking authoritarian bullies.”

Indeed, even as Mr. Biden departed Washington, a rising chorus was calling for more and bolder steps to thwart Mr. Putin and support Ukraine.

On Thursday NATO leaders approved doubling the number of troops stationed in the Alliance’s eastern flank and committed to providing special equipment should Russia resort to chemical warfare, as it did in Syria. Also Thursday, G7 leaders approved a new round of sanctions on Russia.

A push for MiGs

Yet even as the first weaponry from Mr. Biden’s $800 million arms package began arriving in Ukraine this week, some are insisting that more can be done to help the Ukrainian military.

For example, some say Mr. Biden should reconsider his opposition to Poland’s proposal to transfer MiG fighter jets to Ukraine.

“The White House has never adequately explained why [the MiGs] are more ‘escalatory’ than the other anti-aircraft weaponry we are providing,” says Brookings’ Dr. Galston, who was a senior aide in the Clinton White House when it addressed the Balkan wars in the early 1990s.

Mr. Biden should either “go public” with the explanation for why the jets would be particularly provocative for Russia, he says, “or the president should say ‘I’ve changed my mind’ and include the MiGs in a package of measures designed to raise the ante with the Russians and get them to accept a cease-fire.”

Yet even if Mr. Biden manages during his brief European trip (he returns to Washington Saturday) to secure measures that move toward a cessation of fighting, some analysts caution that the broader “post-post-Cold-War” challenge European democracies face will not evaporate with the end of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“Russia’s revisionist ambitions under Mr. Putin to reconstitute the former Soviet Union are not just about territory but as much about defeating the principles, including democratic governance, that have guided transatlantic relations and the European security order” since World War II, says Carnegie’s Dr. Balfour. “That’s why this war is not just about Ukraine but about preserving those principles and people’s right to choose them.”

Noting that the Western conception of democratic freedoms and human rights has proven to be a central target of Russia’s aggression, she says it is “critical” not only for Europe but for the world’s democracies that resolution of the war focus “not just on a state security dimension but a human security dimension as well.”

When Victoria, a retired university lecturer, fled Ukraine as the Russian military devastated her home city of Kharkiv, she didn’t have many options of where to go.

She has no relatives in Ukraine, or in other parts of Europe. But she still has a friend from school in Warsaw, the Polish capital, who she used to visit frequently before the war began. So she got on one of the crowded trains leaving the city and headed westward.

But when she arrived in the Polish border city of Przemyśl, she did not expect the warmth of the reception she got.

“I was surprised that Poles received us so well. I travel to Poland regularly, and this time the Poles were nicer,” she says. “If you speak to someone, they help you right away. The attitude of Poles toward Ukrainians has changed.”

Władysław, a Polish volunteer with the Food not Bombs group feeding refugees at the Medyka border crossing, agrees: The Polish public’s generous outpouring of support to the Ukrainian refugees is not something he saw coming.

“We didn’t expect such a positive response from Poles toward refugees, considering what happened recently on the Belarusian border,” he says. He is referring to a tense standoff last year when Middle Eastern asylum-seekers were trapped in a freezing buffer zone between Poland and Belarus, which exploited the migrants to put pressure on the European Union. At least 19 people died, in part because the Polish government held good Samaritans back from aiding them.

“The question is how long this friendly attitude [toward Ukrainians by Poles] will last,” adds Władysław, who didn't give a last name.

Poland, like much of Eastern Europe, has a troubled relationship with outsiders, and a particularly dismal record handling asylum-seekers from outside Europe. But in a twist in fate and geography, Poland, Hungary, and other similarly closed-door Eastern European nations have been the hardest hit by the humanitarian crisis arising out of Ukraine’s refugee exodus.

And in a reversal of history, even the governments of Poland and Hungary laid out the welcome mat for Ukrainians. Charities there rushed to help the new arrivals. Grassroots and individual efforts have been notable – with Polish mothers even leaving baby strollers at the train station for Ukrainian women with small children.

But the contrast between the reception that Ukrainians are seeing now and the cold shoulder that refugees from Syria received during the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe is stark. Whereas just seven years ago Eastern Europe refused to take in more than a token number of asylum-seekers from the millions fleeing civil war in Syria, now they are throwing open their doors to those in a very similar situation.

Why?

“It is a very difficult conversation to have right now. You cannot deny the generosity and the scale of the crisis that Poland and other neighboring countries are having to respond to,” says Rachael Reilly of the Geneva-based Global Detention Project. But “look at what happened in Syria, look at what’s happened in Afghanistan, look at Iraq. Refugees from all those countries were fleeing similar situations of aggression, conflict, warfare, human rights violations, hostility, and they haven’t received the same reception.”

A tale of two migrations

The speed and scale of the refugee crisis are unprecedented. So is the European response.

More than 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled their country since the start of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, with the vast majority traveling westward to EU territory. The lion’s share – over 2 million – have gone to Poland, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And they have been broadly welcomed, both in Eastern Europe and across the EU.

Petros Giannakouris/AP

Refugees from Ukraine rest inside an indoor sports stadium being used as a refugee center in the village of Medyka, Poland, located just next to Ukraine, March 15, 2022.

“All those fleeing [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s bombs are welcome in Europe,” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was quick to declare. In a rare display of solidarity, EU ministers unanimously granted blanket protection to Ukrainian refugees, making first-time use of a 2001 directive. The move allows them to live, travel, and work in the bloc for three years – a sweeping and critically needed empowerment of the displaced Ukrainians.

In 2015, the scale of the crisis was similar but the quality of the reception was far less welcoming. That year saw more than 1.3 million people arrive in Europe seeking asylum, primarily from Syria’s civil war, but also from turmoil in Afghanistan and Iraq. And with a few notable exceptions like Germany, which took in more than a million refugees, most European countries declined to accept them in substantial numbers.

The issue was particularly acute in Eastern Europe. In Hungary, right-wing conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orbán erected a 100-mile-long razor-wire fence to keep out asylum-seekers from the Middle East, casting Muslims as a civilizational and security threat.

“Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims,” he said in September 2015. “This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity.”

And in Poland, which was voting for a new parliament in 2015, the centrist government agreed to take in only about 9,000 asylum-seekers. The populist-conservative Law and Justice party, which came to power later in the year, reneged on the deal after party officials suggested that refugees could be terrorists or carriers of disease.

“Real refugees”?

Clearly, the Ukrainian refugee crisis is being seen very differently from the one in Syria, where Russia helped government forces reduce cities to rubble. Some argue the key difference from earlier refugee crises is that the Ukrainian refugees are mostly women and children, but that doesn’t bear up to scrutiny. Women and children were present – along with men – in 2015.

“It cannot be challenged that there is a sense that Ukrainians are Europeans and there is a sense of solidarity in some parts of Europe that applies to Ukrainians but does not apply to Syrians or Afghans, or people from Ethiopia and Eritrea, or Somalis,” says Camille Le Coz, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute Europe in Brussels. “This is considered a European crisis.”

Biases around nationality and culture play a large part in that, Ms. Reilly says, pointing to the justifications offered by national leaders for their sudden change of heart toward refugees.

For example, she cites Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov. “These people are Europeans. ... These people are intelligent, they are educated people,” said the centrist leader early on in the Ukrainian crisis. “This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”

The rhetoric of politicians reflects the perception that Ukrainians are “real refugees’’ and pose no threat, unlike those who fled conflicts outside the European continent. The apparent shift in attitude is in many ways “specific” to the Ukrainian context and still “very tainted by racism and xenophobia,” Ms. Reilly says.

For Witold Klaus, a professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the primary reason for the reception of Ukrainians, at least in Poland, is the “very positive narrative of the government and the media around the refugees.” He points to the negative portrayal that the government framed the Syrians with in 2015, as compared with the positivity that it showed in bringing some 900 Afghan refugees to Poland last year during the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“They were treated well, and received help,” he says. “The thing that has the biggest impact on how the majority of the Polish society treats refugees is therefore what kind of narrative will be built by those in power and the media. It matters if it is a narrative based on fear and xenophobia, or on mobilization and willingness to help.”

Double standards are still evident now at the border, says Władysław, the volunteer aid worker.

“A few days ago, we were the only group helping refugees of a different skin color; they were treated very badly here,” he says. “Polish border guards drove up here in cars to take the refugees, but nobody wanted to take non-Ukrainians in.

“Why? We simply defend ourselves from what we don’t know.”

“Ukrainians, we know them”

Familiarity fuels solidarity, Władysław adds. “Ukrainians, we know them, we work together, we live in the same cities. That’s why we want to help them.”

About 2 million Ukrainian workers were already in Poland before this crisis, many of them economic migrants working low-end jobs. While Poles and Ukrainians have clashed, like any longtime neighbors, they have much in common as well, including similar language and culture.

Polish goodwill toward Ukrainians has been increasing since the fall of communism, with a spike in positivity coming in the last two to three years. Marta Jaroszewicz, an assistant professor at the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw, credits the COVID-19 pandemic for that, as Poles came into greater contact with Ukrainians who work in services, including delivering parcels and food during lockdowns. “We’ve started to get to know each other better.”

Michał Szachmat, a translator and member of the Association of Ukrainians in Poland, only hopes the goodwill will last. On his mind are memories of being punched in the teeth by locals in Przemyśl a few years ago for singing Ukrainian songs with his friends by the river.

Poland’s relationship with Ukraine has been marred by memories of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a nationalist paramilitary group operating in the region during and after World War II. The UPA massacred Poles in the border areas with Slovakia and Ukraine, which had been inhabited by a Ukrainian minority for generations. Communist authorities eventually forcibly resettled the Ukrainians, including Mr. Szachmat’s grandparents, in 1947 to weaken the UPA.

“Now I see how kindly the Poles living in Przemyśl are toward Ukrainians fleeing from the war ... but I’m afraid that politics may change this,” he says. “When the war ends, some people will return to Ukraine, but others will stay. Living under one roof might be full of challenges.”

Those who fight against Russia

In Hungary, however, that same degree of familiarity is not present.

Hungarians have historically viewed themselves as closer to the Western cultural sphere and Ukrainians as members of the East, says Hungarian historian Krisztián Ungváry, who specializes in Eastern European history and minority questions. “Ukraine was another part of the world.”

While Poles are able to understand a bit of the Ukrainian language, that is not the case for Hungarians. Religion is another point of divergence: The majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, whereas Christians in Hungary (and Poland) are Roman Catholics.

Anna Szilagyi/AP

People use lights to create a peace sign for Ukraine at Heroes Square in Budapest, Hungary, March 9, 2022. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has set off the largest mass migration in Europe in decades, with more than 3.5 million people having crossed from Ukraine into neighboring countries.

In more recent times, Ukrainians came as guest workers, primarily filling blue-collar jobs. Many of them belonged to the Ukrainian Hungarian minority, so they spoke the language but were still viewed as holding a lower social status, says Dr. Ungváry.

But aid groups and ordinary Hungarians from across the political spectrum have been central to efforts to assist more than 450,000 new arrivals from Ukraine. That may be in part because there’s a shared worry around the Ukrainians’ persecutor: Russia.

“The danger of Russia has united Ukrainians and others,” says Dr. Ungváry. “The history of Ukraine is absolutely different from the history of Hungary. ... The only topic in common in recent times is Putin and the question of East versus West.”

“This is very, very emotional for many Hungarians,” says Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the Budapest-based Hungarian Helsinki Committee, an organization working on refugee issues. “The pictures are very reminiscent of [the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of] 1956, when Hungarians saw the Russians invade Budapest and there were tanks on the streets and people died and refugees had to flee Hungary.”

The sympathy for Ukrainians in the face of a common enemy runs even stronger for Poles. Dr. Klaus says, “We fear Russia and support those who are fighting the Russian aggressor. Those who fight against Russia, which has long been a declared enemy to us, elicit our sympathy.”

Dorottya Czuk contributed reporting from Budapest, Hungary, to this story.

Four years ago, long before Eric Zemmour became the most sulfurous of the far-right candidates in France’s current presidential election campaign, the TV pundit told reporters that he dreamed of a “French Putin” and regretted that there wasn’t one.

As the war in Ukraine enters its second month, Mr. Zemmour’s comment has come back to haunt him. Once seen as a possible threat to President Emmanuel Macron in the April elections, Mr. Zemmour’s poll ratings have plunged since the Russian invasion began.  

He isn’t alone among his ilk. As the war in Ukraine rages on, far-right leaders across Europe are now paying the price for having once cozied up to the Russian president who is now trying to destabilize Europe. The war in Ukraine has led to a continent-wide shift away from extreme voices that could erode their influence in the future.

“Even before the war, most far-right parties weren’t doing well because of the pandemic,” says Gilles Ivaldi, an expert in populism at Sciences Po. “People are unlikely to turn to populist alternatives and most of those parties – in France, Austria, or Italy – have had links with Russia or were Putin admirers. We’ve seen a clear trend that far-right parties have lost legitimacy.” 

In France, another far-right presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, has found 1.2 million campaign leaflets distributed last month to be an embarrassment: they feature a 2017 photograph of her shaking hands with Mr. Putin.

Italy’s far-right League party leader Matteo Salvini – who once described Mr. Putin as “the best statesman currently on earth” – was snubbed by the mayor of Przemyśl, Poland near the Ukraine border during a recent visit. 

And in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s pro-Kremlin stance has come under fire since the war broke out. Opposition politicians staged a demonstration outside the headquarters of state-owned news agency MTVA and at another war protest, demonstrators shouted “Russians out!” 

Krzysztof Cwik/Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Reuters

Mayor of Przemyśl, Poland, Wojciech Bakun (left) and Italy's far-right League party leader Matteo Salvini clash during a media address after Mr. Bakun called Mr. Salvini a "friend of Putin" and presented him with a T-shirt of the Russian president, March 8th.

Distancing themselves from a “changed” Putin 

Populist politicians have gone to great lengths since the Ukraine war began to put themselves on the right side of history, though they are also trying to defend themselves from accusations of flip-flopping that sap their credibility.

“They’re not admitting they were wrong, but [saying] that the Putin we’re interacting with today is different from the one before,” says Tara Varma, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris. “Most of them say it was right to extend a hand to him, that Russia is a part of Europe and we can’t exclude them.”

Ms. Le Pen is a case in point; she recently told reporters that the war had “partly changed” her view of the Russian president and defended her meeting with him by arguing that “the Vladimir Putin of five years ago is not exactly the same one as today.”

Another common denominator among far-right European politicians is an attempt to nuance their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine so as to distinguish themselves from Western governments.

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), for example, has officially denounced the war. But party leaders have argued that NATO pushed Mr. Putin into a corner by expanding eastward to embrace former Soviet allies.

Europe’s extreme right-wing parties have “all publicly come out against the invasion,” says Paul Vallet, a lecturer on European history at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. “But because it fits with their anti-EU, anti-NATO agenda, they can easily pick up on the narrative put out by Russia – that the decision to invade was forced on it by the policies of NATO and the U.S.”

If such parties are trying to wriggle off the hook, however, European leaders such as Spanish President Pedro Sánchez are determined not to let them. “Europe will prevail,” he declared last week in parliament, in a violent attack on the leader of the far-right Vox party. “Salvini, Le Pen, you and Putin will not get away with it!”

Anna Szilagyi/AP

Hungary's right-wing populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, addresses supporters as they gather in Budapest, Hungary, March 15, 2022. The so-called "peace march" was a show of strength by Mr. Orbán ahead of scheduled April 3 national elections.

Not the end of the far right

Europeans stand unequivocally behind Ukraine, according to public opinion polls. A March IFOP poll in France, Germany, Italy, and Poland showed that 84% had a positive opinion of Ukraine. Only 16% felt the same way about Russia. 

That has put pressure on politicians to rethink their relationships with Mr. Putin, especially those in the throes of an election. In Hungary, where the war has become the single most important issue in the run-up to parliamentary elections on April 3rd, Mr. Orbán’s reluctance to take a harsher stance on the Russian invasion could widen the divide between Budapest and the European Union. It is already creating strains with traditional Hungarian allies such as Poland.

“In terms of international politics, European politics, it is very damaging for Viktor Orbán,” says Bulcsú Hunyadi, an analyst at Political Capital in Budapest. “He is becoming more and more isolated.” 

But a poll conducted by Nézőpont Intézet found that the war has not hurt Mr. Orbán at home. In fact, he has extended his lead over an opposition coalition by presenting himself as the leader best equipped “to help Hungary stay safe and in peace,” according to Hungarian journalist Katalin Foldvari.

Links to Mr. Putin are more of a liability in France, where candidates with past affinities for the Russian president have seen their poll ratings sink in recent weeks. Mr. Zemmour seems to have fallen from grace, dropping to 12.5% this week, after saying that “if Putin is guilty, the West is responsible,” and that Ukrainian refugees should stay in Poland.

Ms. Le Pen might still pose a threat to Mr. Macron, thanks to a decision early on to focus her campaign on social welfare reforms – now an even more pressing issue for the French as the war pushes up food and energy prices. She is currently polling at 18.5%.

But it is President Macron who has benefited the most politically from the Ukraine war, with polls putting him at 29.5%. The French leader has bolstered his image as a statesman by keeping diplomatic channels open to Mr. Putin, and has also benefited from “rally round the flag” sentiment.

Political leaders not facing elections still risk damaging their credibility as they perform about-faces on their views of Mr. Putin’s Russia, which voters may find hard to believe.

When Mr. Salvini visited Poland, the mayor of Przemyśl, a border town that has taken in tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, told the League party leader “I have no respect for you,” after pulling out a T-shirt featuring Mr. Putin similar to the one Mr. Salvini wore smilingly during a 2014 visit to Moscow.

A survey this week found that following the incident, the League’s support fell.

Spain’s far-right Vox party has led an anti-feminist, anti-regional independence strategy that may cushion it from the fallout from its past sympathies for Mr. Putin’s Russia. Still, it has found itself at odds with its fellow far-right European partners, in defending the decision to send weapons to Ukraine – something Hungary’s Mr. Orbán has been unwilling to do.

But even as far-right parties across Europe scramble to defend – or explain away – their previous ties with Mr. Putin, analysts say the Ukraine war will not spell the death of populist parties in Europe. Their voters are historically more preoccupied with social welfare protection, identity issues, and immigration than with international affairs.

“I think the backlash will be on the state’s ability to respond to this crisis,” says Georgina Wright, director of the Europe Programme at the Montaigne Institute, a Paris-based think tank. “Populism’s lifeline simply is not foreign policy. So, no, this isn’t the end of far-right parties.”

Dominique Soguel in Basel, Switzerland; Lenora Chu in Berlin; and Nick Squires in Rome contributed reporting to this article.

When I close my eyes and think of Ukraine I see sunflowers and red poppies, tables full of food, and smiling faces. It’s how my extended family in Ukraine greets me when I visit. 

Since the Feb. 24 invasion, I’ve oscillated between sadness, dread, and rage. I check my phone constantly for updates, reach out to family and friends to make sure they’re OK. They are volunteering, donating supplies, making Molotov cocktails, and crowding into basements when sirens wail. They send me videos of terrible destruction. Call your legislators, they say, and ask them to close our sky.

The Ukrainian diaspora is spread around the globe. In the United States, it numbers more than a million. I’m one of them. I was born in America, the granddaughter of refugees. All four of my grandparents fled the Nazis and the Soviets in the 1940s, while some cousins and extended family remained. And now the diaspora is rallying, organizing huge volunteer efforts and demonstrations, and sending aid.

Text messages are constant. “Can anyone help 4 adults and a baby?” “Who has the proper license to send Level 4 armor plates for vests?” To understand the strength and resolve of Ukrainians one must understand their history and identity, and the many attempts to deny both. 

My grandparents, like many of their generation, ended up in displaced persons camps in postwar Germany. After years of waiting, they arrived in New York and New Jersey, determined to preserve their language and culture, both of which were under attack by the Soviets. They instilled this sense of urgency in their children and grandchildren. Ukrainian was my first language.

At a young age I’d hear my grandparents say “Bolsheviks,” “Moskaly” (Muscovites), and “znyshchennya” (destruction), but then they’d smile and hand me bowls overflowing with fruit. They taught me generosity and unconditional love.

I learned their stories, too: how my grandmother ran back into enemy territory to find her dog, how my grandfather was arrested in Warsaw for being active in a Ukrainian student group. A priest in the family was executed by the Soviets. Every Ukrainian family has such stories.

My grandmother fled her town of Medyka, now in Poland. Ukrainians are fleeing there now to escape the war. Millions have fled, something not seen in Europe since my grandparents’ time.

Their generation, and others before them, built communities: churches, museums, schools, dance groups, and summer camps to keep Ukraine alive. My grandparents were proud of who they were and insisted on speaking Ukrainian – a radical move during the Cold War years, when being mistaken for a “Commie” was dangerous.

During my childhood, I attended Ukrainian school on Saturdays, taking classes in language, history, and culture. We learned about the short-lived, independent Ukrainian People’s Republic, declared in 1918. We studied the Holodomor, Stalin’s orchestrated genocide by famine in 1932-33, in which millions of Ukrainians died, and the mass arrest and execution of Ukraine’s intelligentsia in Kharkiv later that decade. The Ukrainian language was suppressed and discouraged for decades.

I recited Taras Shevchenko’s poetry. I learned to play the traditional 65-string bandura and to sing folk songs I now hear soldiers singing in videos as they go to war, telling their families not to cry.

In 2007, the National Museum in Lviv exhibited the paintings of Theodor Wacyk, my grandmother’s uncle. I’d grown up surrounded by his portraits and landscapes. When we arrived to see the show, it marked the first time our family had visited since my grandparents had fled. Sadly, by then my grandparents had died. At the airport we were greeted by a crowd of more than 20, all family. 

In that moment, I understood why my family had worked so hard to preserve and sustain the culture of their homeland. I remember those days as happy but heavy. The weight of six decades of history hung over a dinner table piled high with exquisite open-faced sandwiches and beautiful tortes. 

Besides the stories and toasts of that visit, there was a desire to catch up, to know everyone and everything we’d missed. I felt tired at the end of every day, but I’d fallen in love with a modern, sovereign, complex Ukraine.

Amid the darkness and destruction there today – the sum of my grandparents’ fears – I try to focus on pinpricks of light: Polish friends who took in Ukrainian friends, the shop owner who donated medical supplies, people I haven’t spoken to in years asking how to help. In between donating and volunteering myself, I’ve spent moments of every day thinking of my Ukrainian ancestors. I understand why it was so important to them that their children know Ukraine and its culture. I tell myself that they survived, the language survived, the history and culture survived. And this will continue to be so.

Reuters

A member of a choir from Belarus performs "For your and for our freedom!" in a Berlin square on March 6 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In one of his last official acts as an ambassador for Nicaragua, Arturo McFields sent a note this week supporting a resolution by the Organization of American States condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Then he condemned his own government for its crackdown on democracy under strongman Daniel Ortega.

“It is impossible to continue to remain silent and defend what is beyond defense,” he said, on behalf of more than 170 political prisoners in Nicaragua.

Mr. McFields’ actions were clearly directed at his Central American country. Yet they also suggest that Ukraine’s brave defense of its fledgling democracy could be inspiring many around the world struggling to shake off authoritarian rulers. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro described Mr. McFields’ actions as “speaking truth to power.”

In Myanmar, where the military has repressed pro-democracy activists, one army officer who defected, Lt. Col. Banyar Kyaw, has called on the international community to support the people of Myanmar in the same way it has the Ukrainians.

In early March, police in Hanoi detained many people trying to attend a charity event in support of Ukraine’s independence and democracy. Vietnam follows Moscow’s narrative that the Russian invasion is only a “special military operation.”

The inspiring struggle of Ukrainians, says Avril Haines, director of U.S. national intelligence, could “empower [other] populations to speak up in dissent from such authoritarian efforts.”

In a few places, democracy activists forced into exile have been lifted by Ukraine’s example.

Activists from Hong Kong have embraced Ukraine as a way to rally supporters against China. Some who fled Belarus after a 2020 crackdown on pro-democracy protests have found a new goal: A group called Cyber Partisans has hacked into government infrastructure such as railroads to thwart the delivery of Russian troops and materiel into neighboring Ukraine. “Without a free Ukraine, there is no chance for Belarus,” group spokesperson Yuliana Shemetovets told Fast Company magazine.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for global protests against Russia’s invasion. “Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life,” he said. “Freedom matters.”

In many other countries beset by oppression, people are already there.