More from our inbox:
To the Editor:
Re “As Shell Falls, Family’s Dash to Safety Ends” (front page, March 7):
Lynsey Addario’s front-page photo of the family killed by Russian mortar fire as they tried to flee should make every single one of us wail in outrage.
Contrary to the views of some in our government and media, this war on humanity has everything to do with us. Safely watching from a distance and paying lip service to solidarity and the courage of the Ukrainian people, we are still part of a global family that is being torn apart.
Have we become so inured, so numb to the brutality in this fractured world, that we’ve lost the ability to see our own children lying on the ground instead of those two murdered children? Can we not imagine ourselves as that mom and the family friend who died trying to help them escape?
Do we have the courage to stop Vladimir Putin and others like him who are waiting in the wings?
Mary Henderson
Riverside, Conn.
To the Editor:
Re “Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Suppressing War Coverage” (news article, March 5):
Economic sanctions against the brutal authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin can only go so far. Mr. Putin’s crackdown on the last vestiges of free speech in Russia indicates that he is much more afraid of the free and truthful flow of information into Russia about its war of aggression in Ukraine than of any economic sanctions. Keeping Russia’s population in the dark about what’s really happening in Ukraine represents Mr. Putin’s best chance of weathering this crisis.
The West needs to respond by finding creative and effective ways of breaking Mr. Putin’s information blockade and countering the Russian government propaganda being relentlessly fed to the Russian people.
Expanding shortwave radio broadcasts, in Russian, by the Voice of America, the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is definitely in order. We also need to look for new ways of delivering real news about the war to Russia via the internet and social media.
Let’s try to prevent a new Iron Curtain from descending around the country of over 145 million people.
Ilya Kapovich
New York
To the Editor:
Re “Mastercard and Visa Suspend Operations in Russia” (news article, nytimes.com, March 5):
As an American living in Moscow with extended family scattered around Russia, I am appalled by the grandstanding of American businesses, including Visa and Mastercard, to punish not Russia but its citizens.
Our access to our own funds is being choked off and the debit and credit cards we need to function are being blocked. These actions are beyond required sanctions, reflect public relations values and are inhumane.
It’s one thing for governments to be involved in the idiocy of war, but common everyday people need not be sanctioned so severely.
Andrew Ciofalo
Moscow
To the Editor:
I normally swim early on Sunday mornings. But today I couldn’t force myself to pack my pool bag and head out the door. I woke at dawn and watched the news. Harried reporters on MSNBC recounted the number of dead Ukrainian civilians and Russian soldiers. Images of bombed out homes and burning vehicles flashed across the TV screen.
Young women with pale, frightened faces huddled in cold basements cradling newborns as food supplies dwindled. Thousands of people trudged wearily toward an unknown future, clutching small bags. I thought: Here we go again. History repeating itself like a bad dream because of a crazy man.
I watched this tragedy from inside the safety of my home. I thought, why bother moving when a nuclear war might be right around the corner? I know this sounds horribly depressing, but my decision to stop the usual routine and remain motionless was actually quite life-affirming.
I needed time to stand still. I needed to hear the soft rain falling on my roof, and watch the red-breasted robins flying from tree to tree outside my window.
I needed time to pray for all the people and animals dying in Ukraine, and for the earth’s continuing survival. And so, on this day, knowing everyone and everything I love in life could vanish in the blink of an eye, I paused and gave thanks for the all that is.
Patricia Flinn
Warren, N.J.
To the Editor:
Re “Hidden Money May Be Putin’s Achilles’ Heel,” by Paul Krugman (column, Feb. 25):
Mr. Krugman is right that a powerful way to put pressure on the Putin regime is to step up efforts to uncover the hidden assets of oligarchs who have plundered Russia’s wealth and go after their offshore accounts. However, no matter how strong sanctions appear on paper, they will lack teeth without the help of knowledgeable insiders who are willing to blow the whistle on money laundering.
Doing so would entail significant risks for those individuals. Fortuitously, Congress last year created a whistle-blower program that offers anonymity and substantial rewards to those who report anti-money laundering violations. The U.S. should publicize the program in countries where those illegal assets are stashed to maximize every tool possible to stop Russia’s aggression.
Erika A. Kelton
Washington
The writer is lawyer who represents whistle-blowers.
Pregnant at Work
To the Editor:
Re “No Prying. No Belly Pats. Just Work,” by Sarah Kessler (Sunday Business, March 6):
There’s something missing from the world of “work” when pregnancy is hidden away. Ms. Kessler finds remote work liberating while pregnant because her colleagues can’t see she’s pregnant and thus react. She’s right that this prevents bosses and fellow workers from taking her less seriously and even discriminating against her.
But somehow this isn’t quite as liberating as it sounds. It seems more like shaving the edges off female experience to conform to some bland notion of the ideal worker (male?).
I hope this is not the current ideal for women in the workplace. It’s good that Ms. Kessler can choose when to reveal her pregnancy, but hiding it does acquiesce to a state of affairs that pits home and children against participation in public life. Better to push for making workplaces family-friendly.
Stell Simonton
Atlanta
Do You Really See Me?
To the Editor:
Re “Losing My Eyesight Helped Me See More Clearly,” by Frank Bruni (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 20):
Mr. Bruni is right that most people don’t notice others’ hardships, physical or emotional, or stop to ponder the toll behind a smile or a laugh. His imagery of wearing a sandwich board to reveal, indeed proclaim, these buried truths struck a chord with me: “Living with lupus, spine compressed at 27, immunocompromised for five decades.”
And yet, in our current need to put Covid behind us, in our drive to put individual rights over the good of the community, will the message emblazoned on my sandwich board capture anyone’s attention?
Suzy Szasz
Richmond, Va.
The writer is the author of “Lupus: Living With It.”
‘Unbecoming’ Women
To the Editor:
Re “The Lazy, Drunk, Broke Women on TV,” by Sarah Hagelin and Gillian Silverman (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Feb. 20):
One need not drop out of living in a self-respecting way as an alternative to devoting exhausting effort to attaining the corner office.
“Unbecoming” women, as the essay refers to them, draw more condemnation than their male counterparts for a reason: We need smart, supportive, hard-working women too much.
Fairly or not, society has depended on women to manage almost everything, provide all the nonfinancial support, and keep lives and things together when they are in danger of falling apart. Can’t we just dress well, keep a decent apartment, read, write, and make friends and some money?
The last thing our troubled country needs, in reality or on television, is proudly shiftless, slovenly women.
Julie Webster
Brookline, Mass.
