Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Are we kidding ourselves over Ukraine?

Optimism can be surprisingly hilarious. In my last novel, two spouses agree to quit the planet once they’ve both turned 80, and the book explores a dozen possible outcomes of their pact. No chapter made me chuckle at the keyboard more than ‘Once Upon a Time in Lambeth’ – in which the couple don’t kill themselves but live to 110 in perfect health because they eat their vegetables. Young people flock to their table for advice, as my protagonists grow only wiser and more physically riveting in old age. Meanwhile, modern monetary theory makes everything free. Limitless energy is derived from carbon dioxide. A new portmanteau religion, ‘Jeslam’, eliminates Islamist terrorism. The reader gradually twigs that this happy-clappy scenario is a piss-take. My improbably sunny Chapter 12 is clearly the one version of the couple’s advanced years sure never to happen.

Are we in danger of shining the same improbable sunniness on Ukraine? If so, this particular wishful thinking isn’t funny.

Our Chapter 12 in Kyiv goes something like this: with unstinting military support from the West, the Little-Engine-That-Could Ukrainian army continues to take territory from demoralised, poorly equipped Russian forces. As for how many years and how much outside money is required for these feisty, tireless defenders of their homeland to reach the vast country’s original 1994 borders? In this cheerful version of events, we don’t care. Speaking with one voice, leaders from Biden to Scholz all chime: ‘Whatever it takes.’ Eventually, Zelensky raises his hands in embarrassment. ‘We couldn’t be more grateful, but please! Stop with all the tanks! We’ve run out of parking spaces!’

In response, perhaps Putin announces a nationwide mobilisation, but the draft backfires. Hundreds of thousands more young prospective conscripts, often the best and brightest, flee their country, despite Kremlin attempts to close the borders. Wising up, rather than rebuff them, western countries eagerly absorb these well-educated refugees, thereby shoring up our economic dominance with Putin’s own exiles (which is gratifying).

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