Russia’s war in Ukraine has always been easy to understand if you were paying attention. It was never about NATO expansion or language or land or “ethnic unification.” It has always been about breaking a people’s ability to remain Ukrainian - to live, raise their children, preserve their identity, and build a future on their own terms. It is genocidal. Look at the last 48 hours. A Russian drone hits a school in Kyiv, with more than 100 school children sheltering inside. Russia strikes the bridges that connect the city across the Dnipro. It attacks the energy and water infrastructure Ukrainians will depend on as winter approaches. And in occupied Oleshky, civilians are starving while Russian forces confiscate food dropped by Ukrainian drones and then interrogates people who dare to accept aid to keep from dying of hunger. Schools. Bridges. Power. Food. These are the basic architecture of civilian life. And this pattern did not begin this week. It stretches through destroyed cities, deported children, pressure on Ukrainian language and identity in occupied territory, and the systematic dismantling of normal life wherever Russia occupies.