Looking at the endless wheat fields of Tuscany, to which God was especially generous, it is difficult to imagine images of war. And yet, when during the Second World War this area fell under the occupation of the Nazis, the Italian rebels, attacking from the surrounding mountains, tried to expel the conqueror. In retaliation, the Germans executed dozens of civilians in medieval villages adorning the landscape. Currently, an inscription in the Val d’Orcia calls on passers-by of this beautiful valley to “stop and think of those who died here.”

It is a fact that day after day, month after month, even the most sensitive among us are gradually losing interest in the war, which drags on and turns into a series of numbers. Today, one army gained so many kilometers. Yesterday another person lost so much. Even the number of victims is starting to look normal.

In her early days Russian invasion of Ukraine, all the front pages of Western newspapers, the facades of large buildings and avatars on social networks were filled with a yellow and blue flag. A few months later, under various pretexts, the flag began to be removed, often giving way to another flag with fair demands.

The inconvenient truth is that when war is not directly affecting our survival, our minds tend to pay attention to other issues over time. When we saw Russian tanks approaching Kyiv, when we learned about the atrocities in Bucha, all our eyes were fixed on it. We now read about Ukraine with about the same interest as we watch sports news.

And still. As our philosophers have shown us, a normal response is not necessarily correct or acceptable. We must go against our innate tendency to tire of repetitive topics and maintain interest in Ukraine. To make our governments do the right thing. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers daily risk their lives on the fronts of Ukraine. Their success will determine whether their 44 million compatriots live, at least for the foreseeable future, in freedom or suffer from neo-colonial domination. It may even determine whether the citizens of Russia will ever be able to determine their own political destiny.

Anyone who knows anything about the nature of war must hope that the wheat fields of the Ukraine will soon look as peaceful as the fields of Tuscany. On the first anniversary of the war, my deepest hope is that there won’t be a second. But peace, when it comes, must be just and lasting. In the mid-twentieth century, Italy’s pacifist guerrillas were right to take up arms against the Nazis. Today, the people of Ukraine have the right to resist the tanks that are trying to annex their country. The least we can do is help him.

* Mr. Jasa Munk is a German-American political scientist and professor at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.