In Australia, our choices can often be slippery. In Ukraine, choices are as hard and sharp as the spiky steel tank obstacles they call ‘porcupines’.

Australians can learn from the individual and collective decision-making we are currently seeing from the Ukrainians as they mount a determined defence of their homeland. It is, at the very least, a reminder of how much we are morally glib about in terms of our social structures and norms.