Sisters have a special kind of relationship.

They share a bond that is hard to compare to anything else. They share more than just DNA and a bathroom and Grandma’s eyes.

They are the only ones who will understand the highs and lows, the good and bad, the in-jokes and little traumas that come from a lifetime of holding hands and fighting and having each other’s backs. Being a sister is being a cheerleader, a best friend and the person who knows exactly what to say to hurt you to your bone marrow.

Pittsburgh has a lot of sisters. Bilbao, Spain. Da Nang, Vietnam. Glasgow, Scotland. There are about 20 scattered across the globe.

One of them is Donetsk, Ukraine — the capital of one of the two regions in contention in the days leading up to the Russian invasion.

Donetsk is easy to see as Pittsburgh’s sister. It is a steel town. It has a history of coal mining. It is known for its workforce. It is an industrial powerhouse surrounded by rivers and forests and rolling hills.

But the attack that began with shelling across the country started with another of Donetsk’s siblings. Moscow is one of its sisters, too, which kind of makes Pittsburgh a half-sister of the Russian capital.

It’s a situation that makes you realize that global politics is never as big as it can seem. The conflicts that dominate the United Nations or NATO or that paralyze the international stock markets or disrupt prices at gas pumps are not as remote as they can feel when you watch them on television.

They are as close as the Russian Catholic church or the Ukrainian Club down the street. They are as real as your retirement account and as tangible as the receipt for the gas you just put in your tank.

International politics are easier to understand than we usually grasp — as well as being much more complicated to untangle because, like sister cities, they are so intertwined.

They are family politics, long and winding and knotted. They can pull people in different directions and make them passionate and angry at the same time they want to just have everyone sit down together in peace. They can make you want to yell and scream and assign blame but still know that will never really help.

But recognizing that sisterhood of cities and countries — the fact that Pittsburgh has as much in common with Donetsk and Moscow as it does with Johnstown and Philadelphia — is what ought to keep our leaders and their leaders working toward better, more peaceful solutions instead of dropping bombs on their extended family.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)