#Героям слава!

[tomorrowusa]

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's short vid is one of the great wartime speeches.

Some people are tough while other people with porcine mouths just like to talk tough while hiding behind bone spurs.

[horpyna]

the beginning of that week was full of suspense and yet life was going on until it didn't. on 23.02.2022 i was donating blood. it was my first time donating blood. i found out that my natal documents probably state my blood type wrong. i would have gotten a free blood test results in a few days and found out the truth. i never came back to pick them up.

on 24.02.2022 couldn't sleep bc the news about my blood type bewildered me. that night there were three loud explosions in my city. it wasn't confusing at first bc there were building sight near us and it would usually make a lot of noise. but nothing like those explosions. also, there's no building at night. after the third explosion i checked twitter and everything became clear. the situation was much worse in the East too. Grandma was already awake and worried. i stayed with her during day. we waited for what's coming next.

on 25.02.2023 i was suppose to have a job interview. i applied for it during winter holidays. i never went there. first they've called to postpone then i wasn't in the city anymore.

I didn't have a plan for life anymore, it became apparent the same morning. the front was moving closer from the East, there was no certainty as to when would be our turn. i was afraid that our local government would surrender the city if russians arrive. i was genuinely planning to go to first aid course, now that it was more important that ever. i was even ready to go stand in queue for military training course. i couldn't tell my mom though. i knew she would be horrified. i also knew that have i decide to join the defence forces, they would be left alone. my mom would be left alone to look after my sister and my grandma and my dad. so i stayed by her side. I hoped it would be just for a while. it was still relatively quiet in odesa.

they we hoped it wouldn't be long. we hoped that it wouldn't take so many lives, both civilians and defenders. but it did. and it's been 2 years of full-scale war, 10 years of war for our rights to exist as Ukraine. Brave men and women of Armed Forces of Ukraine have been holding the defence for this long. im grateful for each day that i live through in safety. it's never a granted thing now, it wasn't for 10 years. there's always a price paid in blood, health or someone's life.

I don't know how long it will last, but im hopeful. that we will win, and we will heal after all. and then we will prosper again all odds.

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ Art on the side of an apartment building in Chicago.

Nice, though folkloric representations of Ukraine in the public mind now have to compete with images of the successful defense of the country against Putin's illegal invasion.

Chicago has had a significant Ukrainian community for over a century.

Ukraine

[anastasiamaru]

Fire Support Group "Omega Wings "

Intense fire support is a crucial component for the successful conduct of operations and the effectiveness of military tasks

[yuliia-ozen]

[applefarter]

Рома Руденко з крутого українського мультсеріалу Університет Чупарського! Що ще взагалі писати? Класний персонаж, смішний і таке інше..

[tomorrowusa]

« [I]n 1994 Ukraine, which had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, relinquished its nuclear warheads as part of a complete nuclear disarmament. It did so in exchange for iron-clad security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia. Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine (or, worse, active sabotage by cutting it off from some intelligence sharing) and in-process realignment of the US with Vladimir Putin’s geostrategic objectives guarantees that no state will ever do anything similar in the future. »

— Alexander Hurst at The Guardian.

In 1994 under an agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees. Donald Trump has removed those guarantees. In doing so, Trump has increased the likelihood of nuclear war.

As Hurst explains...

[I]n 1994 Ukraine, which had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, relinquished its nuclear warheads as part of a complete nuclear disarmament. It did so in exchange for iron-clad security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia. Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine (or, worse, active sabotage by cutting it off from some intelligence sharing) and in-process realignment of the US with Vladimir Putin’s geostrategic objectives guarantees that no state will ever do anything similar in the future.

Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if the latter had nukes. Because of Trump's failure to support Ukraine, other countries will try to acquire nuclear weapons because they know they can't count on American promises and treaty agreements.

Trump has made this a less safe planet in addition to jeopardizing American national security.

[is-this-working]

The pride on his face is always so beautiful 🥺🇺🇦

[marykk1990]

My next post in support of Ukraine is:

Next site, the Cherkasy Chornobyl Heroes Institute of Fire Safety. Originally established in 1973, it was named for the heroes of Chornobyl in 1997. (Everything I found online had Chernobyl, but I am using the Ukrainian transliteration, which is Chornobyl.) I'm guessing the graduates of the Institute of Fire Safety are living up to the example set by the Chornobyl Heroes every day due to muscovy's terrorist invasion of Ukraine. May they stay safe and save lives.

#StandWithUkraine

#СлаваУкраїні

#Героямслава 🇺🇦🌻

[tomorrowusa]

ICYMI...

Russian General Charged With Chemical Weapons Use In Ukraine Killed In Blast Claimed By Kyiv

A high-ranking officer in charge of Russia's Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces (RKhBZ) has been killed in an explosion in Moscow that sources told RFE/RL was carried out by Ukrainian intelligence operatives. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov and his assistant were killed by a bomb concealed in a scooter outside the entrance of a Moscow building early on December 17, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement. Kirillov, 54, is the highest-level Russian military officer to be killed in an apparent assassination since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While no individual or group officially claimed responsibility for the killing, a source at Ukraine’s SBU security service told RFE/RL that the blast was the result of a special operation by the SBU.

Earlier this year the UK had imposed sanctions on Kirillov for his use of chemical weapons.

UK imposes sanctions on Russian chemical warfare commander Britain's Foreign Secretary has accused Russia of deploying First World War-era choking gas on Ukrainian battlefields.

Ukrainian agents are apparently able to operate in the middle of Moscow.

Ukraine Remembers.

Russian Gen. Igor Kirillov had been in charge of using chemical weapons in Ukraine in violation if international law. Such weapons had been banned in warfare since the aftermath of World War I. Apparently Russia has used chemical weapons over 4,800 times in Ukraine. Arguably this makes Putin's Russia worse than Nazi Germany in this regard.

Russian Chemical Weapons General Killed by Bomb in Scooter

Perhaps Arya Stark made a stop in Moscow during her voyage.

[neilforshaw]

3 years into Russia's 3 day SMO. Ukraine is stronger and more independent from Russia than ever. Mr Putin has failed his primary objective. Let's not let Russia off the hook for what they have done! #StandWithUkraine #RussiaIsATerroristState #СЛАВАУКРАЇНІ 🇺🇦

[atheadax]

Україна- наша країна. Україна переможе! 🇺🇦💝

Мої сльози і моя любов увійшли в цю картину. За Україну.

[tomorrowusa]

Poland's Foreign Minister Sikorski has a great point. Russia with its alter ego, the USSR, has a case of pathological expansionism going back half a millennium.

Prof. Gary Saul Morson of Northwestern University describes, in The New Criterion, the almost incessant rate of expansion since the time of Ivan the Terrible.

Putin fears that he's getting behind that centuries-old Belgium a year timetable for Russia.

A number of countries in the global South give Russia a mulligan because they fail to recognize that even though Russia didn't have colonies in Africa, South & Southeast Asia, or Latin America, it was indeed a classic colonial power. Russia's colonies were in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the brutality it exercised in those regions was not that different from what Western European powers did in the developing world. There was genocide, economic exploitation, and political repression. Ukraine was under Russian/Soviet control longer than India and Nigeria combined were under British rule.

Putin is trying to revive Russian colonialism as an alternative to actually modernizing Russia. Russian troops famously steel toilets from Ukraine largely because almost a quarter of rural Russians still depend on outhouses.

Russia is largely a feudal society where Putin is the tsar, the oligarchs are the boyars, and the bulk of the impoverished population are the equivalent of serfs.

As for the matter of size, some perspective...

• [I]n the thirteenth century, Russia was a tiny principality around Moscow. They've grown to the largest, territorially, state on Earth. And yet still they crave other people’s land. Whatever for? Don't they have enough land? —Radosław Sikorski

"A conversation with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Radosław Sikorski" Atlantic Council "A conversation with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Radosław Sikorski" Atlantic Council (at Internet Archive)

[theseekeroftruth]

Незламна духом, рідна Україна.

З тобою воля, правда та сила!

[tomorrowusa]

The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, usually worships Donald Trump. But even the Post understands how ruinous the Trump bromance with Vladimir Putin is.

Monday February 24th is the third anniversary of Putin's full scale invasion of Ukraine. It was supposed to be a "three-day special operation". Instead, Ukraine has held out for three YEARS.

Show your support for freedom and democracy on Monday. If you can't get a Ukrainian flag, get some blue and yellow paint or blue and yellow ribbons.

You can also contribute to the non-profit charity Razom For Ukraine.

With an agent of Putin in the White House, it's more important than ever to Stand With Ukraine.

[is-this-working]

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