This past week Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and within three days had not taken a major city and their army on the ground was beginning to run out of fuel and supplies. Now I don’t how this war will turn out because no one knows the future but I do believe in one big thing: I think the Ukrainians have one hell of a shot at winning. Why? Because their leadership, their President and all government leaders have stayed to fight alongside their army and regular citizens who have taken up the fight, too.
And this, my dear readers, is what the Russians were NOT counting on. They were counting on the government fleeing into exile so they could roll in and set up a puppet regime like they’ve done before. But when a government stays and fights, that doesn’t happen. It didn’t happen in World War II when the Nazi’s bombed the shit out of Great Britain, and it’s not going to happen now in the Ukraine. Because as Ukraine President Zelensky said to a US government offer to leave: “The fight here. I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition.”
And they’re getting it. The US government is sending an emergency aid package and for the first time ever, the German government is allowing transport of rockets and other armament into Ukraine. Also, it looks like the Russians are about to be cut off from their most lucrative financial source (the SWIFT banking transaction system), and the world is rising up and standing with Ukraine.
President Zelensky is the unlikeliest of heroes, at least on paper. He’s a former television actor and comedian who played a character on a tv show who went from being a history teacher to the president of Ukraine. Real-life mirrored his tv show when on a lark President Zelensky ran for president and won. But he’s not a bumbling fool. No, he’s got balls of steel because he’s stood up to two bullies and not backed down either time.
In 2019, US President Trump tried to bully and blackmail President Zelensky into helping him establish himself as dictator-for-life by providing non-existent dirt on current US President Joseph Biden’s son Hunter. Zelensky refused and lost out on four-hundred million dollars worth of military aid. Then in 2022 Zelensky refused to kneel down and suck Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dick by refusing to back off on Ukraine’s desire to join both the European Union and NATO. He knew that both decisions would cost him dearly but they were the right ones.
President Zelensky is Jewish, and his great-grandfather died in the Holocaust, and his grandfather fought Nazis in World War II. He honors both of them by standing with the people of Ukraine, armed and ready to fight. He knows that by staying he’s not giving in to Putin and the Republican Party here in the United States. He’s not giving in to bullies, and in the Ukraine right now his people and the Ukrainian Army are literally kicking the shit out of the Russian bullies trying to take over their country.
And not without losses and pain. There have been casualties on the Ukrainian side, and they’re Heroes of Ukraine.
Thirteen Ukrainian border guards became heroes when they told a Russian warship who pulled up to their island outpost, Snake Island and ordered them to surrender: “Russian warship, go fuck yourselves.” They all died as vheroes and their words are now a battle cry in the Ukraine (and on digital road signs on the highway to Russian invaders now).
A Ukrainian Army combat engineer, Vitaly Skakun Volodymyrovych, stayed behind when the charges he set along with his team couldn’t be detonated remotely. By destroying the bridge, and giving his life in the process, he stalled a major Russian Army advance and gave his fellow soldiers time to regroup and fight on.
There are other stories, some unknown, of other heroes of the Ukraine. I hope after this is all done a memorial is built to honor them.
And yet another inspiring quote from President Zelensky (a baby girl was born in the subway of Kyiv under intense Russian bombardment this past week): “But today is also the first day in the life of the baby girl born in the shelter in Kyiv metro station… When babies come into this world even under shelling and fire, then the enemy has no chance in this war.”
Michelesayre.com 