Yesterday I spoke on the phone with a longtime friend in Kyiv. I have known him for many years. Our conversation relaxed me and more importantly it seemed to be good for him. He is extremely proud of our boys and girls who are defending Ukraine. However, there are moments of multiple day or night sirens when he needed to go to the basement for cover. There is also a very colorful red sky in Kyiv proper, especially at night. He told me that our people have grown very much in these four weeks. Now no one will say that Ukraine is not militarily ready for NATO. If NATO joins us against Russia we will lead NATO together with America.
My friend is a big fan of America. Today, he is extremely grateful that America is helping Ukraine so much, but he prays that it will continue to help.
He told me that all of Kyiv now speaks only Ukrainian. It was a mystery to me when I visited Kyiv only last summer. I went to restaurants and experienced my normal Russian language confrontations. I am not a passive observer. The war actually started in 2014. During the presidential election, I went to Kharkiv. A Russian speaking village council head told me the Russians have made him a banderite.
It was so nice to hear my friend’s voice. However, the war and the physical destruction of Ukraine will require a lot of physical reconstruction of the infrastructure. And even more rebuilding of human life.
So we have already started talking about the future, but the war is not over. Prospects for human development will be limited. My friend has high hopes for reconstruction through the American Blinken Plan similar to that of Marshall.
Ukraine, albeit somewhat physically diminished, is growing before our eyes as not only a European but Ukrainian country, known all over the world for its spirituality, perseverance and even military prowess. That is why we say that we are of Cossack descent.
We have jumped forward a bit ahead of ourselves. Firstly we must defeat the enemy, an enemy unlike any the world has seen since Hitler. There are so many war crimes here, missiles aimed at civilians, children, and homes. And what’s next? Like a mad beast, a Muscovite, whether Putin or Kyril (a putative religious patriarch), their purpose is to wipe the Ukrainian nation off the face of the earth. Muscovite shortcomings on the battlefield, great human losses, i.e. military losses, are like a fire burning inside that beast which is then capable of anything, biological, chemical and even nuclear weapons. Human life, that is, the civilian population, innocent children do not matter.
At a recent press conference in Brussels, President Biden answered questions about Russia’s use of chemical weapons. There would be an appropriate response from the United States and NATO. In a speech in Warsaw the following day, for the first time President Biden revealed what needs to be done – to remove Putin. How this should happen and by whom are the second and third questions.
In fact, what should the end of the war look like. Victory for Ukraine, retreat of the enemy beyond all borders of Ukraine, surrender of Donbas and Crimea, integral parts of Ukrainian territory in favour of Ukraine. Economic sanctions must continue. Moscow is an outcast. The Muscovites themselves will either kill or arrest their mentally ill leader. Muscovites don’t care whether they kill or arrest. No man, no problem was the mantra of the old Soviet Russia. This has survived. Sanctions and complete isolation will do their thing and the empire will fall. The nations within the empire will strive for at least autonomy. Russia will never be a normal country. Her church is abnormal, it is Stalin’s church. Its people are a creation that grew up in the swamps of Moscow, St. Petersburg, on Cossack bones and fed on lard and moonshine. May they live and if they do not change, they will rot. The good ones will leave this hell.
There is a young generation of extremely capable people in Ukraine. I am not closing the curtain upon the older people. All Ukrainians can have and deserve a normal fruitful European life in their beloved Ukraine. They themselves will rebuild it with our Western help.
For now, we must continue to fight. All of our ants because we are a nation of ants must go in one direction, first to victory, and then to reconstruction. Each of us has a job to do. Let’s not forget Shevchenko, “There is no other Ukraine in the world, there is no other Dnipro.”
March 26, 2 Askold S. Lozynskyj
