Russian Aggression - Blog Posts

What is the best way to financially help Ukraine? Is it better to go through organizations or gofundmes or something else I'm not aware of?

Thanks for asking, nonnie. That's very kind of you. If you or anyone else has some spare change and wants to give, here are a few ideas:

United24 is the official fundraising platform established by President Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian governmental members and directs money to all areas of the country.

The Olena Zelenska Foundation is primarily focused on medical, humanitarian, and educational aid across the country and was founded by the First Lady.

Stand for Ukraine gives you a range of charity options, depending on whether you want to donate directly to the military, or you would prefer to fund non-lethal or humanitarian aid, etc.

Come Back Alive is the main fundraising platform for the Ukrainian military. You can choose to donate to air defense, heavy weapons, demining, medical aid, overall combat equipment, etc.

Donate to Ukraine's Defenders also offers various (carefully vetted) links and options to donate to rebuilding projects, private medical assistance programs, initiatives for democracy, and others.

the main Christmas tree of the country is not in Kyiv. The main Christmas tree of the country is right here. On the destroyed block post on the road to Bakhmut. But as long as it stays here, the one in Kyiv would shine in yellow and blue, not in white, blue and red.

photos taken by Konstantin Liberov

maternity hospital in Dnipro. residential buildings in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Konotop. at least 10 explosions in Kharkiv with civilian casualties. besides this there are explosions in Zaporizhzhia and Kmelnytsk region. and it’s not even all.

russia is still committing war crimes every day. and you still tolerate it. wake up.

‼️Approximately 110 missiles were launched by Russia, most of them were shot down, - Zelenskyi

Maternity hospital, educational institutions, shopping center, high-rise buildings and private houses, commercial warehouse, parking lot. Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and our other cities.

Today, Russia was fighting with almost everything it has in its arsenal: "daggers" ("kyndzhaly"), S-300, cruise missiles, UAVs. Strategic bombers launched X-101/X-505. Approximately 110 missiles were fired, most of which were shot down.

Unfortunately, as a result of the shelling, there are dead and wounded.

The quotes featured in these slides represent some of the last words spoken by Ukrainian defenders.

started watching 20 days in mariupol. we all died and are living in hell.

stories of children whose lives were taken by russians

1. Marharyta from Kharkiv region, 8 years old.

On June 21, cluster munitions fell in the yard of her family's house. Marharyta died instantly, her heart was pierced through. The girl's father, at the age of 36, has become completely gray. The mother cannot describe in words how she feels after losing her child.

2. Kyrylo from Kherson, 8 years old.

In April, the family evacuated from Kherson to Vinnytsia. On July 14, russia shelled the city, Kyrylo was in the car with his uncle. The boy died immediately from a fragment hitting his head, then an explosion occurred. The body was searched for several days. It was identified only through DNA analysis.

3. Daryna from Kharkiv region, 15 years old.

On March 13, a russian missile hit the family's house. When the father got to the hand of his dead daughter, he said: "Our Daryna is no more". She was buried in her native Dergachi. Mom recalls that the missiles flew over the people here and there. "Daryna, this is a farewell salute to you." said her father.

4. Polina, 8 years old.

On March 13, Polina and her mother wanted to evacuate Mariupol. As soon as they took a few steps outside, the russian military started shelling with mortars. Nadiya's mother died instantly. Both of Polina's legs and arms were broken. The girl was operated on in the city hospital. But on March 16, Polina's kidneys failed and she died. Polina was shooting videos on YouTube, dancing. She liked to change into different costumes and perform on stage.

5. Anna, 9 years old.

On March 19, an enemy shell hit near the house where Anna and her mother Yana were hiding. They went down to the basement. In the morning, slag began to fall from above. Several basement floor slabs fell on people. The mother rushed to help her daughter, but she could not pull her out from under the rubble on her own. Anya and other people remained buried in the basement. The girl liked to work with computers. Her mother promised that when Anya turned 10, she would enroll her in programming lessons. However...

6. Denys, 9 years old.

On September 3, the twins were walking in a park in Dnipropetrovs'k region. Suddenly, MLRS shells started flying. "I felt the space around me with my hand. He was at my feet. I went to him: "Danya, Danya ... ", but he was silent. Although they told me to lie down, I started crawling to my son. Ruslan was screaming next to me," the boy's mother recalls the shelling. On December 22, Denys was supposed to celebrate his birthday.

7. Oleksandr from Chernihiv, 13 years old.

On March 9, Sasha and his mother Tetyana decided to evacuate from Chernihiv. However, a shell exploded near the pedestrian column, and the boy was hit by many fragments. "He couldn't say anything, his eyes were closed, he was breathing heavily, he wheezed three times and died. He remained lying there," Sasha's mother recalls. In 2022, Sasha was an eighth grader. He was interested in the crypto market and dreamed of developing a YouTube channel for an english-speaking audience.

original post : ukraina_topnews

A real story of a woman kidnapped from her own apartment and held in russian captivity.

tw : mention of violent acts

A Georgian man was killed by Russian occupiers on our own territory because he crossed an occupation line and literally no one will be held accountable because as always Russia gets its way silently killing Georgians for decades

"russia just invaded ukraine vs israel committing a genocide in palestine”

yeah just invaded.

yeah it a fair war of two relatively the same military powers.

yeah one side never said that the other never existed and shouldn’t exist now.

yeah one side is not targeting civilian infrastructure en masse.

yeah it’s just a conflict and not a continuation of a hundred-year conquest of an imperial power to destroy a nation.

it’s not like one side has killed at least 10 million people in the space of the last century while specifically targeting this nation in particular.

it’s great that you all read about palestinian history - this is a right thing to do and one of the ways to decolonise your own knowledge- but maybe pick up a timothy snyder or serhiy plokhy book and read when russians started killing ukrainians. you would be surprised that it didn’t start either in 2022 or 2014, its been going on FOR CENTURIES.

wording matters. check whether your country recognises holodomor as a genocide. if yes, read about it. if not, read about it as well.

and then check what constitutes a genocide and how both of this tragedies are genocides: of ukrainian people by russia and of palestinian people by israel.

Nobody gave us as much hate about talking about the war Russia has been waging on Ukraine since 2014 as russian feminists and queers did. Miss me caring about their plights.

this used to be a city of Maryinka, as you can see it no longer exists, thanks to russians.

20 Days In Mariupol (2023), dir. Mstyslav Chernov

20 Days In Mariupol (2023), dir. Mstyslav Chernov

😐

The add includes the line “Let’s clean ourselves of compulsory Ukrainian Nazism” (not my translation) and links having a Ukrainian name to nazism. And yet people are still debating on Ruzzia’s intent for this war and what they mean by “denazification” (hint: it has nothing to do with nazis)

16-year-old Roman Biletsky died as a result of russian shelling of the Pozhnia village in Sumy Oblast on October 26.

The grandfather said that when the shots started, the boy ran to save his goats, which were grazing in the garden.

"He loved animals very much, raised ducks and goats. He kept two goats, given to him by local residents.

When the shelling began, he remembered that his goats were tied to the cuttings in the garden. He ran to save them, managed to put them in the stall, remove the chains. Then he tried to enter the house because there were loud shots.

At the moment when he climbed onto the wing, already opened the door to the corridor, a shell flew by. The projectile landed on our haystack in the garden. The explosion did not take place on the ground, but on top of the roof, on the slate. He was struck in the lungs, vomited everything. And in the leg," recalls the grandfather.

Roman's grandfather has 1 group of disabilities, his grandson came to take care of him, helped with the household.

"It was my only hope and support. I hoped very much for Romochka, for my grandson. And my last hope was taken away," he says.

🖋️📸: Suspil'ne Sumy

Russians have ReVoLuTiOnS. Yeah, you know, we study russian history because Ukraine was part of russian empire. You know, colonized territory?

I can name literally 2 revolutions in ALL of russian history.

But I can name at least 10 wars that Russia started in last 30 years.

It's not a problem with THIS particular russia. It's a problem with all of the russians.

Resources for News about the War in Ukraine & other News from Ukraine

For news and information specifically about the war, as well as some general educational content about Ukraine where it adds context, there's this dedicated website, that's a great resource on the war in Ukraine:

https://war.ukraine.ua/

For news in general about Ukraine from Ukraine (obviously including the war, but also other news), these are two good choices:

"Ukrinform" - Ukrainian National News Agency:

https://www.ukrinform.net/

"The Kyiv Independant" - Ukraine's biggest English language news site:

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If you prefer a source that's not involved in the war or with Ukraine for objectivity... In terms of non-Ukrainian /Western news I generally - for any kind of world news - prefer and recommend Reuters. It's my go-to (non Ukrainian) news source to follow international events, because by my observation it's the most objective and neutral one. So much so that it's often almost boring to read, compared to articles from other sources, and sometimes even borderline infuriating in its neutrality where common sense clearly suggests a certain judgement, but in the context of news we want factual information over entertainment or opinions, and Reuters will provide that more reliably than others:

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PS: Please also read this post of mine to learn why it really matters to get your Ukraine related news from a Ukrainian source, or at least include Ukrainian sources in your media consumption, rather than using exclusively Western sources.

What Ukrainians ate to survive Holodomor

(translated excerpts from an Історична Правда article): + images source

The villagers would dig up the holes of the polecats to find at least a handful of grain hidden by these animals. They pounded it in a mortar, added a handful of oilcake (from hemp seed), beetroot, potato peelings, and baked something from this mixture.

Those who managed to hide at least a little grain would grind it in iron mills made from wheel axles and cook "zatyrukha" (a concoction made from a small amount of flour ground from ears of grain).

Acacia flowers were boiled and eaten raw, and green quinoa was mixed with crushed corn cobs. Those who could - and this was considered lucky - added a handful of bran. This food made their feet swell and their skin crack.

The peasants dried the husked ears of corn and millet husks, pounded them, ground them with weeds, and cooked soups and baked pancakes. Such dishes were impossible to chew, the body could not digest them, so people had stomach aches. Pancakes, the so-called "matorzhenyky", were made from oilcake and nettle or plantain.

It went so far that peasants would crumble straw into small chips and pound it in a mortar together with millet and buckwheat chaff, and tree bark. All this was mixed with potato peelings, which were very poisonous, and this mixture was used to bake "bread", the consumption of which caused severe stomach diseases.

There were cases when village activists took away and broke millstones, mortars, poured water on the heat in their ovens. After all, anything found or saved from the food had to be cooked on fire, and matches could only be purchased by bartering for their own belongings or by buying them in the city, which was impossible from villagers that were on "black lists".

Chestnuts, aspen and birch bark, buds, reed roots, hawthorn and rose hips, which were the most delicious, were used as food substitutes; various berries, even poisonous ones, were picked; grass seeds were ground into flour; "honey" from sugar beets was cooked, and water brewed with cherry branches was drunk. They also ate the kernels of sunflower seeds.

Newborns had the worst of it, because their mothers had no breast milk. According to testimonies, a mother would let her child suck the drink from the top of the poppy head, and the child would fall asleep for three days.

In early spring, the villagers began to dig up old potato fields. They would bake dumplings from frozen potatoes, grind rotten potatoes in a mash and make pancakes, greasing the frying pan with wheel grease. They also baked "blyuvaly" (transl. "vomities") from such potatoes and oatmeal mixed with water, which was so called because they were very smelly.

They ate mice, rats, frogs, hedgehogs, snakes, beetles, ants, worms, i.e. things that weren't a part of food bans and had never been eaten by people before. The horror of the famine is also evidenced by the consumption of spiders, which are forbidden to kill in Ukrainian society for ritual reasons.

In some areas, slugs were boiled into a soup, and the cartilaginous meat was chopped and mixed with leaves. This prevented swelling of the body and contributed to survival. People caught tadpoles, frogs, lizards, turtles, and mollusks. They boiled them, adding a little salt if there was salt. The starving people caught cranes, storks, and herons, which have been protected in Ukraine for centuries, and their nests were never destroyed. According to folk beliefs, eating stork meat was equated with cannibalism.

The consumption of horse meat began in 1931, before the mass famine. People used to take dead horsemeat from the cemeteries at night, make jelly out of it and salt it for future use.

Dead horses were poured with carbolic acid to prevent people from taking their meat, but it hardly stopped anybody. Dead collective farm pigs were also doused with kerosene to prevent people from dismantling them for food, but this did not help either.

After long periods of starvatiom, the process of digestion is very costing for the human body, and many people who would eat anything would drop dead immediately out of exhaustion.

If a family had a cow hidden somewhere in the forest, they had a chance to survive. People living near forests could hunt/seek out berries and mushrooms, but during winter this wouldn't save them. People living near rivers could fish in secret, but it was banned and punishable by imprisonment/death.

I was listening to an interview about Ukraine and the interviewer was talking how there's no empathy for russian soldiers "not asking for sympathy for the Russians as an invading force, but empathy for humans" is the direct quote and while yes empathy for humans should exist, highlighting this in this context is bizzare. He then follows saying that these are young soldiers and the west is celebrating when "they are sent to their mothers" (meaning celebrating their deaths).

And what struck me the most is him saying this: "Soldiers who've been sent to war not by their choice, they follow military, they follow orders". Quick question: how do you think defeated nazi soldiers were trying to avoid punishment for their war crimes? What "argument" was real popular, don't you remember? This exact "argument" is the reason why International Law actually explicitly states that if a higher ups in the war are forcing a soldier to execute unlawful acts, the soldier has the right and responsibility to refuse this order. In International Law "I was following orders" is not an admissible argument. If the Russian soldiers don't want to commit war crimes, they are, by law, obliged to refuse the orders. Yet the Russian army still stands, still committing war crimes in Ukraine. But yeah, poor russian young boys sent to their mothers…

Yes I do have empathy for brainwashed and indoctrinated youth of an authoritarian state, no I don't have empathy for war criminals.

20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov, 2023)

"An emotionally devastating account of the inhumanity of war."

"Documentary film-making rarely gets more impactful and devastating than this personalised account of life inside the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol at the start of last year’s Russian invasion."

"why don't we hate israelis as much as we hated russians when they invaded ukraine" - first of all, who is "we". It was (primarily) Eastern Europeans who carried the russophobia on their backs, I'm not letting you appropriate their contribution. And second of all, when were you stabbing russian immigrants abroad for the sin of being russian and vandalising their neighbourhoods with swasticas? Because all I remember is russian men harrassing & beating up ukrainian refugee women and children, and setting their houses on fire, while westerners were observing this with "omg brotherly nation forced into war by politicians. make peace not war #deep"

A Georgian man was killed by Russian occupiers on our own territory because he crossed an occupation line and literally no one will be held accountable because as always Russia gets its way silently killing Georgians for decades

you just read a news piece "Ukraine returned 4 kids from russian territories aged 17, 9, 6 and 3" and think: finally some good fucking news, but then you scroll further and you see the numbers 19,000 deported and 1,400 missing and you just don’t understand what should we do to safe them, who should we ask and beg for help.

Babyn Yar, 82 years past.

Last year, I walked there a lot - and couldn't help but cry, every time. You always knew the Holocaust happened, and what it happened to Ukraine as well, but there, in the memorial park, you see the photos, read the text describing it, you see these ravines, you walk along the graves/monuments of the Jewish cemetery, you listen to the prayers and memorial songs... Can you not cry?

And then there's the rocket attack on Babyn Yar last year. And there's the occupation, execution of civilians, mobile crematoriums. The theater, inscription "KIDS". "Filtration camps". Deportation of children. Blowing up the prisoners' barrack. The damn. The market. The train station... No, I couldn't.

82 years later, and the only thing that changed is the language of the invaders.