BSH1 MEMORiAL PROFiLE PiC PiCK of the WEEK No. 40- STAND with UKRAINE

Author: oromagi

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A country in the shape of a puddle, on the map.
Any country is an easy target in March,
in June, July, August, September, October,
as long as it rains
and maps litter the street.
Stop, who goes there, General Oaken Knees.
The Red Square of his naked chest shines the way.
And behind him, a half-shadow, half-man,
half-orphan, half-exile, whose mouth is as coarse
as his land —
double-land where every cave is at war.
Do you say there won’t be a war? I say nothing.
A small gray person cancels
this twenty-first century,
adjusts his country’s clocks
for the winter war.


LYUDMYLA KHERSONSKA
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Buried in a human neck, a bullet looks like an eye, sewn in,
an eye looking back at one’s fate.
Who shot him there? Who gave the order, which man?
Who will bury him, and what’s the rate?
When it comes to humanity, war is the beginning and end.
Whoever attacks you, don’t turn your back.
Says the Lord: For my people are foolish, they have not known me,
they are silly children and they have no understanding.
But the children feel as strong as their machinery,
mass-produced, with plenty of seamstresses for repairing:
some ladies patch holes, others fix neck bones,
still more sew on buttons that were torn away from hands.
And the Lord says:  They are wise in doing evil — but,
says the Lord — they do not know how to do good.
But the children, if they survive, say it was luck,
and if they die, they think that was yesterday,
today is another day,
and the seamstresses stand with a shroud, telling them, “Put this on.”
How long must we put up with the flags, the trumpets calling us into the fray?
What beast has awakened? Where did our special forces land?
Who shot that man in the back? Who gave the command?
Who will bury him, and what’s the rate?

LYUDMYLA KHERSONSKA


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people carry explosives around the city
in plastic shopping bags and little suitcases
they trample the cobblestone we learn their secrets
only the day after and even then it’s just checking the facts
how many windows shattered how many collapsed balconies
did anyone die or is everyone alive and kicking
only frightened that there is no more peaceful life perhaps
war happens and the laws of war are a cruel thing
or perhaps there are no more laws and explosions are now the norm
we don’t get up from the table just shiver and shed some hope
an enemy chooses weapons as a thief finds the pick for a door
when in fact the door is already open

MARIANNA KIYANOVSKA

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Make Love

this war isn’t war — it’s a chance not to kill anyone
this love isn’t love unto death — it’s as long as it lasts
to protect one another is all this occasion demands
and to look at the world through a steady rifle sight
and to look within ourselves through every microscope
and to look at you at every hour every minute at all times
to protect one another — and in keeping calm and carrying on
to burn down to the ground and to rise up as smoke
this war isn’t war — but a certain and fiery passion
this love is forever — just as moments pass forever
we hit bottom to get stuck in some new heaven
there is a string that binds us all together
that string between us is a safety fuse

YURII IZDRYK

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yeah, sucker punch is pretty much the go-to response for Russian thugs and thieves.  By 2016, all of Ukraine understood that Boyko was and remains a tool of Putin.  He was VP under Yanukovych until the democratic revolution of 2014 forced him out of power after Yanukovych fled to Moscow.  I'm sure Putin is counting on giving Boyko some high office in the puppet govt.  after Zelensky is executed and democracy crushed.
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Soccer without the red cards.
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This coffin’s for you, little boy, don’t be afraid, lie down,
A bullet called life clutched tight in your fist,
We didn’t believe in death, look – the crosses are tinfoil.
Do you hear – all the bell towers tore out their tongues?
We won’t forget you, believe it, believe it, be …
Belief bleeds down the seam inside your sleeve,
Chants, prayers, psalms swell up in a lump in your throat
In the middle of this damned winter all dressed in khaki,
And February, getting the ink, is sobbing.
And the candle drips on the table, burning and burning…

-Iya Kiva

 Translated from the Russian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, 2014

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to hold a needle of silence in your mouth
to stitch your words in white thread
to whimper while drowning in spit
to keep from screaming spitting blood
to hold the water of a language on your tongue
which leaks like a rusty bucket
to mend things that are still useful
to sew crosses on the really weak spots
like bandages on the wounded in a hospital
to learn to search for the roots of a life
that has yet to learn its name

-Iya Kiva
Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, 2019

25 days later

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PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY's ADDRESS to the RESIDENTS of UKRAINIAN CITIES
21 March 2022 - 21:17

Great people of great Ukraine!

In this video, I want to appeal separately to the Ukrainian cities and the brave inhabitants of these cities. To the free south of Ukraine, where the sun shines only to welcome guests, not to random "tourists" on tanks. To Berdyansk, Kakhovka, Enerhodar, Melitopol and, of course, Kherson.
To Kherson, where today we saw slaves shooting at free people. Slaves of propaganda that replaces their consciousness. Slaves who used to pack everyone in paddy wagons. Even an old woman with a clean white poster. Even a girl with an A4 sheet on which only one word is written - "peace".
These slaves sent by Russia have never seen so many free people in the squares and streets. They have never seen thousands of people who are not afraid of them, of slaves with weapons in their hands. Slaves perceive freedom as savagery, as danger. They are scared. The fear that propagandists know how to turn into hatred. And then - shots at peaceful free people.
Kherson, hold on! We will never forget these shots. Shots from your city. We were all with you in your square and streets. 40 million Ukrainians of our state. Millions and millions of Ukrainians in the world. We've all seen you stand. We’ve seen who you are. We have all felt how you want to regain your freedom. On land, where, watching the Milky Way, the Chumaks went for salt, the enemies felt terrible.
And as soon as we can break through to you, every occupier who shot at peaceful Kherson residents just for the blue-yellow color will have a black stripe.
And the same awaits the Russian military pale from the fright who were driven out today in Enerhodar. Peaceful Ukrainians drove them out with bare hands.
The occupiers in Berdyansk, Melitopol and Kakhovka will have a black stripe. Wherever the occupiers kidnap our people. Those who they think are organizing the resistance. But we are not Russia. Remember. And there is no need to organize resistance here. Resistance for Ukrainians is a feature of the soul. And I really want you, all our Ukrainians in the south, to never think even for a moment that Ukraine does not remember you.
Whenever you are in pain, when you resist in spite of everything, please know that our hearts are broken at this time, because we are not with you.
And we ask God to support you until we can drive strangers out. This is a feat that you are protesting. This is happiness that we have such people. That we are all Ukraine.
During this invasion, heroes have constantly declared themselves among millions of our people. Once - ordinary Ukrainians, and now - fighters. Men and women who stand up for our state. Everywhere: in the south, in the east, in the north, in the center, in the west and abroad. Stand up so that the enemy does not believe that this is a reality.
But we will make them believe. And we will make them remember that they are not welcome.
And they will never be. In Kyiv, which stands bravely and majestically above the Dnieper. In Kharkiv... Proud, tidy, educated Kharkiv. Which they beat, and it does not obey. Chernihiv. Ancient! Chernihiv, which since the time of the Horde has not faced such atrocities committed by the Russian military now.
Sumy, Okhtyrka and Lebedyn... Izyum, Derhachi ... Volnovakha, Popasna... Borodyanka, Hostomel, Makariv... Mykolaiv...
Mariupol! Hardworking and honest city! Mariupol. Which the occupiers are simply destroying. Destroying to ashes. But it will survive them all. Worthless slaves who do not know how to take care of their own country. Of their own people. And they go to someone else's.
We are fighting for every Ukrainian! And we remember everyone! We are grateful to everyone. Both to the people and to these beautiful cities.
As well as to Lviv, as well as to Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Lutsk, our Uzhhorod... Kropyvnytskyi, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih... Vinnytsia, Rivne... Cherkasy, Poltava... Odesa!
Those who may be infrequently mentioned in speeches. But who care about our common future. About Ukraine. And about freedom - for each of us. Who shelter people who have been forced to leave their home. Who work for defense. Who send humanitarian goods. Who deploy the evacuated businesses. Who heal, who help. Help all of us, and therefore themselves.
Great people of great Ukraine!
And I say this not accidentally - great Ukraine. Because I appeal to everyone in our country and to those abroad. In cities and villages. Those who are free and who are temporarily under occupation. In Crimea, in Donetsk, in Luhansk. Where they must also fight for freedom, not sit and wait.
I appeal to all Ukrainians. Wherever we are. Do everything to protect our state.
To save our people. Fight. Fight and help. Drive these slaves out! Drive the occupiers out! So that Ukraine lives. So that all of us live with it.
Free and peaceful. Which we love so much.

Glory to Ukraine!


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PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY's ADDRESS to the UKRAINIAN PEOPLE
21 March 2022 - 00:49

Free people of a free country!

The 25th day has come to an end since the Russian military has gone to the exercise and found themselves on our land. They all say so when taken captive. 
It is already the 25th day since the Russian military has been vainly trying to find imaginary “Nazis” from whom they allegedly wanted to defend our people. Just as they are vainly trying to find Ukrainians who would meet them with flowers. At least in one city of our state. At least in one village.
And most importantly - the Russian military cannot find a way home. That is why our soldiers help them with the path to God's judgment.
To God's judgment where I am sure they receive only one punishment, one for all: the eternal cellar. Forever under the bombs. Forever without food, water and heat. For everything they did to our people, ordinary Ukrainians. To peaceful people. In Okhtyrka and Kharkiv, in Borodyanka and Chernihiv. In Volnovakha and Mariupol. And many of our other courageous cities.
In besieged Mariupol, Russian aircraft dropped a bomb on an art school. People were hiding there. Hiding from shelling, from bombing. There were no military positions. There were about four hundred civilians. Mostly women and children, the elderly. They are under the debris. We do not know how many are alive at the moment.
But we know that we will definitely shoot down the pilot who dropped that bomb. As we already did to almost a hundred other similar mass murderers.
Today, in the Knesset, I addressed all deputies and government officials. But first of all, I spoke on your behalf, on behalf of all Ukrainians with the people of Israel, who, I am sure, understand us. As free people understand free people.
Of course, Israel has its own interests, a strategy to protect its citizens. We understand that. Israeli Prime Minister Bennett is trying to find a way to negotiate with Russia. And we are grateful for that. For every effort. So that sooner or later we start talking to Russia, perhaps in Jerusalem. This is the right place to find peace. If it is possible.
Well, Russian propagandists today have a rather difficult task.
After all, for the first time in history, the president of a foreign state spoke in the Knesset via video call. And spoke to the people of Israel. The President of Ukraine accused in Moscow of "Nazism” spoke in the Knesset to the people of Israel.
This fact alone confirms how wrong things are in Moscow.
During the day on March 20, only 4 humanitarian corridors worked. A total of 7,295 people were evacuated. Almost 4,000 Mariupol residents arrived in Zaporizhzhia in one day.
Tomorrow morning we are preparing to send new buses to Mariupol to continue this important mission. More than 3,000 people were rescued in the Kyiv region. But in the Kharkiv region... Russian troops captured our convoy, our humanitarian cargo for the city of Vovchansk. There is no connection now with six people. Five drivers and one doctor. We will release them. We will try again and again to deliver to our people what they need.
The Kherson region fought again today. I am grateful to them. Again on the streets. And as always - for all of us, for Ukraine. With national flags. And with our Ukrainian courage. Unarmed against the occupiers. Against shots and military vehicles. This is a feat that inspires us all. This is Ukraine we are proud of. These are Ukrainians to whom I am immensely grateful. Just as all our people are.
In the afternoon I spoke with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson. A true friend of Ukraine who does not hesitate and does not seek excuses.
We agreed on concrete support for our country at next week's G7 and NATO summits. Although we are not members of these organizations, I see that Ukraine has at least one vote there.
I also spoke with Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis. A star couple who sincerely believe in us, in our victory, in our future. They help Ukrainian IDPs by raising funds. And the two of them have already raised $ 35 million. I thanked them on behalf of our people, on behalf of all of us. Agree, this is a good result for one couple of our friends in America.
And we are working to make the whole world our friends.
I personally presented state awards to Ukrainian intelligence officers. Please understand - I can't say their names publicly.
But believe me, the contribution of these people to our defense is so significant that the orders and the title of Hero of Ukraine for them is the minimum we can give. Just to express gratitude. To them and to all our heroes. Thanks to which we are holding on. And we’re doing it pretty well.
And Ukraine lives.

Glory to Ukraine!


18 days later

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“No War”

You’re standing with a “No war” sign as if indulging
the inevitable: this war can’t be stopped,
like bright arterial blood from an open wound
it flows till it kills,
it enters our cities with the armed men,
seeps into our courtyards with the reconnaissance units,
like deadly mercury beads that can’t be put back,
you can’t fix it, except to find and neutralize it,
these civilian managers, clerks, IT-guys and students,
life didn’t prepare them for street fights, but the war did,
on the frontline, in a painfully familiar landscape, in a hurry
at first they only recruit experienced combat fighters to the defense units,
after that gamers who play Dune and Fallout,
or maybe if you’ve had a short-course in Molotov cocktails from a bartender you know,
at the local club while the kids are asleep, the kids are crying, the kids are being born
into a world temporarily unfit for life
Out on the playground they’re assembling Czech hedgehogs,
and nuclear families are mixing deadly “drinks.”
whole families, finally enjoying a conversation
and a collective project—war shortens the distance
from person to person, from birth to death,
from what we never wished for—
to what it turned out we were capable of
“Mom, pick up the phone,” a woman’s been pleading for two hours in the apartment building basement,
stubborn and dense, she won’t stop believing in a miracle
but her mother is out of cell phone range, in the suburbs,
where the prefab collapsed like cheap Legos
from the massive strikes, where just yesterday broadcast towers
stopped connecting people, where the world got blown up into pre- and post-war
along the uneven fold of the “no war” sign,
which you’ll toss in the nearest trash,
on your way home from the protest, Russian poet,
war kills with the hands of the indifferent
and even the hands of idle sympathizers.


Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk.
_____________________________
Halyna Kruk 

15 days later

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Here, take this language, woman,
Use it to shoot.
Defend yourself to your last breath—and whatever you do
don’t let them near you. Use
the radio interception system
and the night vision riflescope.
These are included. And don’t pretend you don’t know how to use it.
Keep your eye trained
on the enemy’s location and on his slightest advance.
Let him come within shooting range—then strike the target and
don’t hesitate.
There are plenty of bullets, don’t spare them,
if they run out—
make new ones out of words,
only slender feminine fingers are suited to such maneuvers.
And come what may, don’t let them near
the old border, where father’s plums lie ripe and heavy.
When they cross it—you must confront them, hand to hand.
Then pierce them with your bayonet, slit them ear to ear,
slash, smash, and scalp them
until the light dims before your eyes.
When you wake up, you’ll stroke the prickly nape
of your recruit-son, hand your husband his crutches,
and then, you’ll start over.
Who said we left you to your fate?
We’ve armed you as best we could.

–Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk.
_______________
Kateryna Kalytko

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But these things happen:
heroes have died, enemies survive,
and people, regular people, neither one nor the other,
string and scatter the beads of happiness—
celebrating love, somebody’s birthday,
A house-warming party,
while you’ve filled an earth pie with your flesh.
The planets haven’t ceased their orbit,
even the trams haven’t changed their schedules.
Outside the hospital window there’s a construction site,
hammering stakes, knocking like distant artillery,
and a boy, grasping a piece of rebar, hits it against the asphalt,
the way a night rail worker hits the wheels of the train,
that you ride in oblivion across the whole country,
falling hard, your belly sticking in the earth pie,
that’s been stuffed to the brim with people.

–Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk.
_______________
Kateryna Kalytko

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Support Biden's private business, enlist now!

9 days later

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The Charge of the Light Brigade

I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
   Someone had blundered.
   Theirs not to make reply,
   Theirs not to reason why,
   Theirs but to do and die.
   Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the six hundred.

IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
   All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
   Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
   Not the six hundred.

V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
   Left of six hundred.

VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
   All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
   Noble six hundred!

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON


46 days later

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Dmitry Bliznyk, Kharkiv

There were days and hours when the city was shelled and I told myself, OK, I am about to die. We live in a private house without a basement: my mother, my 82-two-year-old uncle, and me.

How to say, how to unfold the words that I clench inside my fist onto this page? I am re-watching a video (I don’t know who took it, I found it online) of a bomb that exploded on my street, not 300 meters from my home. Sasha, my neighbor, was killed.

Saltivka, the Kharkiv neighborhood, is a scene from a movie about the apocalypse: Russian soldiers bomb everything in this part of the city. They bomb the city center, too: hospitals, schools, shopping malls. If there is a logic to this bombardment it is the logic of a madman who wants to shell everything he sees. But the city refuses to give in.

At night: large stars. Silhouettes of houses. And hours of fear and waiting. All streetlamps are turned off. People are hiding in the basements and metro stations. During the day: this large city is deserted, like an empty sports stadium, no one is there. In the first days of war, people are hunting for food in groceries, crowds in pharmacies. But the war also unites us — neighbors help each other, it is as if we look into these days as into the mirror and see ourselves for who we are. My friend Oleg volunteers by transporting people. He drives under bombs every day. Another friend, a young man named Nikita, and his mother find themselves in the basement of a shopping mall where they cook food for 1,500 people hiding in a nearby metro station. He walks underground for miles bringing people large pots of food. My neighbor Kostya drives people out of town in his ancient, trembling car and comes back and drives more people. Probably, we are all going mad here. Poetry is what saves me, daily; my straw through which I breathe fresh air. One must breathe through terror.

Morning: they are bombing the city. Night: I am editing my poems. Morning: bombardments again. For everything, there is time: bombardments, fear, quiet, loved ones, moments of wonder. Reality fragments.

Those who have seen war understand this.

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Putin recently destroyed a small contingent of American mercenaries. Schadenfreude.
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Schadenfreude
Is that English?  You are hard to understand with Trump's dick in your mouth.
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Support Biden's private business, enlist now!

36 days later

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Breakdown                                    Estimated & claimed casualties           Time period     
Civilians                                        12,000–28,521+ killed                             24 February – 7 August 2022

Russian and other forces    70,000–80,000 killed and wounded  24 February – 8 August 2022
US estimate                                   20,000 killed 
Ukraine estimate                        43,400 killed,                                               24 February – 13 August 2022
                                                           98,000–117,000 wounded


SLAVA UKRAINI!








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why do you even do this stuff. no one reads it
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@Vici
So by your logic, Van Gogh was worthless because nobody ever saw his work.
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@oromagi
ok orosadmi
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@Vici
so are you back to being Wylted now?
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Speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Independence Day of Ukraine
24 August 2022 - 09:07

The free people of independent Ukraine!

And that says it all. Just four words, but how much is behind them today. On the 182nd day of the full-scale war. How many symbols and meanings, feats and losses, joy and pain are in these words. And mainly how much truth is in them. Our truth. Truth about our present, with which it is impossible to argue, as it is impossible not to see and not to admit. We are the free people of independent Ukraine. After six months of the attempts to destroy us, we are the free people of independent Ukraine. And this is the truth about our future. The free people of independent Ukraine.

Six months ago, Russia declared war against us. On February 24, the entire Ukraine heard explosions and gunshots. And on August 24, it wasn’t supposed to hear the words "Happy Independence Day". On February 24, we were told: you have no chance. On August 24, we say: Happy Independence Day, Ukraine!

During these six months, we changed history, changed the world and changed ourselves. Now we know for sure who is really our brother and friend, and who is not even a casual acquaintance. Who did not lose his name and reputation, and who worried for the terrorists to save face. Who doesn't really need us, and where the door is really open for us. We understood who is who. And the whole world learned who Ukrainians are. What Ukraine is. No one will say about it anymore: it is somewhere over there, near Russia.

We started to respect ourselves. We understood that despite any help and support, no one but us will fight for our independence. And we united.

We didn't have HIMARS yet, but we had people willing to stop tanks with their bare hands. They were not ready to close the sky for us, but we had people willing to cover their native land with themselves.

The Ukrainian people and their courage inspired the whole world. They gave humanity a new hope that justice has not completely left our cynical world. And it is still not force that wins in it, but truth. Not money, but values. Not oil, but people.

Yesterday the world was not united. COVID-19 clearly showed: it's every man for himself. Ukraine has changed this in six months. All world history textbooks will have a section "Times when Ukraine united the world". When democracy grew teeth again. When tyranny receives an answer in the language it understands.
Someone said: Europe is no longer a player. Weak, disunited, passive, sleepy. Ukraine invigorated the whole continent. Europe takes to the squares. Europe introduces tough sanctions. Europe unanimously recognizes that Ukraine is a future member of the European Union.

Big business realized that money still smells. With blood, cinder, death. Corporations and brands are leaving the Russian market, and people have become more important than potential losses.

Never before in the world has public opinion had such an influence on politicians. Today, people dictate trends and rules of behavior to the authorities. Being indifferent, inactive and slow is a shame. Being indecisive and too cautious is a shame. Speaking sluggishly, vaguely and too diplomatically is a shame. Not supporting Ukraine is a shame. And saying about fatigue from Ukraine is a shame. This is a very comfortable position: fatigue is a cover to close your eyes. And today we hear from world leaders and ordinary citizens: we will be with you until the end, until your victory.

Dear people!

We always paid tribute to all the fighters for independence, called this day the main holiday, and the blue-yellow flag - a shrine, put our hands to our hearts while singing the national anthem, and proudly said "Glory to Ukraine!" and "Glory to Heroes!". On February 24, we had to prove our words with deeds.

On this day, the second all-Ukrainian referendum actually took place. Again - the main question. Again - a decisive choice. But this time it was necessary to say "yes" to independence not in the ballot, but in the soul and conscience. Go not to the precinct, but to the military commissariat departments, the territorial defense units, the volunteer movement, the information troops or simply work steadily and conscientiously in your place, at full strength, for a common goal.

We all changed. Someone was born again. As a person, individual, citizen, patriot, simply as a Ukrainian. And this, of course, is good news. Someone disappeared. Did not perish, did not die, but dissolved. As a person, individual, citizen, as a Ukrainian. And this is actually not bad news either. We will not hinder each other anymore.

We made a choice. For some, it is Mariupol. For some - Monaco. But we know who the majority is. And we finally became truly one. A new nation that emerged on February 24 at 4 am. Not born, but reborn. A nation that didn't cry, didn't scream, didn't get scared. Didn't run away. Didn't give up. Didn't forget.

This flag will be everywhere it should be by right. Both in Donbas and in Crimea. The enemy thought we would greet him with flowers and champagne. Instead, he received wreaths and Molotov cocktails. He was waiting for an ovation, but hears "claps".

The occupier believed that in a few days he would be on parade in our capital’s downtown. Today, you can see this "parade" on Khreshchatyk. The proof that enemy equipment can appear in the center of Kyiv only in such form. Burnt, wrecked and destroyed.

It doesn't matter to us what kind of army you have, what matters to us is our land. We will fight for it until the end.

We are holding on for six months. It is difficult for us, but we clenched our fists fighting for our fate. Every new day is a new reason not to give up. Because, having gone through so much, we have no right not to reach the end. What is the end of the war for us? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory.

We will not seek an understanding with the terrorists. Although we understand the Russian language that you came to defend. And killed thousands of people you came to liberate.

And Johnson, who speaks English, is much more understandable and close to us than murderers, rapists and looters who did it in Russian.

And we don't sit down at the negotiating table because of fear, with a gun pointed at our head. For us, the most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft and tanks, but shackles. Not trenches, but fetters.

And we will put our hands up only once - when we will celebrate our victory. The whole of Ukraine. Because we do not trade our lands and our people. For us,
Ukraine is all of Ukraine. All 25 regions, without any concessions or compromises. We do not know these words, they were destroyed by missiles on February 24.
Donbas is Ukraine. And we will return it, whatever the path may be. Crimea is Ukraine. And we will return it. Whatever the path may be. You don't want your soldiers to die? Free our lands. You don't want your mothers to cry? Free our lands. These are our simple and clear terms.

The free people of independent Ukraine!

We are facing this day in different places. Someone is in trenches and dugouts, in tanks and IFVs, at sea and in the air. Fighting for independence on the frontline. Someone is on the road, in cars, trucks and trains. Fighting for independence by delivering what is necessary to those on the frontline. And someone is on a smartphone or on a computer. Also fighting for independence by raising funds so that those on the road have something to bring to those on the frontline.

We are facing this day in different circumstances, conditions and even in different time zones, but with one goal - preservation of independence and victory of Ukraine!

We united.

Happy Independence Day of Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!


oromagi
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On Ukrainian Independence

Dear Charles XII, the Poltava battle 
Has been fortunately lost. To quote Lenin’s burring rattle,
“Time will show you Kuzka’s mother”, ruins along the waste,
Bones of post-mortem bliss with a Ukrainian aftertaste.

It’s not the green flag, eaten by the isotope,
It’s the yellow-and-blue flying over Konotop,
Made out of canvas – must be a gift from Toronto-
Alas, it bears no cross, but the Khokhly don’t want to.

Oh, rushnyks and roubles, sunflowers in summer season!
We Katsapy  have no right to charge them with treason.
With icons and vodka, for seventy years we’ve bungled,
In our Ryazan we’ve lived like Tarzan in the jungle.

We’ll tell them, filling the pause with a loud “your mom”:
Away with you, Khokhly, and may your journey be calm!
Wear your zhupans or uniforms, which is even better,
Go to all four points of the compass and all the four letters.

It’s over now. Now hurry back to your huts
To be gang-banged by Krauts and Polacks right in your guts.
It’s been fun hanging together from the same gallows loop,
But when you’re alone, you can eat all that sweet beetroot soup.

Good riddance, Khokhly, it’s over for better or worse,
I’ll go spit in the Dnieper, perhaps it’ll flow in reverse,
Like a proud bullet train looking at us askance,
Stuffed with leathery seats and ages-old grievance.

Don’t speak ill of us. Your bread and wheat we don’t need,
Nor your sky, may we all choke on sunflower seed.
No need for bad blood or gestures of fury ham-fisted,
Seems that our love is up, if it at all existed.

Why should we plow our broken roots with our verbs?
You were born out of earth, its podzolic soils and its herbs.
Quit flexing your rights and laying all the blame on us,
It is your bloody soil that has become your onus.

Oh, gardens and grasslands and steppes, varenyks filled with honey!
We’ve had greater losses before, lost more people than money.
We’ll get by somehow. And if you want teary eyes –
Wait ‘til next time, guys, this provision no longer applies.

God rest ye merry Cossacks, hetmans, and gulag guards!
But mark: when it’s your turn to be dragged to graveyards,
You’ll whisper and wheeze, your deathbed mattress a-pushing,
Not Shevchenko’s bullshit but poetry lines from Pushkin.

-Joseph Brodsky
1991

22 days later

oromagi
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UKRAINE ALLEGES TORTURE at VILLAGE near RUSSIAN BORDER
By ELENA BECATOROS and LEO CORREA
today

KOZACHA LOPAN, Ukraine (AP) — In a dank basement behind the local supermarket, metal bars cordon off a corner of the room to form a large cell. Dirty sleeping bags and duvets show three sleeping spots on top of sheets of Styrofoam for insulation from the damp earth floor. In the corner, two black buckets served as toilets.
A few meters (yards) outside the barred cell, three dilapidated chairs stand around a table, cigarette butts and empty husks of pumpkin seeds littering the floor around them.
Ukrainian authorities say this was a makeshift prison where Russian forces abused detainees before Ukrainian troops swept through the village of Kozacha Lopan in a major counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region this month. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said more than 10 such “torture chambers” have been discovered in the region since the hasty withdrawal of Russian troops last week. The claims of what occurred in the room could not be independently confirmed.
Kozacha Lopan, whose edge lies less than two kilometers (just over a mile) from the Russian border, was retaken by Ukrainian forces Sept. 11.
In a statement posted Saturday on its Telegram channel, the prosecutor’s office of the Kharkiv region, in whose jurisdiction Kozacha Lopan lies, said the room seen by AP journalists was used as a torture cell during the occupation of the area. It said Russian forces had set up a local police force that ran the prison, adding that documents confirming the functioning of the police department and implements of torture had been seized. The statement said an investigation was being conducted.
Images the prosecutors released showed a Russian military TA-57 telephone with additional wires and alligator clips attached to it. Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of using the Soviet-era radio telephones as a power source to shock prisoners during interrogation.
In his nightly address to the nation Saturday, Zelenskyy mentioned another location, at the railway station in Kozacha Lopan, where he said “a room for torture and tools for electric torture was found.” AP journalists did not see that location.
Zelenskyy compared the Russians to the Nazis during World War II.
“And they will answer in the same way — both on the battlefields and in the courtrooms,” he said.
Burial sites have been found in some areas where Russian forces were pushed out, most notably in the city of Izium, where Ukrainian officials say more than 440 graves have been found near the city’s cemetery. Zelenskyy has said they contain the bodies of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, showing signs of violent deaths, some possibly from torture.
Vitalii, a commander in the National Guard, said his team is hunting for graves of possible victims of abuse at the detention center in Kozacha Lopan. He asked to be identified by his first name only for security reasons.
The team is also recovering bodies on the battlefield, which are lying where they fell on farm fields or inside burned-out tanks. The Russian army was pushed all the way back across the border into Russia after holding the area for months. But artillery shells still whistle through the air, fired from inside Russia and landing with resonating thumps and billows of black smoke on Ukrainian territory.
Despite the shelling, a small group of soldiers winds its way along a rutted mud track to where a dead Ukrainian combatant lies, spotted by a drone used to search for bodies and shallow graves.
“It’s a risk. We are always risking our lives and at any moment there might be some shell flying in from the territory of Russia,” Vitalii said.
The dead Ukrainian is lying on his back in body armor and helmet, a cap beneath it to block out the sun. The body has been there for a long time.
They document the scene and lift the remains into a body bag before heading farther along the track to a charred Russian tank. It takes only one of the team to carry away the body bag holding the remains of the Russian found inside.
Autopsies will follow, and the details of the sites recorded and passed on to investigators looking into potential war crimes, Vitalii said.
Throughout this border area, where fierce battles raged, villages bear the devastating scars of war: houses bombed and burned, roads pitted with craters from exploding mortar shells, smashed cars lying by the roadside.
In the days after the Russians were chased out, local people have been returning to see what is left of their homes.
“Three days before we decided to leave, it was like hell in here” from all the shooting, said Larysa Letiucha, 56, in the nearby village of Prudyanka. “It was flying from all over the place. It was whistling and exploding. We hid in the basement and … our door was blasted off.”
She left with her family in April, and returned to check on her property a few days after Ukrainian soldiers retook the village.
“I saw a horror. I still cannot pull myself together,” she said in recounting her first sight of what remained of her house. “We were living here our whole lives. We were building it, making renovations. Our whole life was invested here.”
The windows are blasted in and the ceiling leaks from where a patch is missing from an explosion. In the small house her parents built on the same plot, the entire back part is missing. Shrapnel and debris litter the house.
“Our houses are comfortable even though we live in the village,” Letiucha said. “It’s a horror. I don’t even know when we will renovate and rebuild all of this.”


Shila
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@oromagi

why do you even do this stuff. no one reads it

--> @Vici
So by your logic, Van Gogh was worthless because nobody ever saw his work.
More people know and have seen VanGogh’s work than care to follow Putins war.

oromagi
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@Shila
More people know and have seen VanGogh’s work than care to follow Putins war.

color me skeptical re: that assertion