As I write this, Vladimir Putin and his merciless invaders are nearing their 4th month of a horrific war that didn’t have to be. And against all odds, the heroic Ukrainian military is more than holding its own, forcing the Russians to give up on their cherished goal of conquering all of Ukraine and replacing its democratically elected government with one much more to their liking. Instead, they have been forced to retreat from all of Western Ukraine, with the hopes of reorganizing and putting up a better fight in the eastern part of the country.
As I have talked about before, I have a Ukrainian pen pal named Inna, and she lives in Northwestern Ukraine, in a city called Lutsk, not far from the Belarus border. She is married with a teenage son and is an expert in the fields of environmental studies and recycling, and until the war arrived, made presentations throughout her country on those important subjects. With her life now turned upside down, she has still continued to be very good about staying in touch and keeping me informed on what is actually happening in her beloved country. I recently asked her how things were going in her war-torn world, and we had the following conversation:
“After so many months of war,” said Inna, “it’s almost like we are living in a never-ending movie that resembles a thriller, horror film, and disaster movie all combined into one. It produces terrible new scenes every single day, where all the Ukrainian people are actors, with the script being re-written every minute, spontaneously and unpredictably. And this movie is so scary that the blood gets cold in your veins, and you can’t just press the button on the remote to turn it off or leave the movie theater. It’s a deadly, very frightening time. For instance, a young boy of only 18 just lost his childhood. In front of his own eyes his mother died. In a moment, she was gone, leaving five orphaned children. Without holding back tears, he said that there had been two explosions. He tried to save his mother, and her last words to him were, `Don’t worry I’m fine’. The next day, he gathered up his two sisters and two brothers and took them by evacuation train to a safer region, where he collected documents and arranged guardianship so that they would not all end up in an orphanage. He said that his mother was a very bright person, who was loved by all, and she helped everyone. He couldn’t understand why it had happened, and why it was her, and not him.”
“I can’t count how many Ukrainian villages have been destroyed by Russian artillery and tanks,” continued Inna. “By the side of the road, near her ruined house, Grandma Maria was sitting, with her crutches nearby, her wounded feet having been sewed up and bandaged. `Do you see this? ` she asked, looking all around. `There are no houses left. Damn Putin did that!’”
“He is simply wiping out our cities and country from the face of the earth,” said Inna. “My volunteer friend constantly goes to such places. People continue to live there on landfills and fires. Not everyone can leave. Some are sick, others do not have the means or the ability to live elsewhere or are too attached to a place where several generations have lived. Everyone curses Putin for having done this.”
I asked Inna about her husband, who has joined one of the local militias to try and do his part in the war.
“He called yesterday and told me that one of his positions is located on a big farm that the same family has worked on for centuries. But they have been forced to evacuate and there are more than 50 poor cows still left on the land. He said that they needed to be fed, watered, and milked. But now there is no one to do it. When the Russian occupiers came, they killed the father and wounded the son. I have never heard my husband so angry. He called the Russians bastards, and said that everywhere the Russians go, death, grief and destruction comes with them. It’s an evil that must be destroyed. My husband is an agronomist by education and is a farmer at heart, and he cannot stand to see fertile land and the animals on it abused, so he released the cows to let them graze and look for water, knowing that if they were left behind the fencing, they would be doomed to die. So much suffering and death, all because one crazy Russian wants to be Peter the Great.”
Finally, I asked Inna if she was personally scared.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m very scared! I feel fear and mental pain, but at the same time great strength and desire to help. We are fighting! We have already won in our hearts, we appreciate the help provided, we thank the allies, and we beg the whole world to keep helping us! Give us the weapons we need, and our brave warriors will do the rest! Putin’s threat to the world must be stopped. I take off my hat in front of the United States. The American people have already entered the history of Ukraine, the history of a new era! And it will be an impetus for change, new achievements, new victories, and peace in the world!