Paul Niland Feb 22. 2022

There’s something very special about this country of ours. I say “ours” and I mean it. We are in this together, come what may. In the face of a rigged election in 2003, we took to the streets and would not leave until the rights of Ukrainians to elect their own leaders was secured. In the face of a massive 2013 U-turn over the stated direction of this country, towards closer ties with the EU, we took to the streets again and that morphed into a stand against corruption and thuggery.

For this we were rewarded with a war, and the occupation of 7.2% of the land in the map below. With that occupation, the lives of millions of Ukrainian citizens was changed. Not just the millions who find themselves under Russian occupation, but the 1.7 million who are internally displaced and the 450,000 people who have served in combat over the last 8 years, and their families.

Vladimir Putin is not satisfied yet with the havoc he has wreaked on us, and so he plans for more war, more killing, more territorial land grabs. What he will do is not yet certain, as in how far he will go, but his goal is the destruction or the subjugation of the Ukrainian state. He will fail.

We fought hard to become a model of genuine democracy in this part of the world. We fought hard to be free of the corruption that is the hallmark of his rule in Russia. He will not win, he thinks he can but that is because he fails to understand the strength, will, and determination of the people of Ukraine. Wherever we may be from originally, we are all in this together.