Aug 16

I already knew it in my head, but then the depth of it dawned on me, in my heart; that those of us who enjoy the free and civilised world have SO much to thank the Ukrainian people for. ДЯКУЮ!
Your truly remarkable spirit has not only ensured your freedom against the odds, but ours too. Because, if russia had taken Ukraine, they would have controlled the flow of grain to half of the world. That would have enabled them to blackmail half the world. They would also have been emboldened and pushed-on into the rest of Georgia, then Moldova, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Poland, Alaska etc.
China would have been emboldened to attack Taiwan and perhaps even Japan, whilst North Korea and Iran would have followed suit in their regions. China and russia would pour in colossal resources in order to accelerate their abhorrent joint plan to ‘acquire’ and plunder Africa.
The world would have been in utter turmoil and under the malevolent oppression of a handful of dictators.
It would be a living nightmare for everyone apart from the select group at the top of each terrorist state. They would live in lavish luxury and safety whilst the rest of us existed in utter fear. The world would never recover from the equivalent of combining The Third Reich, KGB, Stasi, NKVD and Santebal. NATO may just have prevailed if a non-nuclear WWIII kicked-off, but most of the world would have been left in complete ruin. The very planet itself would be in tatters with climate change accelerated beyond our imagination.    
You, the Ukrainian people have changed the course of world history. You have saved the quality of life for all of our children, grandchildren and generations beyond that.
President Zelensky, Oleksii Reznikov, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Olena Zelenska, Major General Kyrylo Budanov and millions of others in Ukraine, we owe you a debt of IMMENSE gratitude. Your fortitude and sacrifices are for us also. You are the frontline for democracy against tyranny, decency against depravity and good against evil. You are defending the values that most of humanity has risen to over thousands and thousands of years. 
ДЯКУЮ!
ДЯКУЮ!
ДЯКУЮ!
Дай Бог вам швидку і повну перемогу над злими загарбниками
I think many people would rather not envisage what would happen next if russia won. I guess that prevents them from getting very anxious. Self-preservation denial.
PS: Sorry if I have missed your language, please use it in the comments. If I have spelt anything wrong, I can only apologise, old age can be a terrible thing.

ukraine #usa #poland #estonia #lithuania #nato

In another post yesterday, the ex-RN Shaun writes about kremtrolls:

Pro-russian online Trolls are a weird species. I get messages from up to twenty of them a day in response to my posts about the malevolent russian invasion of Ukraine. I’m not complaining, because get over 500,000 views a week and active appreciation from over 2,000 people a week. Now, five months into this war, I no longer respond to Trolls because it felt like trying to teach slugs to play chess, frustrating and messy.
I thought it would be helpful to explain how I have started to understand and categorise Pro-russian Trolls:

1. THE DEFLECTORS: They ask things like “What about the way the British Empire expanded?” as though two ‘wrongs’ do actually make a ‘right’. They also conveniently forget that humans are supposed to have come a long way since the 17th Century.
   Their sole aim is to distract attention away from the current russian atrocities and war crimes. russia has committed every known Crime Against Humanity in Ukraine, apart from cannibalism (and unfortunately, we don’t know everything yet)
2. THE USA HATERS: They say things like, “America is the root of all evil!” I can only presume that they believe that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Muammar Gaddafi, Vladimir Lenin and Chairman Mao were all American. They also ignore the fact that without the sacrifice of about 409,000 American lives during WWll the world would now be suffering under the vicious and oppressive rule of The Third Reich.
3. THE TRULY INANE: I had one great example of this recently in response to one of my “Why Ukraine will Triumph” posts. They commented, “No they won’t.” So I checked-out their profile and they had put the same comment about every post they read, for example, Post: “COVID vaccines will save lives” inane Troll response, “No they won’t!” Post: “Increased greenhouse gasses will make climate change worse” inane Troll response, “No they won’t!”
   Another TRULY INANE TROLL commented last week that I shouldn’t post such opinions, but they had in fact re-shared my post, thus increasing its exposure. That must qualify as double-dumb.    
   Pro-russian Trolls come in all forms, most are paid by the Kremlin but some just have nothing better to do. Most are angry with the way their lives have panned-out compared to some other countries, not very bright and I presume, very lonely. As I said at the start of this post, Online Trolls are a weird species.
   Дай Боже Україні швидкої і повної перемоги над злими загарбниками

ukraine #russiaisaterrorisstate

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Here is a response used on FB for kremtrolls: