
Yes, it was a cold November back in 2013. I had quite a few drinks and I fell asleep while watching ‘Rambo’. When I woke up again i noticed the news on TV, with the eye that was open while the other was still closed. There seemed to be something going on in Kiev (Kyiv)… there is always something going on there, sadly rarely anything good.

So I got me a Coke and some popcorn to follow closer what’s going on there, since I was living together with two girls from Odesa. It turned out some people were mad about the cancellation of a planned association agreement with the EU. EU? Who cares, i thought. So I turned the TV off and went to bed. I had lots of work the following days and did not care for a while.

A week later I was watching my favorite TV show, Miami Vice, almost sadism to watch concerning the fact how cold it was outside. Ha! The news again. Will these ukies ever stop complaining? But what’s this? Riots? Shooting? People screaming and lying in the streets? This was not the usual show most Ukrainians already got used to since 2003, this was something else.
So I dived onto my sofa and grabbed my laptop to find out what’s happening. What better place to check than Tymoshenko’s website. Had been a fan ten years earlier, so I went online.
Sadly most posts were in Ukrainian. Neither I nor my girls spoke any Ukrainian. I only knew Yugoslavian and they knew only Russian. But there was Google Translate. So I finally got a view of what was happening and able to respond, more or less.

So I was following the situation for a while. When somebody posted that government buildings were stormed, I got concerned. I argued that Russian tanks could be rolling soon, but most thought I was an idiot.

Meanwhile Mister president packed his suitcase full of stolen money and detached his golden toilet, while confidential documents were burning in the oven, to catch his chopper to Rostov in Russia.
Shortly later my darkest fears were confirmed and the unthinkable became reality. Russian troops were moving into Ukraine. They moved out of their leased bases, not having any insignias, wearing black face masks or black socks with holes.

The invasion of Ukraine began. The Ukrainian army in Crimea did what until then was rather a french tradition, they were waving white flags. I didn’t understand. Was there a deal? Weird.
I was busy again for a while. Larisa decided to visit her ex-husband and child in Shyrokyne, eastern Ukraine. I was against, but she said all is safe, the war is in Crimea.
I didn’t follow the situation any further and got busy with my work again.
One day the phone rang. Annoying since I was constipated and on the pot, and the bell came just seconds before a possible moment of relief. I was pissed off and preparing to shitstorm the muthafucker calling.
I picked up the phone and someone was screaming into the phone “They killed them! They killed them!” and crying like a hysterical psycho. Turned out it was Larisa (name changed), one of my girls. When she calmed down she told me that her only child and ex-husband died when the Russians attacked their village. Was there a war? Did I miss something? Why she never told me? Or did she think I already knew?

After Larisa came back I decided to get informed better. Since Tymoshenko’s site was offline I had to look for a new source. I ended up with a site named ‘Ukraine Today’.

So, although not a full insider, I made my first comment. I can’t recall the comment, but it was about the Crimea and that I had no problem if it was Russia now. I got shitstormed by dozens of users and my comment was deleted instantly. I didn’t know what the hell I did wrong, just said what I thought.
Anyway, I came back to the site and continued to comment. Not that anybody would have upvoted or responded. It was clear they were watching me.

Suddenly an upvote. I can’t recall the user’s name, but I felt flattered. Not easy for a guy like me to get an upvote. And suddenly more upvotes. Until someone wrote that I got upvoted by a troll. Two guys named Murf and Gizmo seemed to like me, and I began to like them too. After a while I was more accepted. Guys with fancy names like RedSquareMaidan, Dmitry Pisskopf, Angel and Putin Hitler began to upvote me regularly, some even responded to me.
I later lost my job, and the girls had to pay my bills. I got depressed. But there were still these crazy guys from that Ukrainian website. So I got me some wine and pizza, going online to fight the Russian invaders. ‘Stop ATO’ the trolls were posting. ATO stood for Anti-terrorist Operation. The trolls started to insult and impersonate me. I got pissed off and attacked any of the assholes that were out there. Putin Hitler and a dutch guy named Willem became my first supporters. For months we met in the evenings to slaughter trolls. Angel’s profile got banned and he became Clown then, who later became my best friend, followed by Pisskopf.
We all grew together like a digital army, with myself and Clown in front. We drank, we laughed, we trashed one troll after another.

Later Larisa joined us. She was insulted by trolls instantly. She got hurt… and angry. She got accepted quickly. Suzanna followed later. I made many new friends, like Focusser, OnlyFactsPlease, Knut, Toronto Tonto, Scradje, Vasyl, Meow, and many more. For years we were fighting a forgotten war against trolls, lies and propaganda from Russia. Some of the best times I had.

One day Ukraine Today announced it will go offline. Everybody said it was a great time and that it’s all over. I was heartbroken. Then Larisa surprised me with a new site, Ukraine Today USA. I told everybody about it, hoping people would migrate to it.
Then Focusser, we were already buddies, said he wants to join as an author. So we decided to post articles. It didn’t take too long until the site was hacked and went down.
So we designed a new site, Ukraine Today. Everybody migrated quickly. It became an awesome success. We had the fun of our lives. Booze, puke, pregnancies, venezuelan hookers, moderators banning themselves… and news from Ukraine. Disqus then decided after two successful years and a record in followers, to shut us down.

Was this the end?
Nope. One of our guys, RedSquareMaidan, rescued us. He bought this current site and domain for us, for $190, so we can continue to exist as a news source and community. Thanks!
Thanks to ya all, folks! And never forget – the Crimea is NOT Russia!
© Mike from Ukraine Today .org 2020
For more information on the origins of Ukraine Today click here:
Below is a timeline of events from the Euromaidan revolution from 2013 which started the first Ukraine Today. Ukraine Today was originally named to respond to the gush of vile propaganda spewing from the Kremlin outlet, Russia Today. Now simply called RT.
Thanks for reading, here is the timeline and videos from the Maidan revolution. Please remember to LIKE and FOLLOW us here on Ukraine Today .org, and also check out or articles on Facebook and Twitter. Any comments or questions please feel free to jump into our forum anytime!
Slava Ukraini~~!!
Special thanks to Mike for his moving, personal story and to Foccusser for the epic Maidan videos. Ukraine Today .org is the third version of this service and it will continue to tell the truth about Ukraine until the invading Russians end their illegal invasions and occupations, and their associated propaganda, lies, theft, rape, torture and murder.
Slava Ukraini~~!!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bacc357798a30a9699083350e417c00ee85525f62dcf3723f138fa90ea5cbcf.jpg
Thanks for telling your story. I too have been following this from the beginning, first on Kyiv Post then through your various sites. Keep up the good work, Slava Ukraine.
Everyone remembers you Kiwi and your thoughtful contributions to the support of Ukraine are priceless.
Thank you for providing a much needed independent journalistic service especially with organizations such as Kyiv Post falling by the wayside. God bless you all
Слава Україна
You have been of Slavic ethnicity for hundreds of years, you share traditions and lives with the Russians, see your history, investigate lean, you use all of Europe as a puppet
believe me I am not lying, do not divide them any more, reunify, do not accept military protection, only business deals, because others will not fight against the great bear, you will be getic Slavs brothers against blood brothers. war and only Europe loses and you, no more politicians bought by the West, in fact they spent 5000 million us in your country, to make thoughts pro puppet of us, they have been dismembering you, 25 years ago!
Find out about the unexpected operation after the 2nd war, greetings, I wish you the best, from the bottom of my heart, to both peoples.
Truth is, Ukraine is NOTHING like Russia. Ukraine values life, Russia bombs children. That’s why Ukraine belongs in the West and Russia belongs with nobody.
So funny a pro Russian calling himself, Truth.
They live in the world of projection and cynicism.
The great bear has had it’s teeth pulled. Ukraine shown it up for what it really is, a nation of rapists, murderers and spineless bastards too scared to fight real soldiers. Russians forever will be shunned by people living in civilization.
I remember Dmitry Piskopf, still have his email, although I haven’t emailed him since 2019, when there was a chance we would meet in Lviv.
I too changed my name shortly after we came here, But most of all very many thanks to Red, the dedicated warrior who provided the glue to hold us all together.
Together we will fight against the lies spewed out by the nazi shithole, we will mock them, we will make suggestions as to what and how things should happen, we will share our adventures and experiences, all of which might not be seen by it’s targets, but we shall not care because we love Ukraine.
He posted on UA Wire today, you should go say HI!
I shall have to remember to email him when I have a moment and of course get him to come to Maidan for our Victory Celebration.
So you are going too?
You were the first to mention the idea, I shall try my hardest to get there, currently there is no reason why not to as I can get time off work whenever I want, it s is rare to have something that absolutely must get done.
Agreed. Right now the logistics are just terrible but if you can manage to get from Warsaw you can make it. Meanwhile we will dream and plan 🙂
Yes from Warsaw is fairly easy, Coach / Train, not very comfy, so I would only do that trip again if I really had to.
A few weeks ago my Wife Went Krakow to Chelm to Kyiv, then to the Village, but had to go to Chernihiv for one of the days she was there.
I think the journey would have about killed me.
We shall wait until we can fly, so we can celebrate with our many many friends there.
Ditto here Mason. My wife is in Ukraine now and met up with a friend in Warsaw and they travelled together into Ukraine. Considering how bad my Ukrainian language is the good people in Warsaw could just as well set me up with a ticket to London instead of Kyiv 😉
I stoped reading at “Yugoslavian” language . I know you will not make this comment public ,but still .
Shame somebody speaking Yugoslavian is defending Ukraine . A bastard denying me my own language and nationality .
Hope one day you get a history book and find out there never was and never will be Yugoslavian language or nation ,you miserable excuse for a human being .
Greetings from Croatia, where nobody ever spoke Yugoslavian language
A bit harsh Mirko, a gentle reminder would have done the job better.
I can see the scars are deep, I imagine you suffered a lot to be so passionate.
I had always thought Serbo-Croat was the language spoken in what we used to call Yugoslavia, but perhaps you would be kind enough to enlighten us all?
Languages have had us by the balls since the beginning.
Perhaps the Russians are feeling out of touch both lanuage-wise and social-media-wise. Much like being put in the closet by your teacher for being a 10-year old (who kills people). And, I’m sure they don’t have a clue about Windows, Linux, Android and WordPress, so I *imagine* their IT department is out of gas too.
And, no matter how much technology we have between us there is always that distrust of it if you havent had full privey to its creation.
There’s no substitute for the human touch, the face-to-face. Even if it’s sending the kids over to the neighbor’s house to borrow some milk.
Kinda’ time for a change in a different vector, before we run out of time yes?