Putin welcomes us back with 21 missiles and 20 drones. A palpable sense of unease pervades Kyiv.
24 JAN 2024
We rolled into Kyiv in the Ukraine Freedom Mobile around sunset last night. Pretty wiped out from two days of driving from Warsaw and two months of living out of a suitcase in an AirBnB in Washington DC (we talked to about 100 Congressional offices) and at various friends and relatives houses around America, we answered some emails and went to bed early.
Around 5am we heard thunder, or at least that is what it sounded like to a kid who grew up on Oklahoma awakened from a sound sleep. Turns out it was the glorious sound of Patriot missiles taking out Russian cruise missiles. (Thank you Raytheon!)
Kyiv has slept relatively easy for months under the protection of the Patriots. But with the Pentagon no longer shipping weapons, a sense of dread and foreboding has overtaken the city. While Congress may believe the Pentagon is bluffing and still has weapons to send to Ukraine, my experience suggests that the shipments have truly dried up. Typically, a drive from Warsaw to Kyiv will involve passing several long convoys of military semi-trucks or weaving in and out of a squad of beat up Humvees that saw too much action in Iraq.
We saw not one military convoy yesterday. No slow moving troop carrier impeded our path home.
With no sense of when Ukraine aid legislation, first proposed in October by President Biden, will come to a vote, nobody knows when the Ukrainian Armed Forces will run out of the precious Patriots.
Putin continues to target civilians. “Residential buildings, a medical facility, educational institutions, and cars were damaged in Kyiv,” according to the Ukrainian Emergency Services. Kharkiv, which is not protected by Patriots, fared much worse.
I would hazard a guess that the average resident of Kyiv is watching US politics more closely than the average resident of Dallas, St. Louis or Seattle. They have more at stake. While Americans have real problems that need to be solved by Congress, no Congressional vote – or lack thereof – will result in their immediate deaths.
It is not just the supply of Patriots that have Ukrainians worried.
My friends at the front manning artillery report that their daily allotment of shells has decreased from 60 to 20. If the Russians decide to surge at some location on the front, the Ukrainians would like to shoot back. This is becoming increasingly difficult.
Thousands of troops from the infamous Wagner Group are training troops in Belarus at a camp about a seven hour drive from Kyiv. The Belarusians are building another camp 25 miles from the Ukraine border.
Putin has the instincts of a shark. He smells blood in the water. He reacts to weakness. Today, America looks weak.
It is difficult to imagine what kind of horrors an emboldened Putin might come up with if Congress decides to cut loose the global coalition supporting Ukraine. Well, actually it is not that difficult. He will rain missiles and Iranian-supplied drones down on Ukraine’s undefended cities. With Donetsk fortified from 10 years of war and Kherson protected by the natural barrier of the Dnipro river, Russian troops will likely come through the front at Zaporizhia. Putin will try to retake Kyiv from Belarus and southern Russia.
When the Ukrainians no longer have the weapons to defend themselves, millions more Ukrainians will be under the control of Russian troops, who are already persecuting and torturing Ukraine’s evangelical Christians, raping elderly women and little boys and kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukraine’s children.
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Comment from :
Steve: Unfortunately I think this is the beginning of the end for Ukraine. I don’t believe the United States will ever fully commit to helping Ukraine. Biden wouldn’t even send the expired ATACM missiles to Ukraine. The facilities that manufacture the Russian missiles need to be taken out of commission. If the West really wants to turn the tide of the war they need to provide Ukraine with the weapons to do so AND give Ukraine permission to use those weapons on military targets within Russia. I can’t believe that Putin is able to play the West like he is successfully doing. All he needs to do is threaten nuclear weapons and the West cringes. Kharkiv is about to get completely destroyed by missiles then Kyiv will be right behind it.
I have personally sponsored two Ukrainian families to the U.S. under the USCIS program. What wonderful people they are. The program only allows them to stay for two years. After that they will probably have to leave the U.S. I couldn’t imagine them returning to Ukraine or what will be left of it.
I am so disappointed that the U.S. and other Western countries didn’t stand up to Russia in the beginning. We wouldn’t be in the mess we are now.. Other former Soviet countries beware.. You are next. Russia will be coming for you after they finish destroying Ukraine..
If you don’t know who Steven Moore is, the following will explain:
The GOP’s Man in Kyiv Has a Message for Ukraine Skeptics:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/13/ukraine-capitol-hill-steven-moore-00108134
He has done everything he can to dissuade the putinoid vermin inside his own party from their murderous activities. All to no avail.
“Putin has the instincts of a shark. He smells blood in the water. He reacts to weakness.”
I am nervous and fearful of a tragic and terrible outcome to the vile activities of the magaputler shitheads.
Already they have caused God knows how many needless deaths. How many more will they cause?
The Republicans have become a shame for our great nation. They are driving the country down a precarious path, one that leads away from their precious maga. I’m saying this as a lifelong Republican. But, I know others like me who would rather vote for Biden than for a Trump.
It appears that a lot of the GOP leaders are scared to death of the MAGA cult. The only guy to stand up to Trump is Romney, and Haley, the rest of them, like McConnell are basically cowards.
It seems that cowardice is a disease that rampages all across Western politics. Of all the Western nations, your country seems to be largely immune to it.
I’m in Holland, as you know, and in the village where I live is a gas station owned by Lukoil.
Yes, I know, but aren’t you British?
Lukoil has disappeared in Ukraine, BTW.
Yeah. I’m English. Lukoil should be banned in Europe. I have no idea why they are allowed to operate here.
Like I always say, there are many more things that the collective West could do to harm mafia land’s economy, but it doesn’t because money is still more precious than human lives.
Like Scradge and I then.
I seem to remember Scradge lives up North, I’m in Cambridge.
Originally I was from the NW, between Manchester and Liverpool.