Ukraine – Three Years
Please see POSTNOTE at end of today’s post. Overnight Heather Cox Richardson summarizes Feb. 24, here.
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Today [Feb 24] marks three years since Russia invaded Ukraine. I did a post about this Feb 16, 2022 – a Wednesday. Friday of that week I was in surgery at UofM Hospital (colon) and on the day of the actual invasion by Russia I watched some of the unfolding events in my hospital room.
(The surgery was successful, and I just had my three year post-op and all continues to be okay.)
I have had subsequent posts about Ukraine (enter search word “Ukraine” at the magnifying glass icon at right.) I notice I had two earlier and directly pertinent posts about Ukraine: Nov. 21, 2014, Oct 19, 2019. And for the person with lots of time on their hands, “Ukraine” appears in over 80 other posts.
Each year since the invasion, I have been honored to be able to be in the same place with young visitors from Ukraine in the summers of 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The inclination is to stop here, and suggest ‘browse away’. I strongly support the U.S. continuing support of Ukraine’s fight against uninvited invaders from Russia.
About a year into the war, I was sitting at my coffee shop and noticed a woman carefully drawing a flag of Ukraine on the blackboard. It is presented here as a sign of solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
Here’s Frontline’s report on Ukraine conflict, received today.
The United States and Canada together have near 2 1/2. million citizens with Ukrainian descent. More than half of these are in Canada, making Ukrainian Canadian the largest diaspora in the western world; U.S. is second. There is an interesting article in Wikipedia identifying the significance of the name “Ukraine”
late August 2022 Ukrainian young people visit Minnesota
POSTNOTE: A few days ago I noted: “I heard about a just-released series on Netflix entitled Zero Day“. At the time, I hadn’t actually watched the six episode series. I now have watched all six, and I highly recommend it. I asked my spouse how she would rank it, and she gave it a “10” (best). Yes, it is fiction, and political, but it is very educational. I watched it from the perspective of just being a citizen. Don’t pass it by. Initiatives like this deserve and depend on support from people like ourselves.
A friend in Santa Fe NM send this op ed from a member of a very prominent family in Minnesota: op ed on DEI. I think you’ll want to read this short opinion by Adele Oliveira, in the Feb 16, 2025 Santa Fe New Mexican.
I plan to participate in the below activity on Friday.
The 24 hour Economic Blackout
COMMENTS (See also end of post):
from Carol: And also donated to the Protez Foundation in Oakdale which brings Ukrainian soldiers here who have had limbs blown off, to receive state-of-the-art prosthetics.
from Remi, Feb 25: NATO was never the primary issue; Ukraine was far from joining the alliance. The United States only began providing arms to Ukraine after Russia invaded Crimea. There was no formal agreement with Gorbachev regarding NATO; it was merely a comment. Putin’s goal was control, not security. Ironically, his actions have led Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership.
Biden’s support for Ukraine came too little, too late. While it was adequate to prevent a defeat, it was insufficient to secure a victory. His fear of provoking Putin—specifically, concerns about nuclear retaliation—resulted in costly delays. Acting sooner might have led to a resolution of the conflict long ago.
In contrast to Biden, Trump does not fear Russia—rightly so. Russia is significantly weakened, with its economy in shambles, deteriorating daily, and suffering devastating military casualties and heavy equipment losses estimated at nearly 60%. Trump understands that Putin would not even consider a nuclear response; Putin has already lost. The real question is whether Trump will take action to save him—Trump doesn’t know what he will do himself.
You can make this public if you’d like.
from Remi, Feb 28: As I had feared, Zelensky was lured to Washington for this purpose. It was nothing less than a setup—an ambush meticulously orchestrated and executed by Vance, who had claimed that Ukraine was parading foreign leaders for propaganda tours. I could not be more disappointed and disgusted.