https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-23-2024
"Two years ago today, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky made a passionate
plea to the people of Russia, begging them to avoid war. He gave the speech in
Russian, his own primary language, and, reminding Russians of their shared
border and history, told them to “listen to the voice of reason”: Ukrainians
want peace.
“You’ve been told I'm going to bomb Donbass,” he said. “Bomb what? The Donetsk
stadium where the locals and I cheered for our team at Euro 2012? The bar where
we drank when they lost? Luhansk, where my best friend's mom lives?” Zelensky
tried to make the human cost of this conflict clear. Observers lauded the
speech and contrasted its statesmanship with the ramblings in which Putin had
recently engaged.
And yet Zelensky’s speech stood only as a marker. Early the next day, Russian
president Vladimir Putin launched a “special military operation” involving
dozens of missile strikes on Ukrainian cities before dawn. He claimed in a
statement that was transparently false that he needed to defend the people in
the “new republics” within Ukraine that he had recognized two days before from
“persecution and genocide by the Kyiv regime.” He called for “demilitarization”
of Ukraine, demanding that soldiers lay down their weapons and saying that any
bloodshed would be on their hands.
Putin called for the murder of Ukrainian leaders in the executive branch and
parliament and intended to seize or kill those involved in the 2014 Maidan
Revolution, which sought to turn the country away from Russia and toward a
democratic government within Europe, and which itself prompted a Russian
invasion. He planned for his troops to seize Ukraine’s electric, heating, and
financial systems so the people would have to do as he wished. The operation
was intended to be lightning fast.
But rather than collapsing, Ukrainians held firm. The day after Russia invaded,
Zelensky and his cabinet recorded a video in Kyiv. “We are all here,” he said.
“Our soldiers are here. The citizens are here, and we are here. We will defend
our independence…. Glory to Ukraine!” When the United States offered the next
day to transport Zelensky outside the country, where he could lead a government
in exile, he responded:
“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
That statement echoes powerfully two years later as Ukraine continues to stand
against Russia’s invasion but now quite literally needs ammunition, as MAGA
Republicans in Congress are refusing to take up a $95 billion national security
supplemental measure that would provide aid to Ukraine.
Instead, Republicans spent the day insisting that they do not oppose in vitro
fertilization, the popular reproductive healthcare measure that the Alabama
Supreme Court last Friday endangered by deciding that a fertilized human egg
was a child—what they called an “extrauterine” child—and that people can be
held legally responsible for destroying them. Since the decision, Alabama
healthcare centers have halted their IVF programs out of fear of prosecution
for their handling of embryos."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
