February 24, 2022

Invasion of the Russian army

On February 24, 2022, at 5:00 am, the Russian Federation launches missile air strikes at military control centers, airfields, and military depots throughout Ukraine, which is an independent, sovereign, democratic European country. You might have a question: what could have frightened the largest country in the world, which has one of the largest and best-trained armies, which is five times bigger than the army of Ukraine?!

Only one person can answer this question. It’s Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation. But he keeps silent and continues to believe in fairy-tales he makes up for his own citizens. He says that in the 21st century, there is a Nazi-ruled country in the heart of Europe, Ukraine, which must be invaded to protect Ukrainians from fictitious enemies Putin invented.

Russian aircraft attacked the capital of Ukraine – Kyiv, cities: Brovary, Boryspil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, Sumy, Mariupol, Berdyansk, Kramatorsk, Lutsk, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk, etc., resulting in civilian casualties. Hundreds are killed and even more injured; the worst thing is that there are many children among the victims, both dead and wounded.

A total of 18 regions of Ukraine were bombed on the morning of February 24, 2022.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine near Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, and Sumy, entering from Russia, Belarus, and Crimea, temporarily occupied by Russia in 2014, unscrupulously violating state borders and once again encroaching on Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The Kremlin’s official reason for the invasion is fear. The fear, the threat they [Russians] feel from Ukraine. That’s why the Russian Federation decided to conduct a special “military operation” to “denazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine and its civilian population.

Ukraine has very good neighborly relations with the surrounding EU countries. Even more, there is a visa-free regime, and citizens can travel freely around the world. Also, Ukraine claims to become a full member of the EU and NATO. Do you really think that European countries would allow the bearers of Nazi ideology to enter their territory so easily and without hindrance?! Maybe that’s what Vladimir Putin was afraid of? He was afraid of Ukraine’s European choice. He feared that it [Ukraine] would become part of the European family and never re-enter the imaginary Russian Empire, a myth that Putin has cherished in his head throughout his reign. He was afraid of the extremely powerful weapon that Ukrainians have, but Russians don’t: spirit and desire for freedom.

The very next day, February 25, Putin’s army began openly bombing and destroying civilian infrastructure and housing, moving away from their own declarations that no civilians would be harmed during their so-called “liberation special operation.” A Russian missile hit a house on Lobanovsky Street in Kyiv, the capital of a sovereign, free, democratic Central European state. Can you imagine that happening in the 21st century? It isn’t military infrastructure, it is an apartment building where civilians live. People who just want to live with their shoulders straight and breathe the air of freedom in a free country, without dictates and instructions. You, Europeans, call it European standards, while Ukrainians call it their natural need, because Ukrainians are a nation of free people. The Ukrainian people are not slaves, they have never been and never will be.

Putin planned to seize Ukraine in one day and fully control it in three, but the blitzkrieg plan failed. The troops of the Russian Federation, who illegally invaded the territory of independent Ukraine, received a strong and unexpected resistance from both the Ukrainian army and the civilian population, which was simply defending its home, family, and homeland.

As of the seventh day of the hostile invasion of Russian troops into the territory of Ukraine in the center of Europe, peaceful, innocent people are dying: women, children, the elderly. The Russian occupiers killed about 2,000 civilians in Ukraine, including 20 children. They [Russians] are destroying the infrastructure of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and largest cities, burning museums and ruining architectural monuments that are invaluable in European culture and art.

The war is currently going on in the center of Europe on the territory of Ukraine. This is a war for freedom. The war for the right to choose: to go to the European future or to stay in a stagnant past.