Russian invasion of Ukraine 

Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Kotoku Denjiro
Ukrainian triphop
October 11, 2024 at 6:56 a.m.
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I remember in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as the so-called 'Freedom Convoy' dragged on, and a curious article about Canada's elite JTF2 were training Ukrainian Army, including the infamous Azov Regiment, whose neo-Nazi ties I'd heard about some years ago, in a VICE documentary about both Azov and Wagner.
So I was shocked to learn that Canada was _secretly_ training Azov members, despite their members having far right Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi ties.
But then Russia invaded, and after the horrific butchering committed by Russians in Bucha, it became clear that the greater threat to Ukrainians was the Russian military, not some few thousand neo-Nazis in a Ukrainian Armed Forces numbering around 880,000 personnel. To brand all Ukrainians 'neo-Nazis' was clearly a pretext Putin was using for his "special military operation", and that whatever "denazification" he claimed he was invading Ukraine for, should have been directed first and foremost at Wagner PMC and the significant numbers of neo-Nazi groups in Russia, some loyal to Putin, while others not.
But until Putin's folly, this invasion, I knew little about Ukrainian people. The few I'd met had never really mentioned much about their background, and I'm not one to press people to tell me things about themselves that they don't freely offer themselves.
But as Putin began what was increasingly becoming clear was a genocidal war against Ukrainian people as a people, as a separate and distinct culture, to be replaced by Russian people and Russian culture, that I knew Ukraine had to win.
And by G-d Ukraine has done some winning. Paid for inch by inch with the blood and sacrifice of countless Ukrainian patriots, soldiers, many of whom not that long ago, were nothing more than ordinary civilians, going to their daily jobs to pay the rent.
Ukraine fought back with everything they had, using every ingenuity and resource at their disposal, every training they could get, every bit of international support they could plead for. All because one man said, when offered the opportunity by the US government to flee the country, responded: "I need ammunition, not a ride."
President Zelenskyy, a man I'd never even heard of, a comedic actor who had only ever played the President of Ukraine in a comedy show that became unexpectedly popular in Ukraine. Life imitating art, perhaps.
Everyone believed he would run. I'm sure Putin believed that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was nothing more than some actor, an entertainer, not some devious ex-KGB agent like himself.
But it doesn't take KGB training to lead: it just takes courage.
Courage is when you tell off homophobes, telling them to leave the LGBTQIA+ community in Ukraine alone.
Courage is knowing you've been targeted for assassination by Vladimir Putin, the most notorious extra-judicidial serial killer in the world, where all his enemies, and even many of his friends, end up "accidentally" dead.
I support the Ukrainian people.