Despite President Trump's bullying tactics and a war that still devastates his nation, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy leads a nation displaying true heroism, writes Sue Arnold.
IN THE CENTRE of Kyiv, a magnificent statue of St Michael the Archangel stands with his shield and sword as the protector of Ukraine’s capital and the entire country.
After the shameful bullying episode visited on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by President Donald Trump and his Vice President, JD Vance, in Washington DC, many Ukrainians will be praying that St Michael does not abandon the nation he is charged to protect.
The three-year war has been brutal and the suffering of the Ukrainian people is immeasurable. Damage to its agricultural lands, biodiversity and power sources, including the nuclear facilities, with constant attacks by missiles and bombs has taken an immense toll.
Last year, German officials estimated between 30,000 and 50,000 Ukrainian amputees as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vicious war. Some amputees are returning to the battlefield out of a sense of duty to their beleaguered country.
As one amputee soldier said:
“You need to come out of this not as someone broken by the war and written off, but as someone they tried to break, but couldn’t. You came back, proved you could still do something and you’ll step away only when you decide to.”
At least 380,000 soldiers have been wounded and at least 46,000 soldiers killed. Many were beheaded, tortured, suffering months and years in fetid prisons, starved and beaten, and denied medical assistance.
The Kyiv Independent reports on atrocities and brutality committed by Russian forces. Some of the reports are too shocking to detail.
Trump has moved to abandon any role in Russia’s war crimes prosecutions.
Sixty-two thousand women have joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a voluntary choice as there is no mandatory military draft for women. Their numbers constitute 7.3 per cent of the military. More than 4,000 women are taking part in the fighting.
Women between the ages of 18 to 60 can be mobilised. In 2023, more than 16,000 women were in Ukrainian ground forces, more than 7,000 in the air force and 2,000 in the navy. More than 100 had been killed by 2023.
Temperatures in January and February remain well below freezing most days. Repeated attacks on Ukraine’s key infrastructure have intensified leaving Ukraine’s damaged electrical grid 70 per cent reliant on three complexes of nuclear reactors.
These reactors are increasingly threatened by the grid's instability and could become unsafe to operate, forcing a shutdown and grid collapse.
According to national security experts:
‘Protecting the grid’s key substations is now the single most important priority for the survival of the Ukrainian state.’
According to Ukraine’s Energy Minister, Herman Halushchenko, Russia has launched more than 30 mass strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the three-year invasion.
The EU’s emergency reserves have sent more than 5,500 power generators to Ukraine. Transformers, autotransformers, high-voltage equipment and LED light bulbs have been also delivered.
By targeting electricity, a War on the Rocks article says Russia has made the current phase of the war an urban battle between darkness and light — and there is a clear scenario whereby darkness could triumph.
Prior to President Zelensky’s visit to Washington DC, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was instructed by the State Department to terminate initiatives set to help restore Ukraine's energy grid.
Then there’s Elon Musk and his dirty politics. According to the Kyiv Independent, the U.S. has threatened to shut off Starlink satellite internet terminals if Ukraine won’t sign the minerals deal put together by Trump as he eyes off Ukraine’s rare earth mineral wealth. Musk has denied the reports but has offered no evidence to back up his statement.
Trump’s cabinet choices reflect significant ties to Russia.
According to a Washington Post article, the newly appointed FBI director, Kesha Patel – a “loyal supporter” of Trump and a conservative radical – received a fee of $25,000 from a Russian film company that spread pro-Russian and anti-Western views. As FBI director, he will be responsible for protecting against Russian espionage operations in the United States.
The film company, Global Tree Pictures, which paid Patel, based in Los Angeles, is owned by Igor Lopatenko, a Russian with U.S. citizenship. It was financed by a foundation created by Vladimir Putin.
How are Ukrainians surviving in the face of a bloody three-year war? Mayya Tulchinska, a Ukrainian writer writes on her Facebook page that ‘From a distance, it may seem like we are living an almost normal life here’.
But what it looks like from the inside is different.
At a recent concert at the Philharmonic in Odessa, the announcement was made that the audience needed to go to the shelter. Instead, the orchestra kept on playing. There is no shelter, and fortunately, the Philharmonic wasn’t hit.
But the audience was shaken and anxious, as are all Ukrainians who venture out, trying to live a semi-normal life.
The future reality cannot be dismissed by an orchestra playing on the land-based Titanic.
As Ukrainian writer Valeriy Chaly opines over the New Year period:
If any of the citizens of EU countries, especially the neighbours of Ukraine, have created the illusion that the Russian aggression is ending, that the offensive will stop, the newly-elected President of the United States has all the levers of influence and everything will end on the territory of Ukraine, then there are many arguments to disappoint them.
...the Russian regime has enemy targets not only concerning Ukraine, but also all of Europe.
...if the European countries do not unite with Ukraine in an armed coalition against the aggressor, if they do not triple their efforts this year and, in accordance with the UN Statute, if they do not apply collective self-defence against Russia — the war will come directly to them, on their territory.
Because of the bravery, courage and extraordinary resistance of Ukraine to Russia’s invasion, the country will go down in history as one of the world’s most heroic nations.
President Trump and his GOP Putin allies will be remembered as traitors who, potentially, if not stopped, could be responsible for starting World War 3. An accusation Trump made against Zelenskyy, one that can only be described as projection.
The dice are being rolled. There can be no winners to this nightmare.
Sue Arnold is an IA columnist and freelance investigative journalist. You can follow Sue on Twitter @koalacrisis.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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