While Russia Negotiates in Bad Faith, It Continues to Kill Unarmed Ukrainians 

In Geneva, the United States and Russia on one side of the table and Ukraine on the opposite side are discussing and exchanging pleasantries about how to end #Moscow’s war against #Ukraine. In the meantime the war still rages and innocent, unarmed Ukrainians are being killed by Russian cutthroats who are obeying their fuhrer’s orders to seize all of Ukraine.

In the wake of the first round of talks, all sides expressed their satisfaction with the course of the deliberations. And why not? All they did was shake hands and exchange business cards and promise to meet again.

President Zelenskyy summed up his view of the negotiations: either Ukraine will lose its dignity or its biggest, single advocate. The second half of the devil’s alternative means that Kyiv would bravely tell Russia, the USA and the world that it will not accept their nicely prepared capitulation document and will forge ahead to victory.

The first half of the observation means that after renewing its independence 34 years ago, Kyiv will succumb to its age-old enemy and fair weather friend and surrender its sovereignty. In essence, this will repeat historical episodes of the West’s abandonment of Ukraine in its time of need.

Gold Meir, former prime minister of Israel who was born in Ukraine, observed about which path her people should take at the fork: “If we have to choose between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we'd rather be alive and have the bad image."

This reflects her view that global opinion, while a consideration, was secondary to Israel's survival.  President Trump’s consideration today is secondary to Ukraine’s existence.

To paraphrase another of her quotes, substitute Ukrainian for Jew: “The world hates a Jew who hits back. The world loves us only when we are to be pitied” or in Ukrainians’ case, when we dance the hopak.

As she noted about her people, Zelenskyy is also asking all Ukrainians and kindred spirits to give Ukraine the possibility of going on with the struggle to remain sovereign and independent.

Certainly after all that Ukrainians have endured, including the genocidal famine Holodomor nine decades ago, if Ukrainians today have arms and support to fight with, they would fight with those, and if not, they would certainly fight with stones in our hands.

Look at the Ukrainian nation and society now, especially the post-independence generation that never experienced Russian subjugation. If the negotiations open the floodgates to a greater Russian invasion as many believe, then be prepared to see innocent blood flow down Ukrainian streets.

As the peace talks drag on and on, while Russia stalls on purpose just to kill more unarmed Ukrainian civilians in their homes with their drones and missiles, while President Trump quips that something good must be happening in the talks today, the Russian cutthroats have killed at least six people and injured 36 others across Ukraine over the past day, local authorities reported on November 23. 

Overnight, Russian forces launched 98 drones at Ukraine, including around 60 Shaheds, the Ukrainian Air Force reported. Ukraine's air defense shot down 69 drones, according to the report, while 27 drones reached their targets in 12 locations. 

Russian forces also used multiple rocket launchers, glide bombs, artillery, and FPV (first-person view) drones to attack civilian areas close to the front line. 

A drone strike on Dnipro, a city in central Ukraine, hit a residential building, wounding 14 poeple, including an 11-year-old girl, local governor reported. Elsewhere in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, two more people were injured.

Zaporizhzhia, a city in southeastern Ukraine, also came under a drone attack. A strike on a supermarket and residential buildings injured six residents last night, Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.

Other attacks on the Zaporizhzhia Oblast killed two people and injured two others, while damaging houses and other infrastructure, according to Fedorov.

“The intensity of attacks in the region remains one of the highest. Over the past day, the enemy carried out more than 870 strikes on Zaporizhzhia Oblast — mostly on front-line towns: Stepnohirsk, Orikhiv, Huliaipole, and the entire front line,” Fedorov wrote. 

In the Kherson oblast Russians attacked numerous areas with drones, glide bombs, and artillery, killing four people and injuring 11, including a child, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

In Sumy oblast, a rescuer responding to the overnight attack was injured, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said.

Other attacks damaged houses and other civilian infrastructure in Odesa and Kharkiv oblasts, but local authorities reported no casualties.