Mama, Why … Why Me, Plead

Little Ukrainian Girls and Boys

I am updating this blog of April 18, 2022, from a little boy’s point of view. Before you read it, take note of the illustration. Its lines scribbled, scrawled, stretching every which way, indecipherable. Drawn by someone who is reliving a horrific experience.

Perhaps illegible to the reader but not to the little boy in war-torn Ukraine. Don’t turn away from this blog. Don’t cringe. That won’t make the horror the little boy faced go away.

I found his story on Twitter. It was posted by Lesia Vasylenko. She wrote: “This is how an 11-year-old boy sees the world after having been raped by Russia soldier in front of his mother. I find it hard to read reports like this, even harder to tweet about them, and absolutely impossible to remain silent. The world must know the truth.”

For this to stop, the pain and disgust that hopefully you are feeling will strangle you to the point of at least writing to someone, your newspaper or elected official, demanding that the United States do everything in its power to help Ukraine end this war, punish Russia and bring a modicum of peace to the countless little boys and girls who were sodomized by Russian soldiers and their mothers.

The fear of their daughters being raped by Russian soldiers is so real, so pervasive that mothers in Ukraine are cutting their little girls’ braids, pigtails and ponytails so they look like little boys, hoping to save them from being raped by Russian invaders. I won’t conclude the thought that are probably thinking.

The following is my original post.

It hurts. It sounds ridiculous to say that. It hurts me, the reader, the writer. But imagine how much it hurts the little girl who has no idea of what and why the Russian soldiers did to her. It hurts the unfortunate little ones who survived the rape and weren’t killed only to be raped again. Perhaps the luckier ones were killed and discarded with or without their mothers in a common grave.

Nonetheless, it hurts the reader and eye witness alike. A deep, gnawing, angry hurt that suppresses tears.

It hurts us, who are far away from this brutality, because many refused to believe that Russia will invade Ukraine. The hurt returned after the invasion when we saw the images of the invaders’ cruelty committed against Ukrainian civilians but especially their littlest daughters.

How can one human being commit such crimes against another human being, against a defenseless child?

No one has a logical, comforting answer but the violence did happen and the girl who survived turned to her mother and asked “Mama, why? Why me? What did I do?”

Stories of Russian savagery exist in every town that Russian soldiers occupied and not only in the accounts of eye witnesses. Many Russian invaders created selfies of themselves and their comrades raping and sodomizing Ukrainian children. The stories hurt.

I found these stories on a Ukrainian-language website called “To be a Mother” – https://tobemom.site/?fbclid=IwAR2XRb8eykw73XKaJOpQIcPIDRC2Tyv_e1Lq9dhzj5YBZhaBbihLQ_uolio

These few accounts are not for the weak of heart.

• Mom, why did those “uncles” punish me? Didn’t I behave well?” – this question was asked by 6-year-old girl, who was raped by two Russian soldiers in front of her mother in Irpin.

Irpin:

• A 9-year-old girl was raped by 11 (at least 11 sperm samples were found) soldiers, then they cut the letter “Z” on her chest and ripped her stomach open. Her parents were killed in front of her.

• Mother, father, 3 daughters 5, 8, 17 years old. Russians occupied in their home. The father was shot dead the same day. They raped the children in front of the mother, she was raped too. Girls aged 5 and 8 died from rape and injuries. The 17-year-old daughter and mother survived, but they are in critical condition in a hospital.

• Mother, father, 11-year-old daughter and their dog. The father was shot. The dog was cut apart for 4 hours in front of the child and mother. During the first week, the mother was raped in front of her child.

Bucha:

• Mother, father, 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. Kadyrovites entered their private house. The father’s hands were tied, he was brought to his knees and shot in front of his wife and children. The next day, the boy’s genitals were cut off, he bled to death. The mother and daughter were raped for two weeks.

• Mother, father, grandparents and 2-year-old girl. All were found dead in their home. Father with their hands tied and shot. The child suffered a cut throat, the mother with torn genitals and slaughtered.

• 14 year-old girl was raped by 5 Russian occupiers. She’s pregnant now.

• 11 year-old boy was raped in front of his mother. She was tied to a chair to watch.

Yes, it hurts. The accounts are unimaginable, grotesque, almost fantastic, imaginary, incredible. How can this happen in the 21^st century, in Europe? How can this continue happening without global cries of outrage?

Yes, it hurts. And the Russians will continue creating hurt until the hurt forces the free world to get involved and stop the Russians from raping and killing children.

If you have a daughter or son, hug her and him in memory of the little Ukrainian girls and boys who will never again feel their mothers’ warm embraces and in tribute to the Ukrainian mothers who will never again hug their little girls and boys.

For Attacking the United Nations and other Crimes, Russia should be Expelled

When you boil it down to its basics, Vladimir Putin, president-fuhrer of Russia, attacked the United Nations.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres had invited himself to visit Putin in the naïve hope that he could convince the Russian despot to cease his war with Ukraine. Guterres described his conversations with Putin as “very useful.”

The UN leader boasted: “First of all … it was possible to tell President Putin the same things I say in New York or I’ll be able to say here in Kyiv, which means that the Russian invasion is against the charter of the United Nations, is a violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and that this war must end as quickly as possible.”

He felt he had to travel 4,667 miles to tell Putin something that he, President Zelenskyy, President Biden and other rational national leaders have been saying for 65 days.

After bidding Putin “do svidaniya,” Guterres departed for Kyiv for a publicly announced meeting with the Ukrainian President. Among other results, Kyiv wanted the UN to help create a green corridor for innocent citizens to leave besieged Mariupol. Zelenskyy again described Russia’s actions in his country as genocide, a term that is being heard more often as it pertains to the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-22.

Putin apparently not wanting to share the limelight with his foe decided to express his disapproval and disregard for the office of the UN Secretary-General by launching two rocket strikes at the Ukrainian capital. The two blasts hit the central Shevchenko district of Kyiv, with three people taken to hospital with injuries. With the presence of the UN leader in the Ukrainian capital, any missile attack against Kyiv and Ukraine is at the same time an assault against the United Nations.

Guterres also visited several sites where Ukraine accuses Russia of committing war crimes. In the town of Borodyanka, north-west of Kyiv, Guterres spoke to reporters in front of buildings that had been destroyed by strikes and shelling. He said the site made him imagine what it would be like for his own family, calling the war in Ukraine an “absurdity in the 21st Century.” Absurdity? Is that all that responsible diplomat could say? Illogical, silly, ridiculous?

Guterres made a passionate plea to save thousands of people in Ukraine’s southern city of Mariupol, which has been virtually destroyed by weeks of heavy Russian bombardment. The heroic defenders have pledged to fight to the last patriot. “Mariupol is a crisis within a crisis,” he said. “Thousands of civilians need life-saving assistance, many are elderly and in need of medical care, or have limited mobility. They need an escape route out of the apocalypse.”

Crisis within a crisis! Apocalypse! Guterres is creating more buzz words.

However, surprisingly, the UN Secretary-General made sense when he criticized the UN Security Council for not doing enough to save Ukraine. The quick answer is that all actions are blocked by permanent member Russia, the invader, aggressor, occupier, killer, rapist and evil empire.

Guterres said the council had failed to prevent or end the war in Ukraine. This was “a source of great disappointment, frustration and anger,” he said. “Let me be very clear: [it] failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war.”

Undoubtedly, due to this slap in the face, the United Nations is facing the biggest crisis of its entire history after UN Security Council permanent member Russia deliberately and shamelessly launched airstrikes at Kyiv while the UN Secretary General was visiting the city.

The UN can take a step in the direction of recovering its integrity and punishing the offender by moving to expel Russia from the international body and all of its agencies and programs, none of which can tolerate being tarnished by its association with a global criminal like Russia.

The United Nations is a befuddling hall of contradictions and doublespeak. The Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-22 showed that one of the international body’s founding members – Russia – a conspicuous aggressor and invader, transgressor of international law and order in contradiction to the UN Charter, is regularly seen seated around the table of the five permanent members of the Security Council that possess the power to stop discussions about potentially beneficial resolutions dead in their tracks while the council itself does not offer security to anyone, for example another founding member Ukraine. The UN Secretary-General said as much.

Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya in his usually acerbic remarks about Russian aggression against Ukraine challenged the Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, who was holding the rotating presidency of the Security Council, to stop the war against Ukraine which had just begun. When the Russian said he couldn’t, the Ukrainian official replied, pointing to a cell phone:

 “Call Putin, call (Russian Foreign Minister Sergey) Lavrov to stop aggression,” Kyslytsya implored in his speech fully in English. And at the end of his address, he warned all Russians: “There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador.”

Kyslytsya said Nebenzia should surrender the Security Council presidency over to a “legitimate member.”

In that exchange two months ago and since then, Kyslytsya not only ridiculed Nebenzia for his country’s war against Ukraine, but also accused Moscow of lies and deceit. He has been known for caustically asking his fellow delegates a school yard riddle about the telltale signs that someone is lying. Russians, he said, move their lips. As for Russian deception, Kyslytsya said Moscow pledges are worth as much as the hole of a New York pretzel.

The Ukrainian official also reminded the UN administrative structure and member-states when the Russian Federation was accepted as a member-state after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He asked to be shown “where the General Assembly welcomes the Russian Federation to this organization. It would be a miracle if the Secretary was able to produce such decisions. There is nothing in the Charter of the United Nations about … As a sneaky way to get into the organization.”

Yes, you read that correctly, the Russian Federation, as a new state with a new name, never applied for UN membership, was never accepted, and was never welcomed. It was never accepted to serve as a permanent member of the UN Security Council – the Soviet Union held that seat.

As a global outlaw, much like Germany, the successor of Nazi Germany, Russia would have had to wait at least 28 years before it would be accepted into the United Nations. Germany became a member on September 18, 1973.

In an article titled “Modern-day Piracy: How Russia Seized the USSR’s Seat in the UN” in the September 2019 edition of The Ukrainian Quarterly, former Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko questioned how Russia became a legitimate member of the United Nations.  Everyone overlooked that in the wake of the collapse of the USSR, membership of this state in the United Nations was to automatically cease and the Russian Federation was to undergo the process of joining the UN in the same way as any hopeful member-state. Moscow didn’t abide by this.

“Referring to these allegations, a number of delegations, in particular Ukraine, have repeatedly drawn the attention of the UN Secretariat and other member-states to the unlawfulness of Russian Federation’s membership in the Organization,” Yelchenko pointed out.

“Russia does not use its seat as a permanent member to maintain international peace and security, as envisaged in the UN Charter, but rather as political cover for its international armed conflicts, particularly in Georgia and Ukraine. Therefore, it is not necessary to speak of the fulfillment of the obligations of the Russian Federation under the UN Charter.”

And today, it is waging a brutal war against UN founding member Ukraine, where Russia is destroying cities, forests and waterways, indiscriminately killing innocent civilians and raping children.

And yesterday Moscow shot two missiles at the UN Secretary-General.

Indeed, not the best traits of a UN member-state or permanent member of the Security.

Russia should be given an eviction notice by the UN and unceremoniously thrown out on to First Avenue.

Cliffside Park Adopts pro-Ukraine Resolution; Even Small Towns’ Efforts are Meaningful

The Ukrainian flag was added to the Stars &
Stripes at the start of the war in February.

Large states and small metropolises across America are joining the tidal wave of official denunciations of Russia’s bloody, genocidal invasion of Ukraine that is being headed by Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this month, the borough of Cliffside Park, NJ, in Bergen County, became one of the latest to condemn Moscow and Putin.

The resolution, 2022-62, touches upon and condemns all of the vital issues and nuances of the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-22. It states:

Whereas, on February 24, 2022, after months of troop and tank buildups, Russia began shelling and rocket attacks on several major cities in Ukraine, including its capital Kyiv; and

Whereas, these Russian troops have met with strong and courageous opposition from the Ukrainian military and citizen resistance; and

Whereas, Russian President Vladimir Putin has long sought to control Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union and more currently after many countries in Eastern and Center Europe, once part of the Soviet bloc, proceeded toward democratic governments and joined alliances with western European nations, and

Whereas, Ukraine has been at war with Russian since 2014, when Putin invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine after its pro-Russian president was ousted; several other regions in Ukraine are controlled by separatist forces backed by Putin who have waged protracted fighting against the Ukrainian military; Putin refuses to acknowledge Ukrainian as a sovereign nation; and

Whereas, over the last few weeks, the US and its Western European allies have announced strong measures that undoubtedly will cause Moscow to suffer economically even as it struggles to tame Ukraine militarily: from new weapons transfers to anticorruption punishments to powerful sanctions on Russian banks to the shutting of the European Union’s airspace to Russian flights; and

Whereas, this Government Body stands with President Zelenskyy who has stated “I am pleased even more allies have come forward with defensive and humanitarian aid. We must stand with the Ukrainian people as they defend their country and democracies”; and

Whereas, this resolution constitutes an emergency measure for the immediate preservation of public peace, property, health or safety; and

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved by the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Cliffside Park that this Governing Body strongly condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine, denounces Vladimir Putin’s years-long aggression against this sovereign country, supporting Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, and encourages the US and its partners to continue the exceptionally strong sanctions against Russia.

The resolution was signed by Mayor Thomas Calabrese, Sercan Zoklu, Borough clerk, and council members D. Martinotti, K. Corcoran, P. Colao, S. Nikaj, J. Chmielewski, and E. Rojas.

If such a small municipality like Cliffside Park can demonstrate a deep understanding of the issues pertaining to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and adopt an appropriate resolution condemning Moscow’s aggression, then there is no excuse for any borough, city or state in the country not to do the same.

Mariupol won’t be Kruty

(After I posted this blog this morning, news was reported about the discovery of mass graves with at least 20,000 bodies of Ukrainian men, women and children outside Mariupol. The huge grave was dug March 23-26, 2022. Eternal damnation on Russia, Russians and Putin.)

Kruty – a country railway station some about 80 miles northeast of Kyiv. It entered the storied, heroic pages of Ukrainian history because the Battle of Kruty took place there on January 29, 1918, a week after the government of Ukraine proclaimed the Fourth Universal, the nation’s proclamation of independence.

Russian Gen. Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov was dispatched to put down this treasonous national act by Ukrainians. With the Ukrainian army fighting on the frontlines, the task of defending the capital and the country’s nascent independence was taken up by recruits and cadets. A collection of 300 dedicated Ukrainian patriots who stood their ground and fought to the last man. It seems as if fighting to the last ounce of blood is part of the Ukrainians’ genetic makeup – remember of cyborgs at the Donetsk airport.

Yuriy Butusov, the editor-in-chief of Censor.NET, in his Facebook page cited a message written last night by a friend in Mariupol who serves in the Azov Regiment.

Citing the lore of that famous Ukrainian town, Butusov’s friend wrote: “Thanks to them, Mariupol will never be a Russian victory. It will never be a victim and a place of Russian power, it is not Kruty. It will always be a city of Ukrainian victory and a symbol of Ukrainian invincible strength.”

Apparently he was not rejecting victory at all costs, even the cost of the defenders’ lives, he was rejecting the concept of defeat, conquest by the Russian invaders. Mariupol is another Ukrainian word in the centuries-long string of wars and battles that reaffirm Ukrainians’ aspiration to live freely, independently, sovereignly, democratically as far away from Russia as possible.

“The defenders of Mariupol have long since crossed the line of endurance and sacrifice – they have created new ones, and this is incredible in the 21st century,” Butusov wrote.

The port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov was home to 400,000 people before Russia’s invasion. It has been under siege by Russian troops and under constant shelling for more than 50 days. The city has been reduced to rubble, amid questionable claims by Russia that it now has near complete control. Thousands of civilians are believed to have died and tens of thousands remain trapped in the city.

Mariupol surely symbolizes the spirit and perseverance of the Ukrainian soldiers as 200 or so of them are holed up in the bunkers of the Azov Steel mill. It should be noted that they’re not only defending their positions and the city, which are key along the road to Crimea, but they also safeguarding some 1,000 civilians and children hunkering down with them, avoiding Russian bombs.

President Zelenskyy, among others, has reiterated the soldiers’ pledge not to surrender.

“They (the Russians) say they are ready to let all the military go if they surrender. But they are not going to surrender. They don't want to do so and this is why it is a complicated and tragic situation because the military don't want to surrender. And without it, Russians are not ready to let them go,” Zelenskyy said. “When you can make an agreement with Russians to let them go, unarmed, but after, what they will do is shoot them dead. That is why no one trusts Russia now.”

Indeed, the Russians on numerous occasions have backed away from their pledges, resulting in Ukrainian bloodshed. Allowing the civilians to use a so-called green corridor for safe passage is as dangerous as swimming with sharks.

Zelenskyy added that Ukraine wanted to take away the wounded from Mariupol but Russian forces would not let them.

“We wanted to take away the wounded. We talked about it being a humanitarian mission. Give us the wounded back,” he said. “We even made plans for Turkey to be a mediator and get the wounded, civilians and the military. They don’t let them out because we understand Russia just wants to shoot them dead.”

Butusov’s friend continued: “I understand. We all understand everything and are ready for anything. In any case, we will not give up.”

For the free world, not giving up is an understandable concept. You stick to your guns. You don’t surrender like the Texans didn’t at the Alamo. However, knowing in advance that your fate is virtually doomed without a miracle is a frightening prediction.

“57 days of continuous fighting, air strikes and artillery shelling. Surrounded. In the basement, without water, without light, heat, without food. The enemy is 10 times bigger, the enemy has an absolute advantage in technology and ammunition, and he demolishes any shelter, any position. The nearest Ukrainian front is 100 km away (62 miles), across the steppes, and you can’t get out of here, you can’t take out the wounded. And they do not seek pity from the enemy. Every day, they skillfully find every opportunity to kill and destroy the occupiers, and inflict terrible losses on them.

“These people have long since crossed the line of endurance and sacrifice – they have created new ones, and this is incredible in the 21st century.”

Indeed, they have written new passages, lyrics, songs and anecdotes about their bravery, the heroism of Ukrainian soldiers. Enough with the epithets about the Azov battalion being a far right unit. That’s merely Russian propaganda to disparage Ukraine’s ongoing fight for freedom against Russia. The Azov unit’s soldiers are like all Ukrainians – defending the country, the nation and the little girl from Russian rapists.

“They showed what combat capability is. And it is worth mentioning that Azov is the only Ukrainian military unit that fully operates according to NATO standards in combat management and training, they operate under the US Combat Charter and MDMP (military decision-making process) combat management standards. Azov is the only military unit where the appeals and customs of Ukrainian nationalism of the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army that fought Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and other communist armies in World War Two) model operate, and not the old Soviet-style translated procedures. By order of the Ukrainian command, they are fighting and dying in absolutely unfavorable conditions, faithful to the oath to the Ukrainian people.

“Thanks to them, Mariupol will never be a Russian victory. It will never be a victim and a place of Russian power, it is not Kruty. It will always be a city of Ukrainian victory and a symbol of Ukrainian invincible strength.

“Russia has many weapons, but Ukraine has something that Russians are not capable of – to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their people, to fight for honor, to fight when there is no strength, and only the will allows you to fight no matter what. Mariupol – this word now weighs a lot, explains a lot.

Because its defenders created a new modern epic. Because they create the history of our world. Because they are Ukrainians.”

The fall of Mariupol, the site of a merciless seven-week-old siege that has reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin, would be Moscow’s biggest victory of the war. But don’t count on it.

#ArmUkraineNow

Mama, Why … Why Me?

It hurts. It sounds ridiculous to say that. It hurts me, the reader, the writer. But imagine how much it hurts the little girl who has no idea of what and why the Russian soldiers did to her. It hurts the unfortunate little ones who survived the rape and weren’t killed only to be raped again. Perhaps the luckier ones were killed and discarded with or without their mothers in a common grave.

Nonetheless, it hurts the reader and eye witness alike. A deep, gnawing, angry hurt that suppresses tears.

It hurts us, who are far away from this brutality, because many refused to believe that Russia will invade Ukraine. The hurt returned after the invasion when we saw the images of the invaders’ cruelty committed against Ukrainian civilians but especially their littlest daughters.

How can one human being commit such crimes against another human being, against a defenseless child?

No one has a logical, comforting answer but the violence did happen and the girl who survived turned to her mother and asked “Mama, why? Why me? What did I do?”

Stories of Russian savagery exist in every town that Russian soldiers occupied and not only in the accounts of eye witnesses. Many Russian invaders created selfies of themselves and their comrades raping and sodomizing Ukrainian children. The stories hurt.

I found these stories on a Ukrainian-language website called “To be a Mother” – https://tobemom.site/?fbclid=IwAR2XRb8eykw73XKaJOpQIcPIDRC2Tyv_e1Lq9dhzj5YBZhaBbihLQ_uolio

These few accounts are not for the weak of heart.

• Mom, why did those “uncles” punish me? Didn’t I behave well?” – this question was asked by 6-year-old girl, who was raped by two Russian soldiers in front of her mother in Irpin.

Irpin:

• A 9-year-old girl was raped by 11 (at least 11 sperm samples were found) soldiers, then they cut the letter “Z” on her chest and ripped her stomach open. Her parents were killed in front of her.

• Mother, father, 3 daughters 5, 8, 17 years old. Russians occupied in their home. The father was shot dead the same day. They raped the children in front of the mother, she was raped too. Girls aged 5 and 8 died from rape and injuries. The 17-year-old daughter and mother survived, but they are in critical condition in a hospital.

• Mother, father, 11-year-old daughter and their dog. The father was shot. The dog was cut apart for 4 hours in front of the child and mother. During the first week, the mother was raped in front of her child.

Bucha:

• Mother, father, 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. Kadyrovites entered their private house. The father’s hands were tied, he was brought to his knees and shot in front of his wife and children. The next day, the boy’s genitals were cut off, he bled to death. The mother and daughter were raped for two weeks.

• Mother, father, grandparents and 2-year-old girl. All were found dead in their home. Father with their hands tied and shot. The child suffered a cut throat, the mother with torn genitals and slaughtered.

• 14 year-old girl was raped by 5 Russian occupiers. She’s pregnant now.

• 11 year-old boy was raped in front of his mother. She was tied to a chair to watch.

Yes, it hurts. The accounts are unimaginable, grotesque, almost fantastic, imaginary, incredible. How can this happen in the 21^st century, in Europe? How can this continue happening without global cries of outrage?

Yes, it hurts. And the Russian rapists will continue creating hurt until the hurt forces the free world to get involved and stop the Russians from raping and killing children.

If you have a daughter, hug her in memory of the little Ukrainian girls who will never again feel their mothers’ warm embraces and in tribute to the Ukrainian mothers who will never again hug their little girls.

Ukraine: The World is being Caught Watching a Crime

The free world should stop hiding behind Article 5 and take off its NATO insignia and actively help Ukraine – not support but join the ranks of the defenders – defend not only itself but all of the countries that hold membership in the alliance and the assorted kindred spirits. Many national leaders and pundits have admitted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will not have regional repercussions. Today Russia is not expected to halt its belligerence with Ukraine as a renewed captive nations in its evil empire. Its aggression threatens the former captive nations and countries beyond. It is a valid question to wonder why the free world acquiesced to Winston Churchill’s prodding and united to defeat Nazi Germany eight decades ago.

The level of Russian brutality – genocide – in Ukraine is without comparison. Moscow has achieved its own sole place in the premier league of war criminals. It must be stopped. Women and girls aged so young it makes your blood boil are publically raped, killed and thrown in a common grave like trash by Russian soldiers, repeating the bestiality of their predecessors in Germany after the Second World War. Civilians of all ages are indiscriminately killed by the Russian invaders. Finally, the countryside and municipalities have been destroyed. Future invaders will be evaluated on the basis of the Bucha horrors. Enough! Short of allied soldiers, Ukraine urgently needs every possible defensive and offensive weapon in the free world’s arsenal today, not tomorrow.

Seven years ago, on May 13, 2015, at the start of the Russo-Ukraine War, I wrote an article about the war – a war that has now become a War of Ukrainian Independence – and the lack of active support for Ukraine. In it I cited the tragedy of Kitty Genovese, who was raped and killed while people watched the crime take place.

***

The international community’s reaction to what is happening to Ukraine is incomprehensible. World leaders – the usual motley group of North American, European and Asia ones – have been incapable of doing anything to stop Russia from continuing to ravage Ukraine for the sake of its imperial expansion and to protect Ukraine from Russia’s bloody military advances.

How can this be taking place in the 21st century? Hasn’t anyone read history? Isn’t the conclusion obvious?

As I think about my own questions, my thoughts drift to an event that had its place in the borough of Queens in New York City 51 years ago. A young woman was killed in full view of her neighbors who actually witnessed from the comfort of their high-rise apartment windows what was happening and couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything to stop the assailant or protect the unfortunate woman.

Here is an excerpt from Martin Gansberg’s article in The New York Times of March 27, 1964.

For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead…

Twenty-eight-year-old Catherine Genovese, who was called Kitty by almost everyone in the neighborhood, was returning home from her job as manager of a bar in Hollis…

The entrance to the apartment is in the rear of the building because the front is rented to retail stores. At night the quiet neighborhood is shrouded in the slumbering darkness that marks most residential areas.

Miss Genovese noticed a man at the far end of the lot, near a seven-story apartment house at 82-40 Austin Street. She halted. Then, nervously, she headed up Austin Street toward Lefferts Boulevard, where there is a call box to the 102nd Police Precinct in nearby Richmond Hill.

She got as far as a street light in front of a bookstore before the man grabbed her. She screamed. Lights went on in the 10-story apartment house at 82-67 Austin Street, which faces the bookstore. Windows slid open and voices punctuated the early-morning stillness.

Miss Genovese screamed: “Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!”…

The assailant stabbed her again.

“I'm dying!” she shrieked. “I’m dying!”…

Gansberg concluded his article by writing: “It was 4:25 A.M. when the ambulance arrived to take the body of Miss Genovese. It drove off. “Then,” a solemn police detective said, “the people came out.”

Kitty’s neighbors offered a variety of excuses why they allowed her to be killed in their voyeuristic presence.

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

“We thought it was a lovers’ quarrel.”

“I didn't want my husband to get involved.”

“We went to the window to see what was happening … but the light from our bedroom made it difficult to see the street … I put out the light and we were able to see better.” Asked why they didn’t call the police, the wife shrugged and replied: “I don't know.”

“I was tired."

“I went back to bed."

On a personal level, the murder of Kitty Genovese and the callous disregard for her life by her neighbors was devastating and inhuman.

On a national level, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the indiscriminate killing of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers (and rape of women and girls) along with the callous disregard for what is happening there by countries near and far is also devastating and inhuman. The UN says more than 6,000 civilians have died because of Russia’s war with Ukraine. (That number has since then spiked to astronomical levels.)

On a global scale, thanks to all sorts of technological advances, Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine is being witnessed by the same callous, immovable, unconcerned, indifferent neighbors who witnessed Kitty’s murder five decades ago. Their apathetic explanations are identical to those who saw Kitty killed in cold blood.

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was undeclared and unexpected, the subsequent occupation of Crimea and Donbas, and Moscow’s advances westward did not occur without some sort of spy in the sky warnings. Especially in the past several weeks Ukrainian and NATO military and political sources have been daily cautioning that Russia is amassing tens of thousands of soldiers on its border with Ukraine in preparation for a significant escalation of hostilities. Do something before it’s too late, they plead.

Moscow’s occupation of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk has also scared the other Eastern European former captive nations into reviewing its defense capabilities and seeking military help from NATO.

Last month Viktor Muzhenko, Ukraine’s army chief of staff, listed for the first time some of the specific Russian military units fighting in Ukraine alongside Moscow’s terrorists in eastern Ukraine.

“Regular Russian army troops are still in Ukraine,” Muzhenko said for all the world to hear. “We have details of all the Russian units, where they are deployed, their numbers and their weapons.”

Muzhenko named among them the Russian army’s 15th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the 8th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the 331st Airborne Regiment and the 98th Airborne Division.

Just like murdered Russian journalist Boris Nemtsov, the Ukrainian official said Kyiv has proof that Russian regular troops had fought in three clashes in the east in February, including a fierce battle for the railroad town of Debaltseve, which is now controlled by Russian mercenaries.

Russian-backed militants have dramatically also increased their activity in the Donbas conflict zone, head of the Information Resistance group and military blogger Dmytro Tymchuk wrote on his Facebook page. According to Tymchuk, the militants fired artillery and 120mm mortars, and tried to attack the Ukrainian units, including using armored vehicles. A sharp growth of militant activity has been recorded in the Luhansk, Donetsk and in coastal areas, he said.

The Russian terrorists in the Donbas region in early April were to have almost 700 tanks and 1,100 armored combat vehicles, according to the report of deputy commander of the ATO Valentyn Fedichev from the information center of the Donetsk regional military and civil administration in Kramatorsk, reported Express TV.

“According to the Minsk agreements, the 9,000 servicemen of the Russian regular armed forces must leave the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and all military equipment that has been illegally transferred by Russia to the territory of a sovereign state, and this is almost 700 tanks, more than 1,100 armored combat vehicles, nearly 600 artillery systems, more than 380 MLRS and 110 air defense systems, must be withdrawn," Fedichev said.

They didn’t while, according to him, on April 7, 40 items of military equipment, including 10 tanks, arrived in Luhansk. On April 6, two companies of Russian troops arrived in the area of Debaltseve in Donetsk region.

"In [Russia’s] Rostov region training is being conducted on combat operations performance in the city. More than 1,500 troops of the special forces of the Russian Federation Armed Forces are involved in the exercises," Fedichev said.
US military sources have corroborated Ukrainian’s justified fears.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former head of US and NATO forces in Europe, warned at an exclusive briefing with the Atlantic Council that a renewed Russian offensive in Ukraine was imminent and would most probably take place between Orthodox Easter on April 12 and Russia’s celebrations of VE Day on May 8. While both dates have come and gone, Russia’s escalation is still held at bay for reasons which may be simple as the army isn’t ready to attack.

“Ukrainian forces expect attack within the next sixty days,” Clark recently wrote for the Atlantic Council. “This assessment is based on geographic imperatives, the ongoing pattern of Russian activity, and an analysis of Russian actions, statements, and Putin’s psychology to date.”

Clark was joined by the top US commander for NATO who urged that America needs better intelligence on the ground in Ukraine, and added that it appears Russian forces have used a recent lull in fighting to reposition for another offensive.

Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of NATO forces in Europe, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has expressed concern about Russia’s aggression, said the situation in Ukraine is volatile and fragile and urged Congress to bolster U.S. intelligence capabilities to better understand Putin’s intent in the region.

“Russian military operations over the past year in Ukraine, and the region more broadly, have underscored that there are critical gaps in our collection and analysis,” Breedlove said. “Some Russian military exercises have caught us by surprise and our textured feel for Russian involvement on the ground in Ukraine has been quite limited.”

This movement of invaders is obviously directed by Russians, Breedlove assured. “We do see a very distinct Russian set of command and control in the eastern part of Ukraine,” he said. "Command-and-control, air defense, support to artillery, all of these things increased ... making a more coherent, organized force out of the separatists.”

In one 48-hour period in April, as Ukrainian forces faced 20 attacks by Russian-led militants and spotted 30 enemy drones probing their positions, the Frankurter Allgemeine Zeitung quoted an unnamed NATO official saying that Russia has sent additional military manpower and arms to Donbas.

“We have noticed again support for the separatists, with weapons, troops and training. Russia is still sending troops and arms from one side of the open border with Ukraine to the other,” the NATO official told the German news publication.

The press center of Ukraine’s Anti-Terrorist Operation headquarters has been regularly reporting that Russian-backed militants have been violating the terms of the Minsk agreement, attacking Ukrainian forces with weapons they were supposed to have withdrawn from the front line. Russia began violating the truce before the ink dried on the agreements. (Ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya, permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, acerbically said Russia’s promises aren’t worth a New York City pretzel hole.)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reported a sizeable Russian military buildup on the border with Ukraine that he said would enable pro-Moscow separatists to launch a new offensive with little warning. Stoltenberg said Russia has substantially stepped up supplies to the rebels, as well as providing them with advanced training and equipment like drones, despite a cease-fire.

Stoltenberg said the Russian moves undermine the cease-fire declared in eastern Ukraine and violate the Minsk agreements entered into by Moscow. He said more than 1,000 pieces of Russian military equipment have been moved over the past month, including tanks, artillery and air defense units.

Stoltenberg said this “gives reason for great concern” and would enable the separatists to go on the offensive again with little warning.

The list of officials exposing Russia’s impending military escalation against Ukraine includes John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine. He said recent military moves by Russia show that President Putin's “minimal goal is to destabilize the current government” in Ukraine. The maximum goal would probably be to re-subjugate the former captive nations.

Herbst, who now directs the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, said from Kyiv that “Putin is ramping up pressure on Ukraine by adding troops on the eastern border and in Crimea and by increasing the violations across the ceasefire line and in order to do that, he can’t simply sit behind the ceasefire line.  He needs to move forward to cause additional instability in the country.”

Ukraine has repeatedly urged its neighbors and allies to send it weapons and accused rebels of persistent ceasefire violations as NATO warned about an increase in Russian troop movement both near and across the border.

“The Ukrainian army needs weapons to defend Ukraine,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told parliamentarians. “And our western partners must hear: Now the Ukrainian army is struggling not just for itself, but we are fighting for peace and stability in the EU.”

But Ukraine’s nearest neighbors have turned a deaf ear. EU leaders have told Ukraine they are worried about ceasefire violations in the east of the country but will not send armed peacekeepers there. “We can only talk about a civilian mission, not military,” European Council President Donald Tusk said.

President Obama, at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe in Washington, demonstrated understanding the global threat posed by Russia’s belligerence.  Obama said the acts of Russian aggression against Ukraine are a threat to the world that must be confronted in a global context,

“We oppose the Russian aggression against Ukraine, provide assistance to civilians under threat of the Islamic State extremist group, fight against the Ebola virus and promote global health, and now we’re offering assistance to the people of Nepal,” Obama said.
Despite these words and as increased Russian fighting on the ground in eastern Ukraine continues to claim innocent lives and disrupt regional peace and stability, members of the U.S. Congress once again are pressing Obama to request lethal military aid for Ukraine to combat Russian-backed rebels. The president already has ignored a resolution urging lethal US aid for Ukraine that the House passed by 348 to 48 votes. Consequently, the US President joins the neighbors who pulled down the window shades as the knife plunged into the innocent passerby.

“There is no doubt that it is important to provide humanitarian assistance to the population that is affected by the fighting. However, this aid only treats the symptoms of a larger problem,” read the statement by Reps. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Sander Levin (D-MI), and Marcy Kaptur (D-OH). “The Ukrainian government is in dire need of defensive weapons, which are necessary to protect its borders and sovereignty.”

Pro-Russian separatists appear to be making preparations for a fresh offensive in eastern Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told lawmakers. “It does appear that clearly, Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine are preparing for another round of military action that would be inconsistent with the Minsk agreement,” Carter told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.

Ukrainian President Poroshenko said the threat of a large-scale offensive from the side of Russian-backed militants has been growing, and the strength of the enemy’s troops is estimated at 40,000 men, while another 50,000 servicemen are deployed along the border with Ukraine.

Even with this imminent threat, Poroshenko said that Ukrainians ready to defend country and that the morale of the Ukrainian armed forces is currently at its best, as has been the case in recent history.

“We keep getting more evidence and information proving that the aggressor will commence a military offensive in the second half of May. I don’t want to frighten anyone, and you should know that the country is capable of protecting its citizens,” he said.

Poroshenko emphasized that the war will be over when Donbas and Crimea are returned to Ukraine. Nothing more, nothing less. That is the line in the sand, which must be recognized by friends and foes.

In the meantime, Ukrainian servicemen step up the pace of digging trenches on a beach in the port city of Mariupol, about eight miles from Shyrokyne, on the Azov Sea, where the next Russian onslaught is anticipated.

***

The global neighborhood must consider what it will do when they hear: “Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!”… “I'm dying!”

Putin’s Illusions of Victory Parade in a Potemkin Village

Vladimir Putin’s excessive obsession with defeating Ukraine and imprisoning it in his new evil empire has in his mind shattered the boundary between reality and fantasy and opened the way to his own Twilight Zone, Wonder Land and Neverland.

As people – some even in Russia – have observed, he’s crazy.

Or he is composing an elaborate manuscript to deceive and convince his gullible Russian subjects and auslanders that despite evidence to the contrary, Ukraine actually surrendered and Russian won the war it launched on February 24, 2022. You see, Russians, or at least the vast majority of them, religiously believe Putin’s propaganda about beating those infernal Ukrainians because they do not get their news from any other source but the official state TV channels and programs.

Nonetheless, Putin’s three-day-war-with-Ukraine wish list includes appearing in all his grandeur in Kyiv, on Khreshchatyk, reviewing the victorious Russian military machine as it proudly marches along Ukraine’s famous boulevard. And then accepting Ukraine’s surrender instrument that will be signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This is to take place on May 9, which is a grand holiday in Russia, filled with parades and speeches because a day earlier the World War Two allies and Russia accepted Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. Moscow still makes a big deal of this day even though we, in America, hardly pay attention to it. Map 9 is called Victory Day.

Dream on, Vova. Your hope has sunk like the ill-fated Russian navy ship.

But Mad Putin still wants a parade so that he can participate like Hitler and Mussolini did at their assemblies.

According to the video link to a Russian-language YouTube post provided with this blogpost, Putin’s entourage is secretly abuzz building a replica of Kyiv and Khreshchatyk in the Moscow oblast where the parade could be held on May 9, about a month away. This latter-day Potemkin village will include a reviewing stand where the Russian fuhrer will cheer his troops.

But that would only be half of the ruse. What’s a victory parade without soldiers of the defeated nation? Russia’s clothing manufacturers are sewing Ukrainian military uniforms and headgear that will be appropriately worn and torn and donned on faux Ukrainian servicemen captured in battle to give the impression of here are the pathetic losers. The North Vietnamese displayed captured American soldiers for its audience.

The charade will conclude with a surrender ceremony in a room that will look like the Ukrainian President’s office, where an actor resembling Zelenskyy — how ironic, an actor playing an actor turned president — will give Ukraine away to Russia.

And the Russian people who may have been losing faith in their greatness will be imbued with a new dose of fabrications about their lasting supremacy. At the same time the few remaining earthlings who still favor Putin will also be given the opportunity to share in this ersatz joy.

This production will probably be filmed for posterity and submitted for a Russian Oscar in the documentary category. But be careful, Putin, Zelenskyy may appear to punch you in the face.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2uOXLksubkU