Another Commentary Coming from

An American in Ukraine

by Dr. E. C. Olson, Mission Director

A Nation with REAL Election Fraud

 If you think the US has problems with election fraud and voter security, just look at what the residents of four Ukraine regions are facing: Armed Russian soldiers standing at the front door pointing a gun at you as you cast your vote, vote tallies done in secret by Russian military operatives, election results show more votes than voters in several regions, and in general, knowing that this election was a forgone conclusion and the result is that these four regions will soon be stripped from Ukraine and be annexed by Russia via “sham elections”.

Putin flips the scenario and uses a democratically run election against Ukraine and the West. 

“See, these people want to be part of Russia”.

September 30^th Update:  Today Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of the four regions of Ukraine where illegal referendums were voted on this past week.  In taking this predictable action, Putin has basically said to the Ukrainians and their supporters in the West, from this point forward, any attack on Russian forces or assets anywhere in these four regions will be treated by the Russians as direct attacks on Russia itself, therefore calling for the harshest response possible.

This has converted the war to a stand-down, posing the question of who will blink first?  Will the Ukrainians stop attacks on Russian forces in these regions – that’s highly doubtful – which means that the ball will be back in Russia’s court: how will the Russian respond?  This is also where Putin’s previous threats of Russia using a tactical nuclear strike comes into play, as that apparently is among his preferred options.

September 29^th report – In literally a foregone conclusion, unsurprisingly Russia announced today (September 29^th) that Vladimir Putin will hold a ceremony in Moscow tomorrow “formally” adding four Ukrainian provinces to the nation of Russia.  Those four regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (note: during our Mission 1.0 we were in the Kherson oblast/province) – recently held what was universally recognized as “sham elections” where the predominantly Russian-speaking citizens were encouraged and assisted to vote while Ukrainian-speaking residents were intimidated into not voting.

The result was predictable: the Kremlin is reporting that 72%-81% of the residents of these four provinces voted in favor of joining Russia.  The footprint of these four regions amount to approximately 15% of Ukraine overall, and before the Russian invasion approximately four million people lived in these four regions.  In all Putin proposes to raise the Russian flag over 38,600 square miles of Ukraine in what observers are reporting as his official way to elevate the stakes of this war by daring Ukraine and the West to attack what would then be Russian territory, making it the same as if Ukraine launched an attack inside of the current boundaries of Russia.  As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated last Saturday, “Once the Russian flag flies over these areas, they qualify for the same level of protection as any other part of the Russian Federation.  What is particularly disturbed about that announcement is that Lavrov also went on to reiterate that Russia will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if the Ukrainians continue their offensive in any of these four regions.

Not-so-surprisingly, these elections targeted the four regions where Ukraine’s counter-offensive have allowed Ukraine to purge nearly all of the Russian occupiers, and Putin and the Kremlin recognized that if they didn’t act quickly these four provinces would be totally controlled by Ukraine and the Russians would have to mount another major invasion to reclaim them, something that nearly all observers feel is impossible due to the depleted status of the Russian Military’s equipment, troops and morale.      And increasing the fighting like that – which would also result in a lot of new deaths of Russian soldiers (including those conscripted in this latest military draft) would cause Putin even greater problems at home as the Russian people are becoming increasingly intolerant of “Putin’s War”.

Clearly, Putin saw that a bloodless sham election was a much better way to lay claim to these territories, however feeble that hold may be.  What’s also clearer is that no one – no nation outside of Russia and perhaps a couple of their few allies will recognize these elections or the consequential subsequent addition of these provinces to Russia.

It’s likely that whatever public relations or military values that Putin gains as a result of this hollow effort will be short-lived, as there is still so many other very problematic factors opposing Russia’s overall plan: the looming persistent threat of a nuclear attack (or a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant), the very unpopular Russian military draft, Russia now being accused of intentionally sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the increasing rejection of Russian-anything by the West – and then of course, the most consequential factor working against Russia, the actual fighting itself.

Even with some new drafted soldiers entering the combat zone, Russia has yet to successfully defend any previously-held city or territory during this entire Ukrainian counter-offensive.

But without question, Putin’s use of this sham election to lay claim to four Ukrainian provinces, and then to issue the threat of treating any Ukrainian attack on Russian forces anywhere in these provinces as an attack on Russia itself – has resulted in a very high escalation of the war.  Clearly the stakes are now much higher for both Ukraine and Russia – and by extention the US and the rest of the world.

Another Commentary Coming from

An American in Ukraine

by Dr. E. C. Olson, Mission Director

…beginning with the Yalov family, one of more than a thousand “double-orphaned” families, where our dogged persistence overcame a nearly impossible set of circumstances in our four-month search for these five lost siblings, so it was no less than fate that finally brought us together in Drohobych.

Finally, after four months, one week and two days, I fulfilled

a promise I made to their Mother’s spirit

Back in March, little did I know that the video news report that I was watching would change my life as no other single trigger ever had, for in that three-minute CNN video, I witnessed how one Ukrainian family would come to characterize those Ukrainians most impacted by the unthinkable horrors caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine – and right then and there I decided that I could not just look away from this awful tragedy – neither of the tragedies – the war itself or its impact on this one family and others like them.

To understand the profound significance of this, please watch this video first:

Such was the birth of our Mission, and while I didn’t yet know how we were going to reach the thousands of families torn about by this brutal war, I decided that if I could do nothing else for the Ukrainians, I would at least try to save this one fractured family.  Little did I know that this mission within a mission would take four months and traveling halfway around the world to accomplish, but when I finally met up with Viacheslav Yalov in Drohobych…

…it was as if a dream had come true.

Our smiling faces in this photo are a fitting spoiler for the end results of our four-month search that ensued after I first watched Viacheslav’s heart-wrenching video.

Sadly, the tragic beginning to their story is but one of thousands like it, as the Russians have made theirs a mission of terror, and even more tragically, most of those impacted Ukrainian families will not have this same happy ending.

For those of you who cannot view this video, here’s an abridged version of their story:  With their Father killed in the opening weeks of the War, Slava’s mother did her best to take care of him and his four siblings in their home in the far southeastern region of Ukraine.  One day, Slava and his mother left in search of food and other aid supplies when a Russian artillery attack ensued which fatally injured Slava’s mother, and hours later, she died in his arms.

Since the Russian attack was still ongoing, Slava could only bury his mother in a shallow, makeshift grave (in what ironically was a hole left by an artillery explosion), then he had to go home and explain to his siblings what had happened.

You really owe it to yourself to watch this video, because there you’ll see the raw, organic emotions that were overwhelming Slava as he re-told their story.

With no living relatives and all their friends either dead or being refugees living elsewhere, Slava had to borrow money to move his family to a safer area, and the government provided them with a small, one-bedroom flat in Drohobych, where we found them.

The Yalov Family’s Trail of Tears

With both of their parents dead, their home destroyed and with their village in the path of the advancing Russian army, Slava made the decision to lead his family to somewhere safer to live.  That trek took them more than 700 miles to Drohobych, where we met up with them.

It was one part of this video in particular which

spoke to me the loudest – in that excerpt, Viacheslav talked about his belief that his mother’s spirit was always nearby, “…helping me, somehow”.

Right then and there I was so moved by what I was watching that I established our Mission and committed it to be that “somehow”, because halfway around the world I too felt her presence, and it was this spiritual connection that guided me all the way to Drohobych.

Last March I promised Viacheslav’s mother’s spirit that I would go find her children and make sure that they would be taken care of and have a life like what she had always envisioned for them.

But one would think – I sure did – that after traveling halfway around the world and spending four months trying to find this splintered family – that when I finally met up with them in Drohobych I thought that all the challenges were behind me.  But this would not be, and in discovering this I learned an important lesson about the Ukrainian people as a whole and the plight of these Ukrainian double orphans in particular.

When Markiian my interpreter and I first met Viacheslav and offered our aid, he was at first hesitant, even going so far as asking me what I would get out of this, what I expected in return for helping him.  This truly stunned me as I was totally unprepared for being asked what the motive behind my charitable offer was or being asked what I was getting out of it.

Later that evening, when we re-joined our other Mission Team Members, we discussed Viacheslav’s initial reluctance, and there I was able to understand that the Ukrainian people are above all else complex, but front and center they are a very proud people.

But pride alone was not what I felt the most in thinking back to what Slava said, so in probing deeper, I discovered that his questioning my motives for helping him and his family was more rooted in the dark side of this saga of Ukraine’s “internal refugees”, where a few evil Ukrainians take advantage of traumatized children.  Without someone to look after them and without any guidance, protection or money, apparently some people who had previously approached Slava with promises of assistance were for want of a better term: predators.

But as Anatoly, the eldest (and perhaps wisest) of our Ukrainian Team Members added, “what we are seeing is more likely to be evidence of something deeper, something ingrained in our Ukrainian culture.  I think what we are seeing is a repercussion of our nation being under the Russian’s thumb – and before that, under the Soviet Union’s thumb – for so long.  There in that larger context one finds that Russia and before it the Soviet Union never gave Ukrainians anything of value without demanding something in return, a barter decidedly one-sided where the scales were always tipped in favor of the Russians”.

Fortunately, in our entire time in Ukraine this was the only time we encountered this dark side of the saga of Ukraine’s “internal refugees”.  And whether Slava responded the way he did because of these or any number of other reasons, clearly by default he was already assuming at least part of the parental role he will be called upon countless times in the future to play – to protect his vulnerable family from those trying to take advantage of them.

But apparently my story and especially the lengths I went to in finding him allowed a small crack to form in his wall of self-defense.  The more we talked, the more the crack grew wider…albeit slowly.

But I recall the one instance when that crack widened enough to let me inside of his protective fortress:  during the first hour after we met, I saw where no amount of talking had thawed his defensive posture, so I turned to another approach where I first showed him pictures of my own (grown) children, and then I showed him the pictures of my five grandchildren, the youngest of which is about the same age as his youngest sister, Olivia, and they looked very similar – and judging from his slowly growing smile, he saw that too.

Then, in what would otherwise just be small informal gesture, when I posed a question, again using his full first name, “Viacheslav”, he politely interrupted me and said, “You can call me Slava”.  (Markiian, my interpreter, later told me that Slava is a nickname for Viacheslav, but it means even more in this context, it was another sign of welcome into his personal world.)

Everything changed after that.  The smile that I had seen none of in our first hour together was now a permanent fixture on his face, and short answers grew to become long narratives, where he began to me all about things in his world.  Front and center of Slava’s life was clearly his family.  So here is what is at the heart of Slava’s world – his family – the family that we are now helping – from left to right, Nicole, Slava, Olivia, Timur and Danielo.

Perhaps it was because my youngest granddaughter looks very similar to Slava’s youngest sibling, but regardless, Olivia immediately won over my heart…

…and so, if there ever is a poster child for our Ukraine Mission, for me this is that child – and how appropriate, seeing as saving she and her family were the reason why I started this Mission in the first place.

But this beautiful, little, innocent girl also serves as a grim reminder that there are thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian children who have shared the same fate as Olivia.  According to latest estimates coming from the Ukrainian government, currently there are more than forty-thousand children who have been orphaned by the war.

Forty thousand.  That’s nearly ten thousand a month, which makes for this shocking statistic:

On average, every day in Ukraine more than 300 Ukrainian children are left orphaned by the war.

Here’s another similar story that will tear your heart apart:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-little-girls-orphaned-by-ukraines-war

Equally appalling is the fact that since the late-February Russian invasion, an additional ten thousand Ukrainian children have been taken against their will – that is, kidnapped and taken to Russia and put in orphanages there.

Here is their story:

https//euromadienpress.com/2022/08/15russian-forces-have-seized-and-taken-to-russia-5100-ukrainian-orphans-hereasymchuk-says/

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/07/20/ukraine-could-return-only-46-children-out-of-thousands-who-were-forcibly-deported-to-russia/

Fortunately, there are a few very reputable organizations that are tending to this grave problem, including these two:

www.ukraineorphans.org

www.ukraineorphans.org

Since I returned from Ukraine I have been keeping in touch with Slava as much as possible – which is a challenge into itself, beginning with the fact that Slava doesn’t speak (or write) English, and I don’t speak/write Ukrainian, along with the fact that the only reliable medium for communicating is by WhatsApp (internet connection in Drohobych and the majority of rural Ukraine is non-existent, same for email access, and there is no regular mail service or even FedEx/UPS)…so just to give you an idea as to what it takes to simply converse with Slava:

• Imagine needing to communicate very personal, heartfelt thoughts (and condolences) to a young man who six months ago was a relatively carefree teenager but today finds himself thrust into the role of both parents, in tending to all of the needs of his four brothers and sisters,
• and how you, as someone totally unknown, someone truly foreign to him would like to respectfully offer your help without insulting his pride and despite his serious reservations about taking gifts from strangers,
• and having to communicate this by writing, not talking, and in an entirely different dialect, an entirely, truly foreign language, and doing so where you cannot see him and vice versa, and you can’t hear him and vice versa, and you can only read what he has typed and vice versa.

Yes, it is difficult, but I am so motivated to help Slava’s family that none of this has lessened my zeal or my persistence.  Not one bit.  In the most recent of our weekly “WhatsApp messages”, Slava has explained to me how they had been living off donations as he struggles to juggle “parenting” and trying to find a job with a compatible work schedule so that he can be there when Nicole, Timur and Olivia finish school for the day.  Like he said to me in his last letter: “I need to find out how to live all over again, because all I know is how a teenager lives his life, and now I need to learn how a parent lives his life.”

I in-turn have also told him that I personally, along with some other Mission donors would like to pay for them moving into a home or apartment that better suits a family of five (the only place the Ukrainian government could find for them is a one-bedroom apartment).  I have also offered to buy them a couple computers, and to buy Slava a motor-scooter so that he can better get to and from work, and I offered to pay for a tutor to help Nicole and Timur in particular.

In all of this, we cannot forget that Slava and his entire family had nothing except for the clothes on their backs when they fled their eastern Ukraine home last March – all of their belongings, everything from their toothbrushes to their family heirlooms were either destroyed by Russia’s persistent rocket, artillery and missile attacks, or simply left behind because they could only keep what they could carry.

So ANYTHING that we can provide them, any and all will be meeting vital needs and greatly appreciated.

In what I can only see as a furthering of our connection, in his last letter Slava talked about his and his family’s future, and how he would like to someday, somehow (there’s that word again) be able to go to college in Kyiv, but in telling me that he ended the sentence with, “…but I don’t even know how to get started on that.”

So again I assured Slava that he could count on myself and our Mission supporters to help him figure that out, and that we would work closely with him to lay out the goals for his family and then figure out how to accomplish them.  Please stay tuned and keep an eye out for my continued reporting on the fate of Slava and his wonderful family.

In closing I want to say that I am so proud of our Mission for accomplishing this, and in proving the near limitless Power of One, how when one person puts his mind to something can achieve incredible results.  And in Slava, we have found another person who epitomizes The Power of One.

Here you are looking at a hero of mine, a courageous young man who epitomizes The Power of One.

It is nearly impossible to fully appreciate all that he has accomplished in just the past four months, but nonetheless, as competent as he is, he still needs our support.

In that respect, just think – if he was able to accomplish what he did with nothing, just think what we can accomplish with our support.

I personally, along with all our Mission supporters are honored and humbled to know Slava, and we are blessed to be in this position of assisting him and his family start their lives anew while honoring the past.

In helping him as we are, I feel that I have at least initially fulfilled the promise that I made to his Mother’s spirit back in March, to make sure that her children will be loved and taken care of just as she would if she were still alive.

Throughout this ordeal, Slava and I repeatedly called-upon her to be our higher power and guide us in the right direction – and seeing what we have been able to accomplish, it is clear that she has done all that and much, much more.

Another Commentary Coming from

An American in Ukraine

by Dr. E. C. Olson, Mission Director

Part 2: The U.S. announces the single largest military aid package yet for Ukraine – the August 8th $1 billion-dollar military aid package

But is it what the Ukrainians need?  And is it helping the Ukrainians on the battlefields?  We’ll answer that

 Also announced by the U.S.: a $4.5 billion-dollars in budgetary support for the Ukrainian government

 Will this comprehensive aid package make a

difference in Ukraine’s ultimate destiny?

We’ll examine that too

Ever since the Russian invasion began, it was abundantly clear that Russia’s military might was so superior to the Ukrainians that all parties knew that if Ukraine had any chance of avoiding a quick defeat (much less a stalemate or especially a victory on the battlefield) they would have to receive significant, in fact truly unprecedented military assistance from any and all potential allies.

Given that Ukraine was not yet a member of NATO, and Poland and other neighboring NATO nations would face similar long odds if they provided troops to fight the Russians, it became clear that any military assistance coming from Europe would not be in the form of troops (or planes or ships or submarines), but instead their help would be in terms of military aid equipment and supplies.

In making the same appeal to the United States, Ukraine received the same answer: Washington was also concerned, because as they saw it sending troops to Ukraine would be violently opposed by Russia, stoking fear of a nuclear response by Putin.  So here too, any military assistance coming from the U.S. would also have to be in the form of military aid equipment and supplies.

Fast-forward to today – early August – where we see that since early-March, the U.S. has sent a total of now 18 military aid packages to Ukraine (representing more than $10 billion worth of equipment and supplies) in leading the West’s response to Ukraine’s global appeal for military assistance.  Throughout this entire history of military aid, the burning question in America’s collective mind was and is, “is this aid meeting the real needs of the Ukrainian military?”, and perhaps more importantly, “is it making a difference on the battlefield, in other words, is it helping Ukraine prevail in the war?”

If one looks at either the sheer magnitude of this latest U.S. aid package or its composition, they would be hard pressed to come up with any other answer to that first question except for a resounding, categorical “yes!”

Apparently, we weren’t the only people asking Ukrainian soldiers about the specific nature of their real actual military aid needs because the latest U.S. aid package literally has something for everyone, beginning with the single most universally expressed needed weapon, the highly coveted HIMARS, which stands for “High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems”.  These nimble, long-range missile systems have been credited with allowing Ukraine to effectively strike against Russia’s larger military from far behind enemy lines.

The addition of these very tactical weapons has allowed Ukraine to shift to a more comprehensive battle plan that will be far more effective than the more-primitive plans Ukraine was forced to use when they only had short-range weapons at their disposal.  Already this increased ability has been tapped in scoring repeated battlefield victories in the past several weeks, with the Ukrainians now being able to destroy and disrupt Russia’s supply chain that moves ammunition, fuel, and other supplies from Russian rear guard supply depots to their front lines.  By cutting-off or eliminating these supply depots, the Ukrainians are now forcing Russia to pull troops off the front lines, which in many areas also includes forcing Russian troops to de-occupy villages that were costly to conquer in the first place.

Our Mission experienced that first-hand a few weeks ago as we delivered aid to those front-line Ukrainian villages and military camps, most of which had been very recently de-occupied, including two villages in particular that we delivered aid to, where Russian soldiers left the village mere hours before we arrived.

One way of looking at this scenario is that it is a good example how Americans played significant roles in bookending this action:  first, the military aid provided by the American government allowed these villages to be militarily liberated after more than month of brutal Russian occupation, then we American missionaries stepped in and provide much-needed humanitarian aid to the villagers emerging after the Russian de-occupation.

When I look at the description of the military aid that the US is sending Ukraine in this latest August 8th package, I see a lot of very familiar weapons and other equipment – familiar because when I was asking the solders on the front lines what specific types of US military aid are they in greatest need of – they rattled off the vast majority of the items on this list, most that would end up in their hands, while others were for arming their artillery support units that are 10-plus miles off the front lines.

Being the singular topic of this article, I will repeat my observation:  every single item included in this latest US military aid shipment was mentioned at least one or more times during my questioning of Ukrainian front-line soldiers AND in the recommendations that Ukraine’s military leaders issued very recently – which clearly means that Washington is paying close attention to the needs of the Ukrainian military (who apparently are now speaking with one voice in expressing their most vitally-needed aid).

I also want to include in this discussion another related observation, which too is the focus of this article, which asks the billion-dollar question of, “is this now targeted aid making a difference on the battlefield”, and in the largest context, “is it helping the Ukrainians defeat the Russians in the war”?

In answering this pair of questions, I first want to qualify my response by saying that the only source of information I have on the difference-making on the battlefield and Ukraine’s overall prospects for winning the war comes from two sources (and specifically not coming from another source in particular).  My two sources are led-off first by the media coverage of the war, specifically the information coming from the most un-biased of these media outlets (and decidedly not coming from either the Ukrainian or Russian governments).  And my second source is collectively the soldiers that I have spoken to on the front-lines, specifically the soldiers manning the western or southern terminus of the front-lines near Mykoliav.

What makes the latter all the more important is because during our time in Ukraine (mid-to-late-July), they were the ones responsible for the greatest momentum shift in favor of the Ukrainians since the initial Russian invasion in late-February was repulsed.  Here is a particularly appropriate map revealing these very recent battlefield results.

Recent (late July–early August) action along the western/southern terminus of the front lines, the site of our recent Mission aid deliveries

Battlefield results made possible in-part by the Ukrainians being armed with advance weaponry from the US in recent US military aid packages.

Here in the critically important southern theater (important because it is so close to Crimea, which the Russians illegally annexed in 2014) is where US aid is helping to produce the most victories since the war began, by forcing Russian forces to retreat from the front lines.

In summarizing our answers to the pivotable questions examined in this article, more conclusively than ever before, it now appears as if America’s military aid packages for Ukraine are exactly what the entire Ukrainian military force needs the most, and most importantly, we now have evidence that this advanced, targeted aid is turning the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor by providing them new capacities to strike both more Russian targets and especially the Russians military supply centers that are far behind the front lines, where they are now no longer safe from Ukrainian attacks.

I should also point out that it isn’t as if this new aid package, or even the combination of the last several military aid packages instantaneously flipped the war in Ukraine’s favor – that it could also be the result of several months of skilled use of these US-supplied weapons, including those that came from the very earliest aid packages.  This reasoning is substantiated in-part by looking at what equipment has been included in the more than $10 billion in military aid that the US has given Ukraine since the war started, as seen here:

Also announced yesterday, Monday August 8^th, only this time by the U.S. Treasury Department, was an additional $4.5 billion in aid to the government of Ukraine to help keep the government afloat as it seeks to withstand a large-scale, nation-wide Russian military campaign that now is approaching its sixth month.  The Treasury will administer the funds along with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the money will go for essential services like paying government salaries, keeping hospitals and schools operating, and distributing humanitarian supplies.

The department said there were mechanisms in place to make sure that the funding, which was approved by Congress, would be used only for its intended purposes.

“Robust safeguards put in place by the World Bank, coupled with U.S.-funded, expert third-party oversight embedded within the Ukrainian government, ensure accountability and transparency in the use of these funds,” the Treasury said in a statement.

The $4.5 billion represents the fifth disbursement from the U.S. directly to the Ukrainian government budget. The U.S. sent $1 billion through the World Bank in April and May, $1.3 billion in June, and another $1.7 billion in July.

The Treasury is also releasing $335 million to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to help with Ukraine’s energy and food security as part of the country’s efforts to rebuild from the war.  The money will go to supporting infrastructure in transport and logistics as well as some direct financing for the agricultural sector and exporters. It will also go to cities and towns that are dealing with issues related to internally displaced persons and other vulnerable populations.

Why should America give this much money and aid to Ukraine

To remind ourselves of the logic of spending this significant amount of money in support of Ukraine’s effort to repel Russian expansionism – in other words, to arm ourselves (we supporters of providing aid to Ukraine) for the backlash we might hear over America donating such a large sum of American dollars at a time when our own nation is battling inflation and dealing with our own crises.

In doing this I don’t want to overstate the opposition to providing more aid for Ukraine, as a very recent poll indicated that 73% of Americans support providing aid to Ukraine – in geopolitical polls, that represents nearly a landslide of support for Ukraine.

Or as stated in the obverse, only 27%, or approximately 1 in 4 America opposes sending more aid to Ukraine.    But as we have witnessed in recent times as other political vocal minorities have received a disproportional amount of recognition in the media, we need to be forewarned about that happening here.

In providing this information I’m also drawing the distinction here between my previously stated personal reasons why I support Ukraine and why I am going to Ukraine, with what I am discussing here, which are the geopolitical reasons why the American government should continue to support Ukraine.

Admittedly, some of these reasons overlap, being both personal and geopolitical reasons why America should support Ukraine, such as where Russia is seen as the bully of Eastern Europe, subjugating a nation being bullied: Ukraine.  Or where Russia is characterized as being Evil, while in this stark dichotomy, Ukraine represents Good.

But for the most part these distinctions are easy to see – for example in the geopolitical sense, the most accurate observation is that Ukraine is merely a proxy for “the West” in general, and Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and other vulnerable NATO nations in particular.  In this reasoning, we see Ukraine as nothing more than the first nation targeted for occupation and ultimately conversion back to a dictatorial communist nation by Russia – and having been chosen mostly for logistical reasons (i.e., beginning with Ukraine bordering Russia, which makes transport of military troops and equipment that much easier than say if Russia were to invade Hungary or Poland).

This analogy always produces the common talking point of “the West is supporting Ukraine, which hopefully results in Russia’s defeat and puting an end to Russia expansionism, so that the West and NATO nations don’t have to next defend Poland, Slovakia or Hungary or any other Eastern European NATO nation”.  Distilling that down to an even more common refrain sees this as “fight Russia now in Ukraine or fight them later in Poland”, or even more basal, “pay me now or pay me later”.

Another primary reason to support Ukraine in its war against Russia is that Russia’s invasion represents an affront to the principles of modern international law, which prohibits the forcible alteration or conquest of territories. These principles — first agreed on by Winston Churchill and FDR in the 1941 Atlantic Charter, and then codified in the UN Charter — are crucial to global stability and human rights.  If Russia or any nation is allowed to violate them freely, then other, potentially aggressive nations will perceive no limit to their own ambitions.  Expansionist countries that come to mind (and their most likely target) include China (Taiwan), North Korea (South Korea) and possibly Iran (Israel).

This translates into a more common refrain of “if we let one aggressive communist dictatorship take over a free and open democracy against their will without any globally enforced penalty or retribution, then all other aggressive communist dictatorships will see that as a green light to their expansionist agenda”.

There are many other reasons why supporting Ukraine is important – these are just a few – but this also doesn’t even begin to touch on the reasons to support Ukraine that have nothing to do with geopolitical affairs but instead something much more…well, human, and that is opposing Russia for the openly criminal acts that it is conducting, individually more than 40,000 individual acts of criminal violence thus far since the war began.  Cumulatively this equates to genocide being committed against the Ukrainian people, so in that sense we need to continue to support Ukraine so that Russia is held fully accountable for all of the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity that it is committing in engaging in full-on genocide on the Ukrainian people.

Thusly, for many Americans, they view Russia as they did “The Mob” during its hey-day in the 1920’s-30’s, when it openly committed one atrocity after another on public streets with impunity and without retribution.  That “war against crime” required a similar dramatic response, where the FBI provided what could be seen as military aid to local law enforcement agencies to defeat their common enemy.

I’ll end this discussion here because devoting any more attention to “the twenty-seven-percenters” who oppose further aid to Ukraine would make me guilty of the one thing I forewarned in saying earlier that too often in America political vocal minorities have received a disproportional amount of recognition in the media, this giving the allusion that they represent more Americans than they really do.

In closing, I will return to the headlines of this article and re-state the conclusions alluded to there.  First, this week the United States released a $1 billion military and humanitarian aid package to Ukraine, the largest to-date, which begs several important questions, leading with, “is this aid specifically what the Ukrainians need the most?  Based on what I learned from Ukrainian front-line soldiers and top military leaders, the answer is an unequivocal “YES!”

Facts supporting this conclusion are many, headed by the fact that the package included the most-needed weaponry – HIMARS, NASAMs and other long-range artillery weapons and ammunition, along with thousands of short-range weapons and ammunition like the AT4 (the Blue Dogs covet their one AT4 and its re-usable brother, the “Carl Gustav 84mm shoulder fire rocket launcher”), and also vitally needed were the 50 armored medical vehicles provided by the aid package from America.

Second comes the vital question of, “is this aid, specifically the military aid, making a difference on the battlefield?”, in other words, “is this military equipment helping the Ukrainians to actually defeat the Russians in battle” – and there too, as evidenced by what the soldiers and top military brass are telling us, and by the war’s individual battlefield status reports, the pervasive answer is another emphatic “YES!”.

Factually supporting this conclusion begins with the emphatic declarations of such by the Ukraine soldiers on the front lines, who told me rather convincingly that over the past month, the military equipment included in the most recent aid packages were absolutely instrumental in them pushing Russian forces off their front line positions and into retreat mode, which allowed Ukrainian forces to liberate dozens of small villages which were under Russian occupation for more than a month.

What allowed for this fungible positioning along the front lines was the fact that Ukraine relied almost entirely on the new long-range weapons included in these aid packages to destroy supply depots and rear-guard bases that all support the Russian soldiers on the front lines.  By destroying these depots and supply lines from a distance (while incurring few or no Ukrainian losses in the process), the Ukrainians were able to force Russian forces to retreat once they ran out of ammunition, fuel and food.

Equally as important, due to the tragic loss of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers due to not getting them to Field Hospitals before they bled-out or otherwise succumbed to their injuries or before getting adequate medical treatment, the new aid package includes 50 armored wounded warrior transport vehicles.  On a much smaller scale but reflecting this same vital need, our adopted Field Hospital informed us that they were losing too many soldiers because they couldn’t get needed medical treatment in time to save them, but in their specific location they needed small boats to transport the wounded because the Russians had destroyed all of the bridges and roads spanning the many rivers that dissect this portion of the front lines.  As you read in our other current report, we were able to buy and deliver three such rescue boats to our Field Hospital two days ago.

Third, and returning again to the headlines, accompanying this week’s military aid package was $4.5 billion in support of the Ukrainian government and their efforts to manage the country and provide for its fifteen million internally displaced citizens with the war now entering its sixth month.  Again that poses the question of “is this what the Ukrainians need and is it making a difference in their lives?”  Seeing as the money will go for essential services like paying government salaries, keeping hospitals and schools operating, and distributing humanitarian supplies – then this becomes the clearest example yet of American funding directly benefitting the Ukrainian people.

For those of you who have been regular readers of my previous articles, you will see – as I now feel – that finally it seems as if the American military aid is much more targeted in meeting Ukraine’s actual military needs, as opposed to my earlier criticism where it seemed to me that in previous military aid packages, the US was merely emptying our military equipment and supply depots of old and outdated weapons and ammunition.  And as I also previously stated, we are finally seeing America overcome its paranoia over sending long-range weapons to Ukraine out of a misplaced fear that Ukraine’s will preemptively invite WWIII by using these American long range weapons to attack Moscow and other marquis Russian targets.

Finally, I will point to the status of the overall war over the last thirty days to reinforce my claim that by finally getting the aid right, America is now fully enabling Ukraine to do what it does best, which is to valiantly protect its motherland and force the Russians to persistently retreat despite their far superior manpower.  And as a result of America’s stepped-up military aid, gone now is Russia’s dominance in firepower and equipment; with the new long and short range weaponry included in this latest aid package, Ukrainians now posses an arsenal nearly equivalent to Russia’s, there again enabling the Ukrainians to show the world – especially Russian citizens back home – that with equal firepower, the advantage swings to the Ukrainians simply because they are better fighters than the Russians.

So for all those reasons and more, for the first time since the war began, I can honestly say that I now see a clear (but difficult nonetheless) path to total victory for the Ukrainians, and a total victory that now includes reclaiming Crimea, which the Russians illegally took back in 2014.

For me, this latest military aid package has made this the tipping point in the war – all it took was for America to open-up its entire warehouse of military equipment and supplies and to shed its fears of this aid increasing the likelihood of a global war.  With those now clearly in the rear-view mirror, despite the fact that Russia still has a 10-to-1 advantage in total number of solders, by now arming the Ukrainians with military equipment equal to the Russians, I see the outcome of the war resting squarely on one factor: the will of the Ukrainian people, especially their military.

And from what I have personally witnessed firsthand, there the Ukrainians excel, in fact I believe that not just are the Ukrainian people the most proud, resilient and determined people as I have ever seen, but their soldiers are amongst the world’s most skilled and the most courageous of warriors anywhere – so if one has to put the fate of Ukraine in the hands of those amazing people, I can think of no better place for that fate to be determined.

Slava Ukraini!

Another Commentary Coming from

An American in Ukraine

by Dr. E. C. Olson, Mission Director

Far-Right Republicans are again throwing shade on NATO and Ukraine aid – handing the Russians yet another victory on the global messaging front

Far-right Congressmen, like Senators Hawley and Paul, are once again playing right into the hands of Russian cyber-warfare agents – which begs the question of “why?”

In any other decade, Republicans aligning themselves with Russian propogandists would prompt outrage, recalls and the launch of campaigns to elect “less-communist-leaning” replacements in Congress. But not here and now, so the question remains: Why?

Why isn’t the Republican Party leaning on their members to stop supporting Russia. Why aren’t voters in Missouri and Kentucky demanding that their Senators stop enabling Russian expansionism and brutal genocide? Why isn’t the media focusing attention on either the sinful act itself, supporting Russia at the expense of Ukraine, and/or why isn’t the media placing more attention on this spectacle of Republican support for Russia brutal aggression when for the sixty-plus years prior, the Republican Party has always led the opposition to Russia and their predatorial acts?

Much to Vladimir Putin’s satisfaction, the latest example of American politicians playing right into the hands of Russian cyber-warfare agents was the August 3rd vote seeking approval of Finland and Sweden joining NATO. After weeks of planting seeds in social media, chat rooms and other online forums, Russian cyber-warfare agents have apparently scored another victory as Josh Hawley (R-MO) rather visibly cast the lone “no” vote in that 95-1 vote for approval of NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, and while the decision was an extremely lop-sided “yes”, who’s actually cheering this renegade act?

None other than Vladimir Putin and the Russian military, who of course would oppose any expansion of NATO membership, especially this one which significantly strengthens NATO northeastern flanks?

Worrying about a renegade extremist in Congress who is isolated by his own peers is generally something not worth worrying about, but in this case for me it is more of a concern that pro-Russian political sound bites and fabricated anti-Ukraine statements and false facts are finding support among the more powerful of America’s two political parties. There, with more votes forthcoming to grant Ukraine more military aid, we will again see Republicans eating their own, much as what happened two months ago when Senator Ted Cruz got ambushed at a press conference when he spoke in favor of providing Ukraine more aid.

There I see my greatest concern playing itself out in real time, where this pro-Russia positioning will bleed into not just straightforward votes considering more aid to Ukraine, but in every related matter that comes before Congress, such as this vote to approve Finland and Sweden’s NATO application. Before long, the seeds represented by Hawley (and Rand Paul’s) categorical opposition to helping Ukraine will begin to sprout in the form of other Republicans joining their pro-Russia platform on a wide range of issues that impact Ukraine’s ability to retain their free and open democracy.

As a former Republican, I am reminded of my age every time I react with outrage every time another pro-Russia position is taken by US Congressmen and women. It could be – as some have suggested – that I am just living in the past because throughout my entire adult life, NEVER would the words “Republican” and “supporting a pro-Russia…” (anything) appear in the same sentence. Now it is almost becoming routine.

At this juncture I need to be abundantly clear: me taking this position is not at all related to my own personal position on the political spectrum, it’s not me lashing out at the Trumpism that has consumed my former party – instead, this is all about my unabated support of Ukraine…well that and my staunch opposition to Russia’s brutal expansionism. You see, I’m a black-and-white kind of person. I take things on face value, and I find myself wishing that American politicians would practice my own personal coda of, “I say what I mean, and I mean what I say!”

So for me, the Senate vote to approve Finland and Sweden’s application to NATO was all about… just that! Is it in America’s best interests to allow NATO to expand by adding these two very strategically positioned countries? As hard as I try, I simply cannot find any over-riding reason why America would oppose that. None at all.

Which is probably the same conclusion reached by Senators Hawley or Paul, if and only if you caught them in a rare private minute of honesty. There’s no question that a stronger NATO makes for a more secure America. None.

Which tells me that Hawley is tying this particular Finland-Sweden vote to other larger and more important (in his mind) matter. This is tragic because of the cost of that lone “no” vote in terms of political impact in the media (by handing Hawley the invaluable gift of front-page headlines to opine on his pro-Russia position) – or, at the very least it has other Congressmen (mostly Republicans) questioning their support for Ukraine. We all know that courage is non-existent in Congressional politics, so the relief that Hawley’s vote gave other far-right-leaning Republicans is the precedence that he set, and the other Republicans now can take cover behind that…

…which is how cancer grows – by slowly and subtly spreading to other cells, in this case, to other Congressmen and to other vulnerable issues.

And none of this makes any sense to me – are we not as a country categorically opposed to Russia’s brutal expansionism, are we not a people who cannot tolerate genocide of any kind, are we not a global power that seeks more peace around the world and not more deadly conflicts?

Which brings us full circle back to our Mission. Why is this matter important to us – which is this outrage something that we should promulgate?

The way I see this is in the obverse: why wouldn’t we be outraged by any American politician gaining traction for repeated pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine positioning?!

I think why this strikes me so hard is because I was able to witness firsthand what constitutes this generic Russian expansionism and this specific form of genocide that the Russians are bringing down on the Ukrainian people. I have personally, literally looked into the eyes (and heart and minds) of the everyday Ukrainians who are paying the ultimate price for America and Russia’s global game of chess.

Through heaving sobs I have personally heard Ukrainian women tell me that they are among the dozens of not hundreds of women in these front line villages who have experienced Russia’s brutal pattern of genocide – where her husband had been killed fighting on the front lines, where her elderly father was handcuffed, tortured and then shot in the back of the head by the Russian invaders, where she herself was raped repeatedly by Russian soldiers and where her eleven year old daughter was kidnapped and presumably sent to Russia to live out the rest of her life.

These are the costs of supporting Russia while not supporting Ukraine.

This represents my personal scorecard when it comes to taking sides on this or any geopolitical matter. If you support Russia in any manner, you are not just approving of the Russian behavior illuminated by that matter, you are promoting it, you are specifically allowing this genocide to continue day-in and day-out, you are refusing to hold any war criminal responsible for these horrific crimes – – and you are literally turning your back on all of eastern Europe, those countries that will next feel the onslaught of Russian expansionism into their homeland.

By not helping to stop Russia’s expansion here in Ukraine, you are indirectly giving your tacit approval to Russia for next invading Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, maybe even the Czech Republic.

To put another name or identity to Russia’s expansionism, nearly everyone would agree that two other primary ways to do that is to characterize this as a democracy versus a tyrannical dictatorship, and as communism versus capitalism – so when taken together, in this instance we are distinguishing between our support for a free and open democratic society that practices capitalism (obviously Ukraine), versus a tyrannical dictatorship brutally overseeing a communistic political and economic system (obviously Russia).

So here too I use a simple straightforward black-and-white scorecard: for every action, such as providing more military aid to Ukraine, a check goes in one of two boxes in deciding “who wins?” The action will either support a democracy practicing capitalism, or a tyrannical communist nation. It’s that simple.

I will again relate this to our Mission by boiling this down to the most salient facts and conclusions. In the broadest examination possible, let’s look again at our Mission mantra: “To provide the most-needed aid to the neediest of Ukrainians”.

In that broadest view I would argue that on August 3rd, 2022, the “Ukrainians greatest need” was a “yes” vote in favor of admitting Finland and Sweden into NATO.

If you dig deeper into the history of our Mission, there you find yourself asking, “What caused the creation of our Mission?” In answering that I will share with you my own linear, binary decision-making process:

First, against the will of the Ukrainian people, Ukraine was being invaded by Russia with the clear intent to take control of their government and their people by force, to depose their freely elected leaders and replace them with Russian autocrats with a sworn steadfast loyalty to Vladimir Putin and to institute their classless communist society and economic system and displacing Ukraine’s free and open democracy and capitalist economy.

Therefore, in my binary decision-making, I voted to support one side: defending another democracy and stopping the spread of communism, in giving my support to Ukraine.

Second, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not at all conform to any previous military war rules of engagement or treatment of civilians, in fact so extreme (and openly extreme) was Russia’s mistreatment of Ukrainian civilians that today a better description fits what Russia is really doing…

…Russia’s real intent was and is to first and foremost conduct a brutal comprehensive campaign of institutional genocide against the Ukrainian people, with the actual war being an afterthought.

Evidence of that could not be any clearer than how Putin has labeled this war – specifically he is NOT considering this as a war, instead it’s a “military action” he argued, as if not calling it a “war” gave him a free pass to side-step the universal rules of war-time engagement and how civilians are shielded from the worst of the war’s impacts.

Following my own linear, binary decision-making process, the next straightforward question needing an answer is a “yes” or “no” in prohibiting any acts of genocide from continuing. So again in picking sides, the vote would be either in support of Russia continuing their genocide against the Ukrainian people, or siding with the Ukrainians in demanding a stop to any and all genocide.

So again my binary decision-making voted in favor of stopping this reprehensible genocide and again supporting Ukraine.

If needed, I could continue further down this linear, binary decision-making path, but already it is clear to see that all further analyses would merely repeat this “Good versus Evil” dichotomy, where continually my personal support is squarely behind the Ukrainian people.

In closing, I once again see the actions of Hawley, Paul and other extreme-right Republicans in the context of our Mission. While in Ukraine, we saw – I personally witnessed the devastating effects of Russia’s brutal scorched-Earth approach to their brand of war, and I personally felt the anguish, pain, shame and grief that the Ukrainian people have felt as victims of Russia’s reprehensible genocide.

Standing there in those Ukrainian villages, or back here safely imbedded in America it was and is easy to justify my disgust and contempt for these our radical Republicans’ pro-Russia position. So please, if you agree with my conclusions, make your voice heard. And to make that the easiest possible, try not to be led down multiple paths in debating various individual bills or executive actions – instead, make your position as clean and as clear as it can be by merely holding the position of “Pro-Ukraine and Anti-Russia”.

No question if you want to take specific stands on each of these individual acts of support for or against Ukraine – such as the August 3rd vote for Finland-Sweden being admitted to NATO – by all means do that. But more often than not, simplifying political positions have more of a lasting effect, because amidst the cacophony of American congressional processes you will be making it much easier for our elected officials to merely glance up at the flag they’re carrying and act on that if the banner simply reads: “Pro-Ukraine, Anti-Russia”.

So we Mission members who oppose what Russia is doing, we need to repeat that banner line – “Pro-Ukraine, Anti-Russia” – to as many different people as possible, especially our elected officials. And we should not stop until every single vote that comes before Congress for bills that would address any aspect of the Ukrainian war is decided unanimously in favor of Ukraine and unanimously against Russia.

Are you listening Senators Hawley and Paul?

Another Commentary Coming from

An American in Ukraine

by Dr. E. C. Olson, Mission Director

Russians Bombs Target Civilians in Vinnytsia and a Tragedy within a Tragedy: the murder of Elizaveta Dmytriyeva

Three days before I arrived in Ukraine, at 10:30 in the morning on July 14th, three Russian Kalibr cruise missiles slammed into the center of the city of Vinnytsia in what was yet another intentional focused attack on civilian targets, where the Russians purposefully avoided hitting any of the various military installations found in and around this city of 370,000, so that instead they could further terrorize everyday Ukrainian citizens.

In one of the larger casualty bombings of Ukrainian cities since the War began, 26 civilians were killed and 100 more were seriously injured here in Vinnytsia – – and as tragic as that alone was, it was the identity of one of the dead that made this a tragedy within a tragedy, one that deeply scarred the Ukrainian people and appalled people worldwide.

I had to see for myself the scene of one of the war’s ghastlier Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians.  Five days before I stood here in front of the windowless shell of this commercial-residential building, several long-range Russian cruise missiles struck it and the plaza I was standing in the middle of.

But as tragic as the burned-out building was, even more heartbreaking was the small memorial erected here in honor of one of the victims.

When the gravity of what occurred here on July 14^th hit me, it literally forced me to my knees, but there even a prayer seemed insufficient because I was so angry and mystified by what God had allowed to happen here (but I also knew that it was not God’s malfeasance that angered me so much, but instead it was my imperfect spirituality which led me futilely searching for accountability that I wouldn’t find).

Frustrated by my inability to find any spiritual redemption, I flipped my inner switch from compassionate aid provider to fact-finding investigative reporter and began dissecting the crime.  But to be totally honest, I found it hard to just stick to the facts and ignore the human tragedy that took place here.  Triggers were everywhere: beginning with the mound of toys left in loving memory of one of the victims of this brutal attack.

So just as when I was there standing amidst that horrific scene when my thoughts drifted from fact-gathering to that one victim in particular, so too does my reporting here drift back and forth between these two tragedies, so please bear with me.

This is difficult.  Perhaps it’s the fact that I have a grand-daughter the same age as this one victim – that certainly plays into this.  Regardless, objectively reporting this is very difficult.

I think that I have come to see the Vinnytsia tragedy as the symbol for all of these Russian attacks on civilian targets, an attack count now exceeding one-hundred, and I have come to see this one innocent victim as literally the poster child for all of the children intentionally murdered by Russian oppressors.  And this in turn is unavoidably linked to the personal reasons why I came here in the first place to help the Ukrainian people.

For me, there could be no clearer contrast of Good versus Evil than this attack.  Here too does this tragedy characterize the utter frustration I feel over why the West, or America or Europe en masse hasn’t already stopped this brutal genocide?  What more evidence do they need?

And with saving children being one of the primary focuses of our Mission, here I found myself coming to Ukraine five days too late to possibly save this one child in particular.

Again frustration overwhelms me.  So in-turn I have made that one of my own triggers: whenever I find myself trapped in the box canyon of frustration, I turn around and proceed back down the path of factual reporting, so here below I continue with that.

The crime committed here

To begin with, the vulgarity of the Russian actions here has compelled me to report this as a murder, a mass murder in fact, and not anything associated with a war or a military action. 

 I call it murder because that’s what it was. 

Whether a noun or a verb, murder is defined as having three components: the actual act of killing one or more people, second is the requirement noting it as an “unlawful” act, and third, specifically labelling it as a “premeditated act”.  The Russians did all three.

In that legal context, a Russian commander somewhere – more-than-likely taking his orders from the highest-possible positions of authority (I’ll leave it up to an International Criminal Court prosecutor to identify that person as Vladimir Putin) – they intentionally and with clear premeditation singled out this assemblage of people and directed five of the most powerful tools of death directly at them.  The reverberations that followed included the customary political positioning.

For example, when one of these seemingly senseless acts of violence is perpetrated against the Ukrainian people, the response coming from the three primary stakeholders is predictable:

From the Ukrainians, most often being embodied in statements coming from one or more government officials, they will rightfully report this as a terrorist attack intended to kill and injure as many Ukrainian civilians as possible, and most of these reports include one or more mentions of Russian “genocide”.

From the Russians will come abject denials from across-the-boards, sometimes these statements are issued by Kremlin leaders, who will point out or even fabricate news about there being a military target among the ruins, but otherwise they just categorically dismiss any intention of targeting civilians in particular.

From the international media the reports will mostly summarize both nation’s positions, but then these varied news bureaus will for the most part focus on the objective, on the facts, where it becomes hard for these news outlets to NOT claim this as being an intentional attack on civilians and a few of them might go so far as including mention of this being a repeated series of violent incidences and therefore the word “genocide” finds its way to copy.

We like to think of ourselves and our reporting as being objective and realistic, but as I have mentioned here in this article, our – my – sympathies are clearly aligned with the victims, with the innocents, which in my entire reporting thus far, are the Ukrainians, especially the Ukrainian civilians.

But as a scientist by training and career experience, I find it impossible to drift away entirely from the facts, so the editorial positions I often take are ones centered on irrefutable facts, but if those facts clearly portray acts of institutional violence being committed against innocent civilians, I will call it out as such.

Or if these violent acts would otherwise meet the definition of a crime, or even a War Crime or Crime Against Humanity, I will call it that as well.  And if these repeated acts of institutional violence fit into a repeated pattern of intentional, premeditated violent acts committed against one particular group or class of people, then I will not hesitate to call it genocide.

So taking that together, in this reporting I am calling the July 14 Russian missile attacks on the city of Vinnytsya the mass murder of innocent Ukrainians because that’s what the evidence reveals and that is what fits the pattern of these such acts by the Russians.

I will also factual report however, that among the 25 dead were three Ukrainian military officers; Russia is of course making this the focal point of their commentary, claiming that the attack was 100% a military action intended on taking out these military officers.  In pushing that story line the Russian are also avoiding referring to the 22 dead Ukrainians at all, who all were civilians, so it’s assumed that if pressed, Russia will claim that the death of these innocent people is merely “collateral damage”.

What has yet to be determined – which is something that I will continue to follow – is if these three Ukrainian officers were at the crime scene intentionally, as in holding an established meeting in military offices where the war was being discussed?  Or were these just three fellow soldiers who just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time?

But even if they were meeting in official capacities, that does nothing to lessen the accountability the Russians inherently have for killing upwards of 22 innocent civilians in the process.

To me the entire scale of the missile attack – firing five long-range ballistic missiles loaded with a collective 2,500 tons of explosive warheads – to take our three mid-level Ukrainian military officers – seems very unsymmetrical.  Too unsymmetrical.

The weapons used to murder 22-plus innocent people

One of the overall personal observations or conclusions I have reached regarding the fighting prowess of the Russian forces – which too is reflected in the innate characteristics of the powerful political figure(s) back in Moscow pulling the strings – is that cowardice appears front and center.  Individual cowardice and institutional cowardice.

Aside from the abject failure that was the initial late-February invasion by the Russians, very few if any of the military actions conducted by the Russians since then involved any face-to-face, bayonet-to-bayonet conventional combat.

In contrast, nearly all of the Russian military attacks have been “long-distance”, that is, instead of confronting the enemy head-on, be they civilian or military, the Russians have pressed buttons and pulled strings on their weapons of mass death from hundreds of miles away, if not thousands of miles away.  Some military analysts may claim that this is smart – it’s Russia’s way of killing many without sacrificing any of their own – but I call it cowardice.

After all, how hard is it to kills dozens of people, when all you have to do is press a button?  As opposed of having to put human beings in your crosshairs and watching as the round tears through their body?  Or more up-close-and-personal, as opposed to driving a bayonet into your enemy at close range?

The Murder Weapon: Three Kalibr (SS-N-30A) LACM (Land attack cruise missiles)

Submarine variant: 3M-14K
Length: 20’
Payload: 1,000-pound warhead
Range: up to 2,000 miles
Propulsion:  Turbojet, multi-stage solid-fuel
First use in combat: 2015, Syria
Speed:  0.8-3.0 Mach
Accuracy: 150’

In the Vinnytsya tragedy, that’s all it took.  To be precise, all it took was someone in a Russian submarine or frigate, far off in the Black Sea, pressing enough buttons to send five Kalibr cruise missiles in the direction of the Vinnytsya city center.  Not present was the ability to look any of your victims in the eyes during their last seconds alive, absent were their cries of pain, gone was the blood and brain splatter that routinely gathers on the uniform of soldiers fighting in close combat.

All it took was pressing a button.

Launched from several hundred miles away, it only took a couple minutes for the five missiles to streak through the Ukrainian airspace.  Two of those Kalibr cruise missiles fell prey to Ukraine’s aerial defense system but three would find their mark.

The target: the scene of the mass murder

Deep in the bowels of the launch vehicle in the Black Sea, the coordinates of the intended target were set at 49.233083 degrees latitude, and 28.468217 degrees longitude – which was the heart of this bustling, previously “safe” city.

The accomplices to this murder back in Moscow knew that the heart of a city at ten-o’clock in the morning would offer the opportunity for a large number of intended targets.  Businesspeople hustling to their next meeting, merchants putting out their wares…and mothers pushing strollers on this warm sunny summer day.

The Russian targeting was spot-on as the three Kalibr missiles that evaded the Ukrainian aerial defense system streaked lower as they approached the bustling center of the city.  Perhaps some of the victims heard the incoming screech of the now sub-sonic missile.

Others in their last seconds alive probably saw a blistering-bright heat-flash of detonation.  Some of them assuredly felt their bodies being either ripped in half (those were the lucky ones for their death came quickly), or those more unfortunate felt their body being shredded by the red-hot metal fragments that the explosion sent flying in all directions.

All three missiles detonated within a radius of no more than 500 feet, effectively destroying two large buildings, one was a Soviet-era concert hall, the other a large, mixed-use building that included a medical center, offices, store fronts and numerous residential apartments.

One fact that I have not been able to validate is if there were any legitimate military targets of any kind located here in the Vinnytsia city center.  The Russians claim that at the time of the attack, several high-ranking Ukrainian Air Force officers were meeting in the concert hall.  It is true, three Ukrainian Air Force officers were listed among the dead.  But even that, even if three military officers were being targeted, that would mean that the other 22-plus dead and more than 100 injured were “collateral damage”, and that itself is unacceptable.

The scene of total devastation 24 hours after the attack

The Murder Victims

On the very day we visited Vinnytsia – July 20^th – government officials reported that 20-year-old Olha Lysenko had just died in the hospital, bringing the death toll of this Russian attack to 26.  Olha was returning to her apartment in Vinnytsia’s Peremohy Square from an appointment at her dentist when the three missiles impacted, leaving her with fatal burns over 98% of her body.  One can only imagine how brutally painful those last six days of Olha’s life were.

CONTINUED IN PART II