A prayer to the West from Ukraine

I want to address Annalena Baerbock what kind of life in the world of pink ponies and everyone giving flowers to each other does she live to have such a distorted vision of things. When children in the kindergarten are dying from the bloody hands of Moscow nazists who feel that they can attack any sovereign country, now threatening Finland and Sweden too if those choose the NATO path, this Minister cares about sone “babushkas” not getting an international money transfer?!

My name is Artem, I’m Ukrainian. Right now, I am based in Kaunas, Lithuania. I went here in 2020 to study at the Master’s program for translators at Kaunas University of Technology. I wanted to live a peaceful life and improve my translation skills after working previously as an interpreter and translator.

However, now it's psychologically and emotionally hard for me to realize all what's going on in my country and that I'm isolated from my people.

Russia sneakily, without declaring war, began bombing a sovereign state, shooting civilians, ambulances, hospitals, kindergartens... not wanting to recognize our nation’s right to for existence.

When I’m writing these lines, the “Grad” truck-mounted rocket launcher station has targeted on Kyiv, and the civilians in chats are asking each other to share items necessary for preparation of Molotov cocktails – are going to welcome the “guests of the capital”.

Artemy, my Ukrainian friend based in Vilnius, has just called. He is young and very nervous about the situation. He wants immediately to stop the conflict. It is quite hard for him to work as a front-end developer in one of the IT companies, especially when some employees of the Russian origin give their dislikes to the posts of support to Ukraine. He told:

“My grandpa and grandma live in the village Kalynivka (Kyiv region) near the military equipment storage which was blowing up earlier. During the current shelling the explosions were heard several times. I want them to go away from this place. But they refuse, saying that they are old enough and have nowhere to go…”

Ola, one of my friends from Kyiv, who knows not so much about the international politics, faced with the true misunderstanding why Europe is not fighting together with us, why nobody helps with the real military assistance. We have even argued when I tried to say that the international community was not supposed to react rapidly and that the European Parliament was not going not gather immediately on the day of attack. She replied fiercely that we don’t have months of time. Answering the question what message she’d like me to deliver to the European community, she replied: “We are ‘agrarian’ people who never attacked anyone with war throughout the history.”

I can’t agree and think she is underestimating the capabilities of our legendary army, but that is her opinion. Right now, she boarded perhaps on the last train to the town Mukachevo in western Ukraine and is planning to go further to Hungary. She also added:

“I will participate in meetings and demonstrations, urging them to help Ukraine”.

And I see that the demonstrations in support of Ukraine and total condemnation of the Russia’s actions are taking place all over the world, including my beloved Lithuania. This is indeed a small country with a gigantic sincere heart! On Thursday 24, I never saw such a number of people at the Vienybės aikštė (‘Square of Unity’), worrying and crying as if it was their own pain and tragedy. So, it does not seem, it is, because of our common history, similar cultures, and notorious past of the Soviet occupation.

Everyone, from my student colleagues to my current company colleagues called, came up, messaged, asking how my family is and offering help. The organization helping refugees, “Stiprus Kartu” was immediately established, mobile connection network operators introduced the free calls and message policy from Lithuania to Ukraine, crowdfunded more than 2 million of euros for donations!
So do the other nations too. I got messages from colleagues and friends, perhaps, from all the European countries. As an example, here is what

Dominik from Czech Republic told:

“There is always a possibility for every Ukrainian to move west now... in Czechia, there is more than 75% of citizens, that are willing to take as many refugees as necessary, Slovakia and Poland also, I believe. It is just...I am sick of it now, I still thought, that he will just take Donbas. But this disease called Russia was ignored or supported by West really long time.”

According to my Hungarian friends, the support of Ukrainian people is on the same high level.

The country is offering szallas.hu, the platform where refugees may find shelter or temporary home. Since many people are now rushing towards the border, the Hungarian army is ready to make order at the border and assist all the refugees.

Sorry, that I cannot mention all people and all countries who expressed the great words of support, but I see from my own messenger that all nations of the free world are with us. And even the enslaved nations, as we know, are going to the protest demonstrations in some Russian cities. I heard that Kazakhstan refused to take part in this unjustified war on the Russian side.

However, what apart from people’s prays and thoughts which are with us, we need more of political support.

If the countries of Eastern Europe perfectly understand what monster the current Russian Federation is with its ill philosophy of restoring the Soviet Union and no respect to human life, the western European countries seem to be far away from it. The Ukrainians everywhere require two things from international political elites, being introduced in short key phrases in social media:

#NATO close the sky of Ukraine and And #ban_russia_from_swift!

If the sky is protected, the country will not be bombed by the aircraft missiles, this is not interference in war, this is a protection of peaceful people against the Russian death from the air. And cutting Russia from the global financial service provider SWIFT is a crucially important step which was, by the way, earlier promised by the US President, Joe Biden, as the measure in case of the intervention to Ukraine. The intervention happened and what do we see? Again a deep concern instead of sending at least the volunteer fighters, at least anonymously?!

This may severely undermine the trust of Ukrainian people to the Euro-Atlantic way of development and give birth to a lot of scepsis about our partners in the West if the mentioned actions are not fulfilled.

Of course, the decision depends not only on the US. The financial deals and fear before the Russian oligarchs don’t not allow the leadership of some countries to make the necessary and right decisions, otherwise it will be late.

For example, Annalena Baerbock, German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, told: “…if, for example, a grandmother has a granddaughter living in Europe who wants to send her money, even if this sounds insignificant, she can't perform a transfer”.

I want to address this lady what kind of life in the world of pink ponies and everyone giving flowers to each other does she live to have such a distorted vision of things.

When children in the kindergarten are dying from the bloody hands of Moscow nazists who feel that they can attack any sovereign country,now threatening Finland and Sweden too if those choose the NATO path, this Minister cares about some “babushkas” not getting an international money transfer?!

This is exactly the idea, that they should finally stop receiving this donation from the West, and look into the fridge, and stop voting for Mr. Putin-Hitler, swearing at the same West, after watching the Russian television!

It’s sad and shameful to look how modern Germany silently justifies the Nazi regime again in its history. So, what the words “Never again” are worth of?

In general, me as well as all the Ukrainian people are angry, desperate, having a mix of different feelings inside, but we believe that Ukraine will be victorious, and our nation will defeat these monsters of Mordor which came alive from the pages of John Tolkien’s fantasy books.

Because this cannot be another way, the triumph of evil is impossible in the contemporary world! Another thing, how it will happen. Who is going to be the Churchill and who will become the Chamberlain?

Ukraine will survive somehow but without a military protection from anyone, will it want to join the unions, coalitions and help save democracy in the World?

Please, save the country with a great potential to be prosperous and reliable friend of the EU.

With a smart leadership, it is possible to find enough of gas, oil and other valuable materials on our territory and stop using all Nord Stream blackmail nonsense. Help us now! And we will help you later.