War Day 816: Good News in Crimea, Tough Day in Kharkiv
Ukrainian Freedom News: THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE DAILY LOOK AT THE REALITY IN UKRAINE.
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The Optics of Blinken’s Guitar
Let’s think about the optics of victory, and not just respond to the Russians in a sad mysteriously poetic guitar hero way.
Оптика гітари Blinken: давайте думати про оптику перемоги, а не просто відповідати росіянам сумно-таємничо-поетичним гітарним героєм
I understand why many loyal Ukraine supports around the world took inspiration and comfort from US Secretary of State Anthony Blink’s guitar performance at Kyiv’s legendary Barman Dictat. I suspect Blinken’s motives were similar: Like so many who visits Ukraine, I’m sure he was inspired and moved and so he wanted to jam with Ukrainian musicians. But in war, if you want to win, you must consider optics. And what are the optics of Blinken playing in a bar in Kyiv, a city the US has protected, even as at that very hour Russian missiles rained down upon Kharkiv, even as US policy still prevents Ukrainians from hitting the Russian missile launchers that target Kharkiv city?
More than that: Let’s think of the optics of victory, instead of only respond in sad poetic ways to the Russians. Imagine if Blinken had secretly traveled to Kharkiv and jammed there, just a few miles from Russia, in that wonderfully, insanely defiant city where people refuse to flee even amid near-daily hellfire? He would have been truly jamming in and for the free world.
When are we going to be bolder, truer, and more courageous, like the Ukrainians, like the people of Kharkiv?
WGN RADIO DAILY WAR JOURNAL
War Day 816: Good News in Crimea, Tough Day in Kharkiv
🇺🇦 Every Day Until Victory on Chicago’s WGN Radio with Bob Sirott: Joe Lindsley reports every single weekday 10 minutes from Ukraine 🎙️ Monday 20 May 2024
LVIV—In the Black Sea, Ukraine is achieving extraordinary results, sinking yet another Russian missile-launching ship, thanks to the USA permitting Ukraine to hit Russian targets in Crimea. But to the north, the story is different: Washington ties Ukraine's hands, and so the city and region of Kharkiv, so close to Russia, are sitting ducks.
50 MINUTES - SILICON CURTAIN: Navigating Propaganda
Taras Byk - Is Putin’s Endless Aggression Exhausting Russia’s Military, Social and Economic Reserves
Taras Byk's special mission is the breakup of the Russian Federation, a project that doesn't seem so far-fetched after the Prigozhin mutiny, and Putin’s endless aggression that is exhausting Russia’s military and economic reserves. Taras is a civil society activist and political strategist, who believes that Ukraine's Maidan Revolution, in which he participated, saved not only Ukraine but also Europe. Today we will be discussing the threat from a resurgent Russia, and the history of imperial expansion that sits behind it. Can Ukraine's stand for freedom and struggle against renewed Russification of its peoples hold the line in Europe between freedom and authoritarianism, between the rule of law and unimaginable barbarism. Can Ukraine's experience even help revitalise the idea of democracy and help us to become more resilience in the face of creeping nepotism, corruption, oligarchy, and aggressive autocrats?
Battleground Ukraine Podcast: Analysis by British military historians
UKRAINIAN FREEDOM VOICES
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I was reciting Rudyard Kipling’s “If” with friends on a supply delivery trip to Donbas.
And during that road trip I realized this: In the ancient and still flourishing Ukrainian language, the word for “if” literally means “how-what”: a workman like idea of how to achieve the impossible. Because Ukraine never colonized other countries, the Ukrainian language is an easy window into how early Indo-European humans forumated language based on necessity and possibility. —Joe Lindsley
Quick Hits
This is just glimpse at Ukraine’s Kharkiv city over the past few days. And since then so much has happened. Earlier this afternoon the Russians bombed a Kharkiv park that was full of joggers, walkers, kids playing, people relaxing. I heard first hand from people who were there. It’s hell. And yet an hour after the bombing, the park was full again.
Kharkiv is home to a wild species of human beings, with a whole different idea of courage. And yet the city remains a sitting duck, because the United States, which in the 1990s and 2000s forced Ukraine to de-arm, refuses to let Ukrainians use powerful weapons to hit the rocket launches on Russian soil.
Until that changes, everyone you see dancing in this video can die at any moment from a Russian attack.
Cover art @neivanmade
Wimbledon, Wine, and War
From American journalist Joe Lindsley: “Sergiy Stakhovsky is a renaissance man but also simply a decent and honorable person: In 2013, he defeated Roger Federer at Wimbledon, when Federer was reigning champ. Meanwhile, back in his homeland of Ukraine, he began to produce excellent and unique wine — @stakhovsky.wines — in the sunny Zakarpattia region, reviving traditions destroyed during the Soviet times. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Sergiy first protected his family and then in a Mini-Cooper he drove amid military vehicles to the war, where he continues to volunteer as a soldier.”
Here’s an excerpt of Sergiy Stakhovsky’s interview with Joe Lindsley, American reporting in Ukraine every weekday, with no days off, on Chicago’s WGN Radio. You can see video version of these reports via the link in @jplindsley ‘s bio.
Recorded at the studios of Ukrainska Pravda in Kyiv as part of the Land of the Free podcast.
Ukrainian Freedom Supply: Tools for victory
Thanks to our WGN Radio audience in the USA for continued support of our war reporting and of the civilians-turned-soldiers who stand at the front. Here’s a greeting from a Ukrainian Border Guard—incredibly crucial as Russian desperately tries to break into Kharkiv region—saying just how great it is that we got them some walkie-talkies. These little things make a positive difference. We welcome support here.
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State of the War Map: shows Russian positions and what Ukrainians have taken back; updated daily
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ABOUT US: Reporting Every Single Weekday Since Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion
"Joseph Lindsley's reports are enlightening, frightening, heart-wrenchingly and poetically descriptive." —a regular listener to the daily report from Ukraine on Chicago's WGN Radio with Bob Sirott
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