Why Do Some Ukrainians Speak Russian?
... and tea-time ready British tanks arrive in Ukraine
Hello from Lviv, where the snow fell amid the sunshine today. Even in the war here, the tragedy in Nashville was a sad topic for Ukrainians. But the good news: the Challenger 2 tanks have arrived from Britain and the parliament of Hungary, whose leader is sympathetic to Putin, voted for Finland to join Nato. And Ukrainians still hold Bakhmut.
And this key question is more relevant than ever: Is the West really supporting Ukraine as much as it seems, or is the support too slow in coming? Every day here I speak with my friends and colleagues about new reports of soldiers and humanitarian volunteers we know killed or wounded or missing. The death toll is staggering, while Ukrainians continue to hold.
And the actual support does indeed seem slow, as war historian Phillips O’Brien argues in an essay in The Atlantic this week. The story is linked below.
Most of last year, Western leaders and experts said Ukrainian couldn’t have Western tanks because the Ukrainians wouldn’t know how to use them. Now it seems that was either ignorance or a lie, because, as I discuss in my daily war report on Chicago’s WGN Radio (below), the Brits have praised the Ukrainians for how quickly they learned to use the UK’s top tanks.
Here is my daily war report. —Joe Lindsley
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DAILY WAR JOURNAL—ON CHICAGO’S WGN RADIO:
War Day 398: Why Do Some Ukrainians Speak Russian?
Do you remember when everyone said Western tanks were too advanced for Ukrainians? Now, after training Ukrainians to use the Challenger 2 Tanks, which are so British they can kill invaders while serving tea, the Brits admit the Ukrainians are swift learners.
So, why not send more advanced weapons to Ukraine for a swift victory? This is the question ...
Plus:
-- Ukrainians hold Bahkmut to fight the Russian invaders, "because there’s probably no better place to do it than here."
--Did you know many Ukrainians speak Russian because both Imperial and Communist Russia tried to destroy the Ukrainian language?
--The Budapest Memorandum: Did you know Ukraine once had nuclear weapons but gave them up so long as Western nations and Russia promised to protect its borders? If you want freedom, you can never be naïve ...
In the next two items you can see the full versions of the Bakhmut videos clips of which were shown in the report above:
"We are holding the Russian horde here": A tour of Bakhmut
"Our brigade was formed in the city of the lion, Lviv, we are hundreds of kilometers away from home," says a soldier who joined Lviv’s territorial defense, akin to a local civilian militia, in the early days of the war. Now, his unit is on the front line along with longtime professional soldiers.
"And we are holding the Russian horde at Bakhmut, because there’s probably no better place to do it than here."
See What It's Like to Be in a Bakhmut Home, Defending Versus the Russians
I was in homes in Bakhmut just like this in the summer. Now what once were homes are the battlefield. Ukrainian war-time citizen Telegram Channel Ищи своих ("Look out for your own") shared this video: https://t.me/rf200_nooow/16601
This also shows why thermal vision, often hard for Ukrainians to obtain, is essential.
War Day 397: The True People vs the Charlatans
Plus: Can you sleep well in war-time?
from Monday 27 March: Joe Lindsley’s daily Ukraine report on Chicago's WGN Radio with Bob Sirott
LVIV—In a café, a woman sketches a vase of flowers she brought in and placed on her table. A man has a drink and eats potatoes and pork-fat, called salo, before leaving to go to war the next day. Another, speaking philosophically about waiting to get called up, speaks of a friend who lost both his feet fighting the Russian invaders.
—> The New York Times talks of foreign charlatans in Ukraine, but let's share the stories of unsung heroes. And for everyone here, including the women who choose to return rather than be refugees, the toll is heavy, with daily reports of lost lives and lost limbs.
—> Does the new film All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the book of the same name about World War I, reflect the situation today in Ukraine? from Monday 27 March: My daily Ukraine report on Chicago's WGN Radio with Bob Sirott
Ukrainian Freedom News Weekly Special
How to Resist the Tyranny of the Elites: Here Are Four Ukrainian Secrets
Watch this to learn about what makes Ukrainian freedom so strong.
“What this war gave us: a lot of brilliant people who were just living a simple life started to act much much more and to group together. … The main point of maidan is that this was the Revoultion of Dignity, that people self organize to build this civil society.”
Recommended Story
From The Altantic: The West Must Give Ukraine the Weapons It Needs to Win
‘Ukraine is being made to fight the war the hard way, not the smart way.’
Phillips Payson O’Brien, American professor of strategic studies at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews is author of How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II. He writes at the Atlantic that Western support for Ukraine, despite all the fanfare, has been too tepid:
the manner in which the West is supporting Ukraine’s war effort is deeply frustrating. Though NATO countries have a variety of systems that can target Russian forces deep behind their lines, recent aid has been overwhelmingly geared toward preparing Ukraine to make direct assaults against the Russian army. The most widely discussed forms of equipment—such as Leopard 2 tanks, Bradley armored personnel carriers, and even Archer long-range artillery—are not the kinds of systems that can disrupt or degrade Russian forces far behind the front lines.
Read the story here.
Daily War Music: ‘Bakhmut’
My fear is nothing against the spirit of those on the frontier…
Lyrics, music: Dmytro Osychniuk SPIV BRATIV's social media: https://www.facebook.com/spivbrativ https://www.instagram.com/spiv_brativ/ https://www.tiktok.com/@spiv_brativ
Regular Resources:
Air-Raid Alert Map
State of the War Map: shows Russian positions and what Ukrainians have taken back; updated daily
“[It's something rare in our world of corporate and automated radio regular, real humanity.”
—Neil Steinberg, in the Chicago Sun-Times, on Joe Lindsley’s daily Ukraine reports with Bob Sirott of Chicago’s WGN Radio. We invite you to follow on YouTube.
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American journalist Joe Lindsley, in Ukraine since 2020, leads the Ukrainian Freedom News team of Ukrainians and foreigners on a mission to share real talk and real life in war-time with the world. Every weekday since late February 2022, he has reported live from Ukraine on Chicago’s WGN Radio with host Bob Sirott. You can listen to all episodes at UkrainianFreedomNews.com or via our YouTube channel.
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UKRAINIAN FREEDOM NEWS
Truth to the World | Supplies to Ukraine
Joe Lindsley, Editor-in-chief
Vitalii Gulden, Creative Producer
Beata Szrom, Operations Director
Pavlo Vitenko, Chief Reporter
Anton Hutyriak, Associate Editor
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Jean-Baptiste Besson, Field Editor
Brennan Phillips, War Columnist