Gratitude Monday: strength, resilience and sunflowers

Speaking as someone who grew up with the daily body count from the Vietnam War on the six o’clock news, I have to say that “seeing” the Russian invasion of Ukraine is slightly surreal.

I think it’s mostly the juxtaposition between Ukrainians carrying on with their lives in some cases alongside Russian tanks. Because the artillery bombardments and missile and air strikes—well, we’ve been seeing those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other places for a decade. But in Ukraine—it’s like you do your grocery shopping and then tell the Russkies to piss up a rope as you walk out the door.

And, of course, it’s all captured on your mobile phone and posted to SoMe.

There’s a level of fearlessness and naked courage that informs these videos, running the gamut from soldiers to your ordinary civilians.

Here a few examples of what I mean.

Border guards stationed on Ziiminyi Island in the Black Sea were ordered by the captain of a Russian warship to surrender or be killed. The reply was right in line with that of Anthony McAuliffe at Bastogne in the previous world war (look it up, children):

Early reports indicated that in the ensuing air and shipboard attacks, all the border guards had been killed. As of this writing, however, there are some hopes that they’ve been taken prisoner.

Then we have a kind of Tiananmen Square moment:

And then there was this guy driving down some road and finding a broken-down convoy. (Russians are literally running out of fuel; people—wars are won on logistics. Lack of fuel for the tanks was one of the things that doomed the Battle of the Bulge; see above about McAuliffe.)

And I’ll end the video portion of today’s post with this one of a woman lambasting Russian would-be occupiers. What gets me is the absolute poetry of her encounter—telling them to take the sunflower seeds (sunflowers are the Ukrainian national flower) and put them in their pockets, so that flowers will bloom from their dead bodies in Ukrainian soil.

It reminds me of Seamus Heaney’s “Requiem for the Croppies”. In the case of the Croppy Boys of 1798, the barley in their pockets was their ration, not a curse from a defiant enemy. But—given the supply issues the Russians seem to be experiencing—these soldiers might be grateful for any nutrients.

This invasion is an international crime, cooked up by an autocrat who appears to be unstable and entirely capable of ratcheting up the conflict to the nuke stage. Additionally, he has a cyber arsenal that carries considerable bang for the buck, and it can damage the entire world. We are all in danger.

So, on this Gratitude Monday as we all face the consequences of Putin’s glory-hounding at the expense of his neighbors, I’m choosing to be grateful for the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people, the badassery of Ukraine’s leadership and the general attitude of everyone there that Russians can fuck all the way the hell off.

Oddly, I’m also grateful for the non-combat use of economic sanctions by most of the rest of the world (seize the yachts, properties, aircraft, limos and financial assets of Putin and all his oligarchs; see how they like having their kids home from Swiss and English boarding schools and all their mistresses’ credit cards shut down) that will make life very difficult for the rogue nation.

I am also in complete awe of the thousands of Russians who have taken to the streets throughout the country to protest the war. Ditto the people of Putin's puppet state, Belarus. They are literally risking their lives to tell Putin to get stuffed. These people have brass ones.

And I’m grateful for the efforts of people around the world to support Ukraine however they can. (Looking at those hundreds of Romanians at the Ukraine border with bags of food, cartons of water and boxes of supplies to keep their neighbors fed, hydrated and able to diaper their babies. I’ve also donated to World Central Kitchen, which is on the Polish border, feeding Ukrainian refugees.)

In the midst of an event highlighting the greatest evil people can do, we are suffused with examples of the best, as well. For that, I give thanks.