"9/11 A Date That Will Always Be Remembered..."

Yesterday was 9/11, a date in history that none of us will ever forget... As we were remembering and mourning our dead, equally brave Ukrainians were fighting for their lives and freedom as they have done for more than 200 days against the aggression of Vladimir Putin and the Russian state.  Yesterday our Ukrainian friends gave us and the world a new reason to remember 9/11.

“Do you still think you can intimidate, break us, force us to make concessions? Did you really not understand anything? Don’t understand who we are? What we stand for? What we are talking about,” 

“Read my lips,” he continued. “Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst for us are not as scary and deadly as your ‘friendship’ and brotherhood.’”

He added: “We will be with gas, lights, water and food… and WITHOUT you!”

- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The President of Ukraine was commenting Sunday on news that his nation's troops had successfully liberated the region of Oleh Syniehubov and it's major city of Kharkiv from Russian forces who first crossed the border there in February.

When I first learned of and saw this lawyer, turned comedian and actor in 2015, I could see that the spark of greatness was within him... When against all the odds he won his nation's presidency, I thought then that he would show the world that he and his people could cast off the yoke of their Soviet past and that of Russia's shadow today to rise to greatness.  I still believe it and with ever growing confidence.  I never doubted that he would stand up to Putin, he showed us his mettle when he stood firm against the attempted blackmail by our own fascist bully, Trump.

Now as the war rages on, there are those here in our own country who question our supplying arms and support to Ukraine,  I am not one of them.  Lest we forget in our own struggle for independence, without the aid of France, it is unlikely that we would have succeeded in removing the shackles of oppression and subjugation by the British, who at the time were bullies and fascists on the same order as Russia is today.  It is our duty and our right to support all freedom loving peoples in their struggles for independence.  To do any less makes us hypocrites at best, and complicit in the evils of their oppressors at worst.  If we are who we say we are, we owe the world this example.

Above, the French Air Force Acrobatic Team performs a flyover of Lady Liberty in 2017

Slava Ukraini

(Glory to Ukraine)