I’m sorta rewriting an older thing here.
There’s this couple, they are Ukrainians who live and work in Belgium. And they have a YouTube channel that follows their restoration of a big century farmhouse.
In 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine (more than they already had between 2014—22) and Marina and Illia’s family in Kharkiv fled before the wave of atrocities.
I am sure the whole family was terrified, as was quite reasonable. Fearing that Putin’s forces would be successful in their intent to overrun and eliminate the state of Ukraine, which is still the intention, the refugees headed to the border.
In a breathtaking modernism that still gets me, fans of the “De Hoeve. Old Belgian farm renovation” channel on Patreon from eastern Europe drove to the border and evacuated the fleeing family, including children, and brought them to safety in Belgium. The Patrons who return your family to you alive, are the top tier I guess.
But this is not really about De Hoeve, or the couple. It is about INVASION. The invasion of Ukraine is real. The Russians are ENTIRELY at fault. This horror cannot end with the bad guys being rewarded with seized territory. It has to end with Russia leaving all of Ukraine. Because they have openly and clearly stated that all of The Ukraine belongs to the Russian Federation and that seizure is inevitable and just.
And if we could possibly learn ANYTHING from history, it ought to be that that imperialist aggression had better be nipped in the bud, rather than at the next boarder or the next. Because in 2022 Russian war machinery had essentially “to Berlin” written on the sides of it. Failing to respond with overwhelming resources has already made this great military fail so much worse than it would have been if we armed Ukraine in 2013 to prevent the seizure of Crimea.
For the sake of all the families, for decades to come, we have to stop Putin.
