Yuriy notes that last weekend marked two and a half years since the start of the war in Ukraine and he reflects on the profound losses and relentless struggle for survival. He calls on listeners to support Ukraine, emphasizing the dire consequences if the world neglects their plight.
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TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)
It is August 28th.
Last weekend, marked exactly two and a half years since I joined the Army. It's quite a long time. During this period, I found many new friends and lost many old ones to death or disappearance. During this time, my parents became refugees, my brother turned into a traitor and I started and almost gave up on making a podcast. I've been on many fronts, hid from shelling in Bakhmut, and saw the' Russians fleeing from Kharkiv. So much has happened. So many people have died in these two years. So much pain and blood.
I've also seen how the rhetoric of Kremlin agents in the West has changed. At first, they claimed that helping Ukraine was pointless, but it wouldn't last even a couple of weeks and that the Russians would quickly seize the entire country. Then we screamed about Nazis, about terrible oppression of Russian-speaking Ukrainians that Putin was supposedly rescuing. Later, when it became obvious that the regions suffering the most destruction and deaths were war with large Russian speaking populations, these creatures started scaring the world with the threat of nuclear war if Putin began to lose.
Now we have a new narrative. I constantly see Americans and Europeans saying things like, "Not a cent of aid to Ukraine as long as our country has homeless veterans." This is not just nonsense, it's a crime. If the citizens of free countries stop helping Ukraine, you will all turn into homeless veterans- your children, your elderly parents, your friends, and your loved ones. If Ukraine falls, you'll all even be dead or homeless veterans. And you will consider yourself lucky if you become homeless veterans of your own national armies that have defended their independence at the cost of completely destroyed cities and enormous human losses.
Because there is a high chance that you'll become homeless veterans of fascist Russian army. It is forming entire brigades of people from occupied territories. It does not care about the motivation or loyalty of such soldiers. They are expendable. Most people driven into these brigades spent a couple of weeks on the front lines. Then they either die or are severely wounded and remain disabled homeless veterans for life. And you'll be among them if Ukraine does not stand. Putin will need a lot of canon fodder for world domination and he's delighted when in another fool writes "not a cent for Ukraine" because that fool is his potential soldier. Help Ukraine. Two and a half years of war is very long and very difficult, but we are holding on and you should too. Believe me, it's much, much harder for us here.
