Waking up with the news of Russia invading Ukraine at 6 a.m (24 Feb. 2022) is no fun.
My first reaction was anxiety, and that's exactly what they want. Him, and his supporters.
When a War is approaching or in this case, becoming wider with Putin bombing Ukrainian cities, people start to panic.
Social medias are chaos so here are few advices from a 25-year old Italian who's lived in Ukraine for 2 months and loved every minute of it:
Yes, Putin has bombed Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Mariupol today and that's serious.
Yes, he tried to take control of Ukrainian capital city Airport and it's scary
but please, don't think of Ukraine as a defeated country and Kyiv as a hopeless destroyed city!
Some young people getting ready for a political protest, during the Euromaidan period.
PERSPECTIVE THROUGH URGENCY:
Kate, one of my friends in Kyiv has told me that "the situation is very bad" but "I personally don’t know where the bombings were, But yes, people know". That reminded me that Kyiv is an 839 km² city and news are still fresh and in development. Not everything is lost.
(conversation happened at 10.22 CET - Rome time / 11.22 -EET Kyiv, Kiev time, 24 Feb 2022)
"Ukraine is much stronger than we were in 2014. This means their actions will also be harder. The world has to unite indeed" my friend also added.
Because, yes, Russia's invasion in Ukraine didn't start today, 24 February 2022, and speaking of which, Crimea was already invaded and re-annexed to Russia in 2014, starting a very tense period right after a great social revolution (Euromaidan).
photo from Euromaidan revolution - Kyiv, 2014
WHAT TO DO:
When people worldwide wake up which such news, they start to shout random stuff through social medias, and it happened to me too.
In such situations, we experience feelings of ANXIETY, FEAR, SENSE OF GUILT, ANGER, WE FEEL POWERLESS and don't know what to do.
It happened with the war in Syria and ISIS thread some years ago, we experienced it again with Afghanistan's latest Taliban invasion and here we are again.
In Ukraine's case, we are "lucky". The country and its people already suggested what to do:
#staywithukraine - READ AND SPREAD OFFICIAL NEWS:
Please, try to go beyond Putin's terroristic words like "Whoever will try to create obstacles and interfere, Moscow will react with consequences never seen before"
Because yes, he is dangerous and this unjustified attack is unhuman, but while NATO will act fastly to protect people, people's role right now is to make Ukrainians feel heard, believe in REACTION, remember that this thread is after all a STRATEGY to make you believe he's stronger than us and that he won already, which is totally NOT TRUE.
When I've been to Ukraine in 2016, most of young people I met, thought that western Europe didn't give a damn about Ukraine's political situation, which wasn't totally true. There was a lack of information and I tried my best to fill that gap when I came back to Italy, since Ukraine gave a lot to my heart.
But if people in a tense situation feel abandoned, obstacles and daily life can be unbearable. Can't we CHANGE this?
Me (Italian) and my friend Bengü (Turkish), wearing our Ukrainian bracelet back in 2016
We cannot stop bombings from our computers but we can remember and share that
THIS SITUATION IS URGENT, FACTS ARE SERIOUS BUT IT IS NOT TOO LATE.
Note: this short article was born instinctively, from my urge to write something useful rather than a random social media post. Consider that I'm not an international politics expert and I'm delivering this in response to an urgent and fast-changing situation. Any Ukrainian citizen or anyone else is welcome to give his/her contribution to this by commenting or privately contacting me to share further information.
CONCRETE HELP:
The National Bank of Ukraine has decided to open a special fundraising account to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The number of the special account: UA843000010000000047330992708
If you want to help Ukraine, you can support the charitable fund to help veterans and the military on Patreon here
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