Go Blue

ZELENSKYY’S response to JD VANCE: Vice President, with all due respect, isn't taking part in negotiations between US, Ukraine, and Russia. Otherwise he would understand the difference between 'scrap of land' and sovereign territory of Ukraine. This important territory is priority from security perspective with strong defensive structures, fortifications, and where about 200,000 people currently live. He would understand that Russia's goal is occupation of Eastern Ukraine in order to prepare a bridgehead for subsequent offensive actions. So, before doing anything, we need to have detailed security guarantees. For now, Ukraine simply does not have security guarantees necessary to talk about other steps. And of course, every square meter of our land is Ukrainian land and, with all due respect to any of our partners, it is definitely not theirs.

🔥 Russia is bleeding out — this is strategic dismantling. Ukraine did it. 1/13

1. Budapest Memorandum The U.S. gave security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. Supporting Ukraine helps uphold that commitment and maintains trust in international agreements. 2. Russian invasion of Ukraine Russia’s invasion violates international law and sovereignty. Responding helps deter aggression globally and prevents a precedent where borders can be changed by force. 3. Ukraine as a democracy Ukraine is a democratic country choosing its own path. Supporting it aligns with defending democratic values and self-determination against authoritarian pressure. Does it help?

In a MASSIVE development, the United States is reportedly preparing to deploy the MAJORITY of its highly classified stealth missile arsenal. This UNPRECEDENTED military escalation signals a critical turning point in the ongoing conflict with Iran. Global markets are reacting rapidly as the Pentagon readies these ADVANCED precision weapons for imminent use.

On March 6, 2023, a short video spread across the world. It lasted only 12 seconds, but in that time it opened the eyes of millions of people to the true price of freedom. In the video, a Ukrainian prisoner of war stands in a dug-out “grave,” taking a drag from a cigarette. Russian soldiers stand around him. He calmly looks ahead and says only two words: “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine!) In response, a burst of automatic gunfire is heard. That day, the world witnessed one of the most brutal war crimes committed by the Russian army. And Ukraine saw the birth of a new Hero. It was later revealed that the man in the video was Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a fighter of the 163rd Battalion of the 119th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade of Chernihiv region. His story was later told by The Wall Street Journal in an article titled: “How the Last Act of Defiance by a Ukrainian Soldier Made Him a Hero.” On December 30, 2022, Matsievskyi and a group of fighters moved to a forest belt near the village of Chervona Hora, not far from Bakhmut. Their mission was to support Ukrainian units defending their positions. A group of five soldiers, including Oleksandr, tried to hold back the Russian advance. According to his comrades, the enemy attacked in waves, literally stepping over the bodies of their own dead. Sergeant Vasyl Zamola later recalled that Russian forces managed to outflank their position—exactly where Matsievskyi and his comrades were stationed. Ukrainian soldiers tried several times to break through to them, but the enemy fire was too intense. When night fell, the platoon had to withdraw to safer positions. “Otherwise we all would have been killed,” his comrades explained. After the battle, Oleksandr was listed as missing in action. His mother, Paraskovia Demchuk from Nizhyn, had last spoken with her son on December 29. When rumors about losses in the battalion appeared, she began to worry. Later, his comrades informed her that her son had gone missing. On February 9, the police called her. At the morgue she identified her son by a scar above his eyebrow and a birthmark on his leg. His body was riddled with bullets. She buried her son, but at that time she still did not know exactly how he had died. Only in March 2023 did Paraskovia accidentally see online the short video of the execution of a Ukrainian soldier. The soldier in the video was her son. His comrades immediately confirmed it. Later, the Security Service of Ukraine officially identified the fighter. It was sniper Oleksandr Matsievskyi. His last words became a symbol of unbreakable spirit. Oleksandr was born in Moldova, where his mother had once gone to work at a shoe factory. He grew up athletic and worked as an electrician. For some time he lived and worked in Russia, but in 2008 he returned with his family to Nizhyn. When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Matsievskyi joined the Territorial Defense without hesitation. By December 8, 2022, he was already near Bakhmut. For him and many of his comrades, it was their first real combat experience. But even in captivity he remained a warrior. His comrades, whose remains were found beside him, are buried next to him in Nizhyn. “He showed that the spirit of Ukraine is unbreakable,” his mother told The Wall Street Journal. Later, Oleksandr Matsievskyi was posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine. His final words are now known all over the world. And they sound like a reminder: in the struggle for freedom, even a single voice can become the symbol of a nation. Eternal memory to the Hero 🕯️

Four years after Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, Putin's barbaric aggression continues. Ukraine seeks democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. We must continue to stand with Ukraine and stay on the right side of this moral debate.

Do you remember that very night -- the night before the day of all days, four years ago? How many of us didn’t sleep at all. We sat in the dark in silence, in front of our laptops, refreshing news feeds. Here was Blinken saying the invasion was inevitable within the next few hours. Here was Zelensky speaking in the middle of the night in Russian, pleading with all Russians to come to their senses at the last moment and not take a fatal step. Here was the news that the runways of Ukraine’s largest airports had been blocked with overturned vehicles. We sat with Flighradar24 open. Here at 1 a.m., over northern and eastern Ukraine, an American drone was making multiple circles, monitoring the massive Russian grouping on our border from Belarus to Crimea. A plane seemed to have taken off, evacuating Turkish diplomats. They must have been among the last ones... Russia had closed all airspace along its entire border with Ukraine later on. In journalists’ chats, hundreds of colleagues just as sleepless. “Guys, be ready… it seems like today.” But hope, of course, died last. Maybe today it would pass. Maybe it was still a bluff and blackmail, because that would be logical. They couldn’t possibly go through with such madness. It would be a catastrophe of biblical proportions and a bloody slaughter in which it would be impossible to win. They couldn’t fail to understand that. And then -- “live” on Russian TV (in reality, of course, everything had been recorded well in advance as part of a pre-invasion propaganda performance) -- Putin’s face, distorted with sadistic hatred and a smirk of gloating, announcing the “special military operation.” What is there to say, four years have passed since that night. If someone had told me then that four years later independent Ukraine would be at the forefront of the entire free world, fighting alone on equal terms against the full military power of Russia, with the Ukrainian flag over every regional capital that was free from occupation that night, with Ukrainian-made drones and cruise missiles that smash Russian oil refineries, airfields, and giant military factories every single night — I would never, ever have believed it. And yet, through unparalleled heroism and enormous sacrifice, fighting Ukraine has changed the course of history. She disproved all the arrogant skeptics who were burying her alive back then and giving her no chance, already ready to run and “negotiate” with yet another deranged maniac hungry for blood and territorial grabs. Glory to Ukraine!