Viola Gienger

Yesterday, a documentary film was released about my colleague journalist Viktoriya Roshchina, who died suddenly in Russian captivity last year. Here are the main findings. Vika went to the occupied territories to collect testimonies about life under occupation. The Russians illegally detained the journalist. Her cellmate said that Vika was tortured with electric shocks and stabbed. She asked for and did not receive medical care. Her weight dropped to 30 kg. Russians even hid her from the Russian Ombudsman. Then she disappeared. Let me remind you that the Russians have not returned her body to her grieving parents for six months so that no one would find out what they did to her.

People seem to think that Zelensky is waging this war as if he were playing Starcraft or something like that—selecting mindless units with a box and sending them into battle over and over again, as if they had no choice but to obey his right-click command and march to fight. But this war is not fought by Zelensky. This war is fought by about a million Ukrainian men and women who have been holding the front lines for years, as well as by the Ukrainian people in the rear. It is an enormous number of people who fight in trenches day after day, enduring cold, rain, and mud; who launch counterattacks, retreat, die, evacuate the wounded, transport supplies, operate drones, issue orders, repair and maintain equipment, provide communications, plan, gather intelligence, endure the absurdities of military bureaucracy, break out of encirclements, destroy Russian tank columns, carry out air missions, shoot down Russian missiles, put out fires, and so much more. It is these people, wearing the Ukrainian flag patch on their camouflage jackets, who decide whether Ukraine fights or not—by continuing to do it every day and refusing to give up, despite facing one of the largest armies in history, supported by troops, resources, and weapons from a coalition of dictatorial regimes… and now even from the United States. Do you need a reminder of what happens when an army refuses to fight for its country and its president? You get Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Or the Russian army on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1917. Zelensky’s task in this war is to do everything possible and impossible for the Ukrainian nation that is fighting. And he does it because the nation continues to fight—not the other way around.

(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.

BREAKING: The United States is pausing all U.S. military aid to Ukraine until President Trump determines the Ukrainians show a commitment to good faith peace negotiations, a senior Trump administration official tells Fox News.  "This is not permanent termination of aid, it's a pause," the official emphasized. "The orders are going out right now." The official said this is in response to Ukrainian President Zelensky's conduct over the last week.

We are very grateful to the United States for all the support. I’m thankful to President Trump, Congress for their bipartisan support, and American people. Ukrainians have always appreciated this support, especially during these three years of full-scale invasion.