1,000 Days Later

Ukraine still remains as an independent country

One thousand days ago Vladimir Putin did the unthinkable and ordered the invasion of Ukraine. He said that the invasion, which he called “a special military operation,” would last only three days. He said it had to be done because the Ukrainian government was full of Nazis. The leadership would be overthrown and Ukraine would be “de-Nazified.” (Translation: Ukraine would become part of Russia again.)

But something happened. The Ukrainians fought back. One thousand days later Volodymyr Zelenskyy still remains as president of Ukraine and the country is still independent. At this point we should all say that conquering Ukraine is a lost cause and Vladimir Putin should just give up but he won't. So the war rages on while Russia's economy is literally in the toilet since this war has gotten incredibly expensive.

And bad times are further ahead for Russia as President Joe Biden is finally, at long last, allowing Ukraine to use the American long-range missiles to shoot deep into Russia.

The 1,000th day of war has produced all kinds of memories. I still remember very early in the war when this video went viral. A young girl tearfully says goodbye to her father, who also breaks down and cries, as she is placed on a bus that was leaving Ukraine. Her father had to stay behind as his daughter boarded the bus because under the current martial law in place, men between the ages of 18-60 are not allowed to leave the country because they are needed to help defend the country.

All kinds of unspeakable horrors have happened over the past 1,000 days but there were some bright spots as well, such as the rise of the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO), which took on the pro-Russian trolls spewing lies on social media, especially Twitter/X. There were people in other countries who tried to stop the rise of Putin-sympathetic governments in their own countries with some successes (such as Moldova) and failures (such as the recent reelection of Putin’s BFF, Donald Trump, in my own country).

Then there were the people who FAFO, such as Russell “Texas” Bentley, the American who believed the Kremlin propaganda about Ukraine being so full of Nazis so much that he moved to Donetsk, fought for the Russians and even did propaganda work for them only to get kidnapped, tortured, and killed by his own side—the Russians. (Recently United24 has published this story about the grim place where Bentley suffered his ultimate fate.)

While a lot has happened over the past 1,000 days, it looks like Ukraine has a long way to go until Russia decides to give up its insane desire to conquer Ukraine. Let's hope things turn out well for Ukraine in the future and we can see the return of a light-hearted President Zelenskyy from the beginning of the war.

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