You might have missed this somewhat heartwarming story from Ukraine Today that's been doing the rounds about a woman who saved dozens of cats from the conflict in the Donbas region (the story is accompanied by a particularly endearing video here):
Refugee saves over 40 cats from shooting in Ukraine's eastern region occupied by Russian-backed militants
Saved from shelling and hunger.
These cats have been rescued from Ukraine's eastern regions currently occupied by Russian-backed militants. Their saviour: Valentyna Prokopchyk who collected 46 cats from the streets of the occupied Luhansk region and brought them to village near the capital, Kyiv.
Valentyna talks about why she decided to flee the conflict zone.
Valentyna Prokopchyk, Ukrainian cat rescuer: "The mail stopped working, banks closed...There were times when I just made flour paste – I added some water to the flour, but the cats didn't want to eat that. I even had to feed some of them with a syringe."
To transport the abandoned felines from the eastern region, Valentyna paid a driver 7,000 Hryvnia, nearly double the average Ukrainian monthly salary. After she had collected a few cats while still in the conflict zone, others started to come to her one their own.
Valentyna Prokopchyk, Ukrainian cat rescuer: "A cat came to my door and asked me to let him in. As if he knew that we would be able to protect him. The owners probably just left him. They might think he is waiting for them somewhere. And he is here in Ukraine, he lives near Kyiv. I wish they knew that."
Now these cats along with Valentyna are living in a private home away from the fighting. Her dream is for each of these four legged creatures to find a good home. But for now, she'll do all she can to make sure they have plently of food and lots of love.
Geostrategic analyst J. Michael Waller has written an interesting opinion piece for the Kyiv Post on a novel way for Kyiv to take the fight to Russia:
Like no other country, non-aligned Ukraine has an untapped capability to defend itself against Russian aggression – with or without support from the West.
It’s an old idea that doesn't require guns or bombs. All that it needs is the will to harness the aggressor’s internal vulnerabilities. While Russia is militarily far stronger than Ukraine, it shows signs of much greater weakness inside its borders.
Ukrainians know Russia’s political cultures, national fears and paranoias, socioeconomic divides, and other vulnerabilities that are ripe for adroit strategists to exploit.
By making war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has broken the surface tension that, so far, has held the Russian Federation together. In its own defense, Ukraine has the capability to attack the Putin regime’s internal power base.
This doesn't mean fomenting horrible civil wars within the Russian state. To the contrary. It means showing solidarity with the peoples of Russia.
The assassination of top Putin opposition figure Boris Nemtsov outside the Kremlin, and the public outcry, shows that the time to act is now.
In its own special way, Ukraine can magnify the many voices inside Russia that, together, form the disorganized nucleus of a movement that could do to Putin what the Maidan movement did to the pro-Moscow regime in Kyiv one year ago.
Many ordinary Russians resent and fear the growing political repression and unchecked corruption under Putin’s mafiocracy. Some brave cruelty and imprisonment for brief acts of defiance. Censors are powerless to stop the viral spread of a popular protest video calling for a "Russian Maidan" movement against the Kremlin’s “totalitarian monster."
Conditions are developing for a national anti-war movement. Russia’s ethnic minorities are aware of how their sons are singled out to serve as combat forces to fight Putin’s war against Ukraine. Recently, in the Siberian enclave of Tyva, a local former lawmaker called on the governments of all ethnically non-Russian regions of the Russian Federation to stop local recruitment for the war.
Ukraine should exploit this issue. No army can accomplish its objectives with a robust anti-war movement at home – especially when that movement is integrated with a global diplomatic offensive and an influence campaign directed at the combat troops themselves.
Read the entire article here