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 [ SAY WHAT? ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=376)

#  Goddamn Heartbreaking

February 28 2022

Written by Abby Zimet.

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SAY WHAT? - "VLADI GO HOME," read the sign held by a woman protester in Germany, thus succinctly summarizing - along with the hashtag [**\#PutinIsaWarCriminal - ](https://twitter.com/hashtag/PutinIsaWarCriminal?src=hashtag_click)an aghast world's [**response ](https://kevinjshay44.medium.com/what-we-can-do-about-putin-invading-ukraine-ee8ad309119b)to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia's paranoid, power-mad Ivan-the-Terrible wannabe. The escalation came quickly, with much drama. Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky offered an impassioned [**plea ](https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/02/24/zelensky-ukraine-any-minute-russia-incursion-ac360-response-vpx.cnn)to the Russian people - in Russian, which he typically avoids using - to “listen to the voice of reason” and spare what would be too many lives lost. Putin gave an incendiary, rambling [**speech**](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/world/europe/putin-speech-transcript.html) about the need to defend the "new republics" from a "nightmare (of) persecution and genocide" by the "Neo-Nazi" regime of Zelensky, who's [**Jewish**](https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1496854132262584324?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496854132262584324%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigbysblog.net%2F) and a descendant of Holocaust survivors. America's right-wing tools, goons and useful idiots [**hastened**](https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1496302694088257539) to take the wrong side, from the stunned [**lunacy ](https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1496696954063134720)of the former guy - man, woman, person, camera, TV - to the brownshirt [**bilge ](https://www.newsweek.com/former-trump-adviser-steve-bannon-backs-anti-woke-vladimir-putin-1682122)of Steve Bannon and Erik Prince, blathering that at least the anti-woke Putin [**never made ](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/vladimir-putin-may-have-launched-an-unprovoked-invasion-of-ukraine-but-at-least-hes-never-asked-you-to-use-a-same-sex-bathroom)your kids read about slavery, use a same-sex bathroom or wear a skirt like Harry Styles. Meanwhile, experts seeing "a preview of great brutality" [**pondered ](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1496837475901362180.html)the surreal implications of Putins's unveiled nuclear threats, murky "endgame" and possible problematic occupation of a nation of 41 million, an act akin to "committing suicide for fear of death," all to assuage the ego and hubris and greed of a guy who may have "lost the plot." And as always, the fearsome costs are borne by the people, whose stories and[ images ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2022/feb/24/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-begins-in-pictures)quickly began pouring out on hashtags like [**\#Ukraine**](https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ukraine?src=hashtag_click) and [**\#UkraineUnderAttack**](https://twitter.com/hashtag/UkraineUnderAttack?src=hashtag_click).

In Russia, [**thousands**](https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1496954652012781569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496978162651119619%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Flive%2F2022%2Ffeb%2F24%2Frussia-invades-ukraine-declares-war-latest-news-live-updates-russian-invasion-vladimir-putin-explosions-bombing-kyiv-kharkiv) of [**protesters**](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/24/over-1000-russians-arrested-protesting-putins-ukraine-invasion) bravely [**took to**](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/hundreds-arrested-as-russians-protest-invasion-of-ukraine) the[ streets;**](https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1496870591483330560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1496870591483330560%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdigbysblog.net%2F) by Thursday night, almost 1,800 in 53 cities were detained, about half in Moscow. What if they gave a war and nobody came, or they did but gave up: There were reports of [**surrenders**](https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1496881782750425091?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497006439813976074%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100216395081) by Russian forces who didn't want to kill former countrymen - though also chilling [**video**](https://twitter.com/kuringechuwa/status/1497027355562455052) of soldiers blithely stripping dead bodies. As anxious residents huddled in subway stations, moving [**accounts ](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/24/kyiv-putin-bombs-invasion-airstrikes-ukraine-russia)surfaced. A woman wiped tears as she [**stood**](https://twitter.com/Omar_Khaledd98/status/1497047459025104932) clutching a baby, with her toddler's sign pleading, "Stop War In Ukraine." An 80-year-old man toting a bag with extra shirts/pants and sandwiches[ tried to**](https://twitter.com/AsaadHannaa/status/1497041541512192000) sign up to fight for his grandchildren in Ukraine. A former president of Ukraine, in the streets with a barely armed civil defense group, [**vowed**](https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1497189957395488778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497189957395488778%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffpost.com%2Fentry%2Fukraine-poroshenko-kalashnikov_n_6218fd1ee4b06e1cc58e9db7) to hold out "forever." A woman [**railed at**](https://twitter.com/DaliaLincoln/status/1497027985710493706) soldiers as occupants, fascists, shits, then furiously [**told them  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L17Bi7zBJHI&t=66s)to take some sunflower seeds to grow in Ukrainian soil "after you die." A sobbing father put his tearful daughter on a bus out of Kyiv to keep her safe; the usually staid Alexander Vindman, who left Ukraine for the U.S. as a child, [**called**](https://twitter.com/AVindman/status/1497026748629856256) the video, "Goddamn heartbreaking." After the Russians reportedly seized Chernobyl in "a collision of catastrophes," Charlie Pierce [**noted**](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39207303/russia-invade-ukraine-chernobyl-zelensky/) the horror of Russians making war in a still-radioactive wilderness, created by humans and largely "[**reclaimed ](https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-has-become-unexpected-haven-wildlife)by vegetation and the beasts of the wild," that will remain uninhabitable to humans for 20,000 years: "And many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." And on an [**island ](https://www.smh.com.au/national/russia-ukraine-live-updates-vladimir-putin-declares-war-on-ukraine-as-explosions-missiles-envelop-kyiv-kharkiv-world-condemns-attack-20220224-p59zjb.html?post=p53dv1#p53dv1)in the Black Sea, 13 Ukrainian border guards [**stayed defiant**](https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1497005877555077124?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497005877555077124%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100216394867) to the end. May they rest in peace and power.

*"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."* - Howard Zinn

*(*[***Abby Zimet***](https://www.commondreams.org/author/abby-zimet) *has written CD's* [***Further***](https://www.commondreams.org/further) *column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email:* [*azimet18@gmail.com*](mailto:azimet18@gmail.com)*)*

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