IT IS A SAD TIME FOR UKRAINE AND CIVILIZED WORLD, BUT THE RIGHT WILL PREVAIL OVER WRONG

I am not a big fun of social networks and usually keep my personal opinions to myself or just few friends, but I feel differently this time.

It is very unfortunate that for the last 20 years Russia is run by what could be described as a mafia gang. It is scary that for a long time the civilized world has chosen to largely ignore it for convenience of easier access to natural resources.

Mafia gangs do not follow the same moral and democratic norms that many countries take for granted. ?For mafia gang it makes sense to attack Ukraine:

• It helps mafia boss to stay in power by proving to population that changing a godfather would lead to chaos (assuming they would succeed to over through democratically elected government in Ukraine or at least prolong instability there, which they were doing for many years now).
• It helps boss and underbosses to make even more money. They knew they would attack Ukraine and they knew it would plunge local markets, drive oil price up, and drive ruble price down. So, I have little doubt that they already made billions of dollars manipulating the markets. And as far as war cost goes, it is not their kids who are sent to war and they just tax population for general war expenses.
• If world would allow them to succeed in driving Ukraine to dark ages, they could go after more territories to control. The elite 21st century dictatorship club of Russia, Belarus, North Korea, etc. could grow keeping entire population of those counties’ hostages.

We cannot change past, but we can learn from it and, hopefully, build a better future.

Each of us can do what feels possible and right. I am not skilled and not too brave to go there and fight for Ukraine, but

• I can share some money (there are many sites now offering information on different ways to help. This is just one of them https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/02/27/verified-ways-to-help-the-ukrainian-army/)
• I can share some thoughts (thanks to freedom of speech that we enjoy, except for ongoing push for political correctness). I can use what I am learning when I vote.
• I can hope and pray for this aggression to be stopped as soon as possible with Ukraine coming out of it stronger than ever!

I believe Ukraine will prevail because of

• Amazing bravery and determination of Ukrainian people.
• Immediate actions from all civilized world.
• Russian elite realizing that they can no longer draw benefits from this war (cannot get more money from it, could face more internal unrest and soldier’s lost desire to kill innocent people, can face prosecutions for war crimes or other inconveniences, can expose weaknesses due to amazing level of corruption where anything that could be stolen is stolen – impacting supply chain and quality of the military equipment).

I am an eternal optimist. And because of that I believe in the future where:

• Ukraine will have people and political forces being united and succeeding in building a strong, prosperous, corruption free, democratic country living in peace with all its neighbors.
• All world democracies will develop better strategy to deter any similar aggressions in the future.
• Russia will also ultimately become prosperous, corruption free, peaceful, democratic country. I was born there. It is a beautiful country with amazing culture and many amazing people. I am waiting for the day when I can visit it with my American passport and no visa, because our countries will be friends. I know this day will come and I intend to live forever to see it.

One day this war will end, and Ukraine will win. I hope the world learns right lessons from it.