K Ly

Advocate for human rights 🇺🇦

[Save the Children Europe @SaveChildrenEU]

“This is a pan-European crisis: there is no country in Europe which is free from child poverty.

There is a but. Child poverty is also preventable. It is something we can and must address.” - @enrico_tormen

#EndChildPovertyWeek

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

Amid the ongoing humanitarian and demographic crises in Ukraine, children and youth must be the central voice in the recovery and accession processes - who will Ukraine be built for otherwise?

[Save the Children Europe @SaveChildrenEU]

Children’s voices and opinions should contribute to shaping #EndChildPoverty policies and decisions that affect them.

@SCIUkraine’s Kateryna Lytvynenko shares the voices of young people from Ukraine’s Mykolayiv with the EU 👇

#IAm20Million

[боровичок @Levi_Borovychok]

Please, stop for 5 min. and read this text. Some people paid a really high price for it.

This is a translation of a post by Olena Bovt. Her husband is a Ukrainian soldier.
«
Be afraid of your desires, people. They can come true. This is specifically about our case. I googled how to break my leg painlessly so that Yura, my husband, could stay here longer. I thought about stopping taking my pills so that they would just put me in a mental hospital and let Yura go meet the kids. But it was all in those moments of weakness. The rest of the time I was very proud of him. And proud of myself. That he didn't die and I didn't go crazy. And so when the guys left Bakhmut, I could already hear in Yuriy's voice that something was wrong. Earlier, there was an incident (I posted a video with a soldier whose kneecap was knocked out and wounded by shrapnel). He and Yura were in a pickup truck together when it hit them. The most interesting thing is that if the car had been a standard left-hand drive, the same thing would have happened to Yura, but the passenger would have been unharmed. And so Yura drags him to the shelter, and everyone is standing there watching and afraid to come out to help. Finally, a guy from another brigade decided to come to the rescue. Yura then yelled at everyone for a long time about how cowards they were. And the next day he just could not speak. It was not because he was hoarse, he just could not say a word. He was silent for a few days, then he started to make sounds a little bit. A few days later he started to speak with a stutter. I could see the despair in his eyes when he couldn't say a simple "hello" over the video call. He just looked at me and cried. He would say two words "everything is fine" for about 20 seconds. After that, he learned to speak slowly and long to avoid stuttering. Eventually, in about two weeks, everything went away. And he realized the most terrible thing a soldier is afraid of: if something happens to me, no one will pull me out. I am pulling out everyone I can, but no one will pull me out.
I will also tell you about those who are tired of the war. Do you know who they are? They are. The boys. To what extent? To the point where they just stand in the middle of the street when the air raids come, spread their arms and legs wide, just so that it would hit them right there and finally make them feel better. To the point when one hears sound that is made by incoming artillery shells and is waddling outside to make sure it would fucking kill him. I cannot imagine the state of a person who does this.
You saw the pickup truck he came in, right? Well, he was driving and just blacked out. And at speed, he flew off the road. He didn't fall asleep, he didn't hit a bump, his body just shut down. He woke up on the side of the road in ruins.
Effects of him being a hero are only seen now. Today I had a mental breakdown in the clinic. I don't know how to handle all of it. But I have to.
I do not recognize his eyes. There is so much pain and hatred for everyone and everything around me that sometimes I get shivers when I see his look, when he is asked "how is Bakhmut". Everyone who did not die is a cunt. And those who did die did not do it heroically enough. Civilians are bastards in general. Every single one of them. I understand that he will get over it in time, I understand that the war is not in his head forever. The psychiatrist said he needs to get himself back from there, because he is still there. At home, we only talk about the war. From morning to night. It's the same thing. Anything I try to change the subject is cut short by saying that no one will ever understand him and that it would probably be better for him if he died there. And that we will never win, because the number of our losses is already a failure on its own. For me, each such phrase is like a bucket of ice water on my head. I get lost and don't know what to say. I try to joke and smile and even succeed. However, inside I am just an empty abyss.
Don't be offended by the military who were rude to you. They did not mean it. It's just that they are still there with their heads and souls, and it's very, very difficult for them. And we will never really understand them. We collect some donations here, we buy something (yes, this is also important), but we owe them all and each of them individually an unpayable debt. Because if I were told the price for my husband's healthy psyche, I would take everything out of the house and steal from the neighbors. “Does he really earn a hundred thousand a month?” some people keep asking. He does, he does. I don't even know what to do with that wealth.
»

[Bad Baltic Takes @BadBalticTakes]

The ultimate form of russian victimhood is to blame foreigners for whichever variation of russian imperialism is suddenly out of favour.

It’s a regularly recycled trope among russians - particularly aimed at the Baltic countries.

We are, apparently, responsible for tsarism, the soviet union, and Putin - according to each movement to replace them. There’s a non-zero chance that Navalny will rule next and then we’ll be blamed for enabling him too by his opposition.

Let’s rewind.

The Bolsheviks blamed us for aligning with the White Army while russians were fighting their civil war - but our interests aligned only in the context of our own independence war.

Soviet dissidents and anti-communists today in russia (many of whom support Putin) absurdly see russia as the victim of some kind of reverse colonialism during soviet times - in favour of occupied nations like ours. They’ll point to Bolsheviks recruited here to argue as if our countries created the whole soviet union.

Today, many supporters of Navalny point to russia’s corrupting of western societies to argue that it’s actually the West enabling Putin while russians are just the victims. I sometimes see them use actual Kremlin propaganda to back up that argument.

Russia will weaponise any international connections with itself, however remote, to portray its adversaries abroad as responsible for russia.

It reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob gets released from jail and runs for Mayor by attacking the incumbent mayor for releasing dangerous criminals …like Sideshow Bob.

The rest of the world got a taste of this kind of thing more recently after Prigozhin’s aborted coup. During the coup attempt, russian society and elites were very quiet hedging their bets over who to support between Prigozhin and Putin based on who’d triumph. As soon as the coup was aborted, russia supporters suddenly woke up and began criticising the rest of the world for cheering on an extremist like Prigozhin who… er, they had spent years idolising.

All this is cynical buck-passing, but also something more deeply rooted in the russian imperial mentality.

They believe everyone else must have a side in russian politics because they are unable to see other peoples and countries with their own agency and interests entirely separate from them. And russia must always be the victim …even, somehow, of itself - if you attribute that to others.

They can’t understand that we actually want nothing to do with russia. We dream of the day when none of us outside of russia have to know so much about what’s happening inside russia.

I once saw a tweet from a russian account saying: ‘That Bad Baltic Takes account is supposed to be dedicated to opposing Putin but it’s actually anti-Navalny’. No, this account is not about you. You just happen to feature way too much due to ongoing circumstances.

Too often, the international media analyses the Baltic countries purely through the russian lens of whether what we are doing is good for the russian opposition.

But I hope this helps people in the west understand why russia’s neighbours aren’t so enthusiastic about any russian that just calls themselves a dissident despite still clearly displaying an imperial mentality.

We are not part of russia. We don’t want anything to do with russia. We do not have a side within russian politics. We do not have to choose between different brands of russian imperialism. We have our own independent countries and our interest is our own freedom and security. We can craft policies based on what’s best for our countries and how we can secure ourselves against all russian imperialism.

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@naumenkocv Нащо давати його інфо майданчики і поширювати далі цю хворобу?

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

Russia must be stopped.

[Nedal Al-Amari 🇸🇾 @nedalalamari]

A heart-wrenching scene of a child crying intensely, saying, 'I want my brother, I want my brother.'
The video was taken an hour ago during the shelling that targeted the city of Sarmin in eastern Idlib, This is what Syrian children go through every day.
Please, save the children of Syria.
#freesyria

[Oleksandra Povoroznyk 🇺🇦 @rynkrynk]

Feeling just immense gratitude to our air defence. I can’t even imagine how many people would be dead tonight if it weren’t for everyone protecting our skies and cities.

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@serhiyprytula Докинула

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@serhiyprytula Чекаєм

[Nedal Al-Amari 🇸🇾 @nedalalamari]

A family fled to the countryside of Idlib after displacement,
And as they couldn't afford the rent for a house, They found an abandoned water station and took shelter in its ruins, Today it was targeted by the criminal Russian warplanes, This lifeless body now in the darkness of Idlib's countryside belongs to a girl who was killed along with her family due to this Russian bombardment, The darkness in the video from which this image was captured is horrifying to a degree that the mind can't bear, It makes you wonder how this child spent her final moments in this darkness.

Russia is a terrorist state

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

🥹❤️‍🩹

[боровичок @Levi_Borovychok]

I took this photo while on a train to my hometown.
Those ladies were having an intense discussion, but I can't remember the topic.
It was an ordinary train millions of Ukrainians use daily: an old one, not super clean, but departs on time.

At the same time, those not-fancy trains depart in time even when everything around them is on fire. They just happened to exist in war times. Train drivers also just happened to live in war times. They were not born to become heroes.
Those ladies could be making camouflage nets and dried food for soldiers. One of them could have survived the occupation. They just happened to live in war times.

What will happen to this train? I only remember it got me home to my family.
What will happen to those ladies? We do not know. We can only hope they will be safe&sound.

What will happen to Ukraine? It depends on what we do: me, you, my government, yours, business in your country, Ukrainian business, elections in different countries.

I believe in Ukraine. I believe in old trains and those ladies. I believe in us.
🇺🇦

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@hmaro4os Факти факти факти
А нове покриття на дорогах в центрі перестилають пару празів на рік

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@RaduHossu Thanks for sharing updates and raising awareness!

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@svlipko Є

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@MBielieskov Its a psyops fake

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

Human rights activists with decades upon decades of lived experience know that only immediate decisive FULL support to Ukraine can ensure peace, democracy and human rights in the entire region.

[Marci Shore @marci_shore]

It's an extraordinary historical moment when three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, from three different countries, come together to plead for weapons to be sent to Ukraine immediately. @berlin_bridge
https://t.co/LWz2SRvcY2

[Orysia Lutsevych @Orysiaua]

Excellent investigative analysis by @KyivIndependent on why Ukraine is undersupplied. Why is the EU failing to ramp up military production allowing #Russia to dig into #Ukraine and terrorise its cities from the sky? https://t.co/epkcxrRTDk

[K Ly @kat_lyt]

@OstAnatoliy Особливо за отой

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

"To us [Ukrainians] it feels as though the world is anticipating yet another tragedy, as if we are simply characters in a dystopian series. Only when faced with a concoction of pandemics, floods, bombings, torture and rape can we receive help and support... [1/2]