Ukraine is on brink. Will US give money for war?

The brains of every sane person in Ukraine are having a hard time digesting a new terrible act of terrorism - the murder of five dozen residents of the village of Hroza in the Kharkiv region by Russian Iskanders. Every fifth resident of the village was killed because he came to the wake of his neighbor, a hero of the Russian-Ukrainian war who died near Popasna.

"There were a lot of cell phones in one place, so the Russian army thought it was a military gathering. But it's not the military," Russian liberals are trying to find an excuse for their state's terrorism. They are the same wolves in sheep's clothing.

'Chervona Kalyna' is heard from time to time from the bags with bodies, but the owner of a phone will never say 'hello'. 

"There are no more such sincere condolences, words of support, and deep condemnations from our Western partners. And you realize that our pains, our deaths, and our dozens of coffins in one unknown house in a village have become the death of casualty statistics. Numbers without faces and biographies."

Somewhere in Valdai, at this time, the insane corpse-eater of retirement age, Putin, is talking about the redivision of the world, threatening with nuclear weapons and declaring that it is necessary to develop Siberia and the Far East. Isn't that why Russia recently announced 25 new concentration camps in the 'new Russian territories' - the occupied South and Donbas?

In the second year of the full-scale war and the tenth year of the Russian-Ukrainian war in general, we have become hostages to our own illusions, our own search for an easy life, and our inability to see horizons beyond the CIS.

When the United States is now arguing about how to provide assistance to Ukraine - whether to allocate an additional USD 24 billion in funding or to take a different path - it is not about dislike for Ukrainians. It's about the tiredness of politicians who promise a lot but do nothing after the staff photographer takes a protocol photo with the current US president.

Leonid Kuchma promised a lot to Clinton, Yanukovych tried to sell himself to Barack Obama as a negotiable person, Petro Poroshenko was looking for common ground with Hillary Clinton and Trump. Zelenskyy is trying to pass off Biden's protocol handshake with Yermak as a fact of comprehensive approval of his policy.

Our main western partner will not abandon us in the face of madness. And we shouldn't stir up anti-American sentiment through Telegram and YouTube videos of Medvedchuk's stars, lest we return to the circles of lies and self-isolation that were successfully completed back in the noughties. When our Westerners were being admitted to NATO and the EU in advance, Firtash and Kolomoisky were thriving in Ukraine. We were told about a unique path from every iron, and in some strange way it was tightly linked only to Russia and Belarus.

Our best pilots went to work as security guards in stores, and our current generals worked as taxi drivers, because we disarmed ourselves to the delight of Russia. And for the sake of the Western world's peacekeepers' tick box on comprehensive disarmament. We lived in the clear belief that no one would attack our poor and needy country. And we could relax. Oh, how many of the guys from the high school medical aid course-where we were taught how to act in times of war-are no longer alive!

The world is not so much afraid of Russia as it is afraid of losing its people. Unlike the Ukrainian SSR, which was part of the USSR, our partners kept records of losses and knew the vast majority of those who died in the two world wars by sight. And they do not want to send their people to war again. We were so sweetly swaying on the waves of illusions about a "diplomatic solution to the conflict in Donbas" and then about "2-3 weeks and the end" that we put all our survival instincts to sleep. Now you are ready to give your last for a stranger in the Ukrainian Armed Forces - to believe in victory and clear your conscience. Previously, few people perceived the fighting in the East as something that affected them personally.

"It is obvious that the United States will finance another attempt at a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the spring - through a presidential grant program, special tranches of the Pentagon, and short-term congressional programs. But the question is who and what we are about, and what we will negotiate with Russia."

And it is quite clear that we need a goal - who are we and what are we about? Are we a country that trades grain with Africa or a country of arms manufacturers? Are we a musty swamp of corruption or a window of opportunity for anyone with a small business idea? And finally, do we have the psychological health to avoid being deceived by businessmen like Arestovych or a new TV series on 1+1 TV channel that makes fantasies about shooting in the Verkhovna Rada come true?

I have no complaints against American taxpayers who ask their two major parties where our money is and whether Ukraine will not become a second Afghanistan. We have already seen all the circles of hell, and it is very important to understand that it was not in vain. So, we don't want to see "NATO - No" balloons and statements about the "hostile West" with other people like Medvedchuk and Shufrych. Younger people with access to social media.

The United States and current President Joseph Biden know our politicians very well. And they know the value of their promises. In the fall of 2015, Biden spoke about failed reforms and kleptocracy with nepotism from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada. And woe betide us that at the peak of the war for survival, this nepotism with a desire to grab everything that is not good is flourishing now.

Especially for Espreso

About the author: Maryna Danyliuk-Yarmolaieva, journalist.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.