By Sudarsan Raghavan
Kyiv - Before he decided to buy a one-way plane ticket to Ukraine, (click here) Adam worked two jobs, as a security guard and as a cashier at a dollar store. He owned guns and fired them at shooting ranges, but the only fighting he had ever done was in mixed martial arts classes.
That didn’t stop the tall, lanky 24-year-old from Thousand Oaks, a Los Angeles suburb, from flying to this war-torn capital earlier this month. He joined a new international legion set up to fight Russian forces about 15 miles outside the city.
Adam, sporting camouflage pants, is unfazed by his inexperience in combat. He will rely, he said, on sheer determination — to save Ukraine and protect American values.
“Democracy and freedom are very important to the whole world,” said Adam, seated in the lobby of a Kyiv hotel, along with other foreigners dressed in their new military camouflage who have joined his unit. “What [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is doing is simply wrong. And Ukraine is the underdog, so they need help.”...
That didn’t stop the tall, lanky 24-year-old from Thousand Oaks, a Los Angeles suburb, from flying to this war-torn capital earlier this month. He joined a new international legion set up to fight Russian forces about 15 miles outside the city.
Adam, sporting camouflage pants, is unfazed by his inexperience in combat. He will rely, he said, on sheer determination — to save Ukraine and protect American values.
“Democracy and freedom are very important to the whole world,” said Adam, seated in the lobby of a Kyiv hotel, along with other foreigners dressed in their new military camouflage who have joined his unit. “What [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is doing is simply wrong. And Ukraine is the underdog, so they need help.”...
There is more to the grit in Ukraine than just patriotic love for country. The alternative must be horrible and intolerable. Russia is losing it's young brain trust.
By Jane Arraf
Yerevan, Armenia - At the Lumen cafe (click here) in the Armenian capital, Russians arrive as soon as the doors open, ordering specialty coffees, opening up their sleek Apple laptops and trying to navigate a dwindling array of options for starting their lives over.
The background music and the sunlit interior are calming counterpoints to the frantic departures from their country, where they left behind parents, pets and the sense of home that all but vanished when Russia invaded Ukraine last month....
According to the mayor of Warsaw, Poland, (click here) the arrival of refugees has been 300,000 in three weeks. The city's infrastructure is holding but stretched. He is worried about the continued influx of refugees, many are children and in school in Warsaw. There needs to be a plan in Europe and the USA has to do it's part in accepting refugees from Ukriane. And this is just Warsaw, the rest of Poland is receiving the refugees as well. No one should be turned away.
Between the refugees from Ukraine there is also young Russians arriving in Europe. It is a continuing crisis The West has to decide how best to handle all those leaving to save their own lives and that of their families.
The hospitals are still care for COVID-19 patients. The new variant has spread rapidly in Europe. It is in the USA and spearding here as well. This is a sincere challenge for The West.
