Thread by @wiczipedia

I'm growing increasingly frustrated with the out of touch, abstracted discourse about Ukraine..

I lived and worked in Ukraine. I have Ukrainian heritage. And while that gives me some insight to the situation, it's not about me. It's about 40+ million Ukrainians. 🧵

It's about pensioners like this woman @ColborneMichael & I spoke to in Kryivih Rih in 2019, who was selling in the rain tulips at 11 cents each to make ends meet. Her government pension barely covered her apartment.

She was looking forward to making her voice heard in the upcoming election. (Her oblast, Zelensky's own, voted overwhelmingly for Ze.)

The Kremlin—which has repeatedly decried the legitimacy of two consecutive Ukrainian governments—would deny her that right.

It's about young people, too, like these university students from Ivano-Frankivsk, who all had dreams of a modern, European Ukraine, that would afford them opportunities to study abroad, travel, and build businesses back at home.

Same goes for the activists working to preserve Ukraine's history and culture; to rid the country of corruption; to build a bugeoning tech industry.

I could share with you a bunch of pictures of Ukraine's sights, of its blooming rapeseed fields under bright blue skies, but when I think about the situation on Ukraine's borders it's the Ukrainians I've met that I worry about, that I'm so frustrated are being written...

...out of debates about military aid and sanctions and alleged "propagandistic euphemisms."

They deserve to have the future they want. They deserve to live in peace. Just remember that next time you send off your hot take about the US or its allies should or shouldn't do.