You can now support my mom's volunteer work long-term!❤️

Buy Me a Coffee – bit.ly/3NnCpGL
GoFundMe – bit.ly/3DN0ljT

With a brutal winter approaching, mom has continued delivering aid around Kyiv and to the frontlines.

A thread with some of her latest work👇🏼 Yesterday, she delivered a big heater to a group of women who are making camouflage nets for the military. These women work out of a building in #Irpin that was heavily shelled by Russia in spring. It's missing a few windows, and it was super cold there. Not anymore🤗

🧵Absurd narrative shift in Russia – "denazification" seems to be replaced with "desatanization". Assistant secretary of Russia's Security Council said #Ukraine has hundreds of religious sects which grew in power after 2014 and try to abolish ideals of Abrahamic religions. In reality: roughly 70% of Ukrainians are religious, 60% consider themselves Orthodox, 10% are Greek Catholics, 1,5 % are Protestants, 8,5% are "just Christian" without affiliation, roughly 20% are not religious. (2021, Razumkov Center)

30 Democrats signed an open letter to Biden, asking him to use diplomacy with Putin. I understand the intention, I don't understand the execution. These 30 people should to get into a room with Putin and come up with a solution that would protect #Ukraine's sovereignty. Can they? These democrats want "a new European security arrangement acceptable to all parties that will allow for a sovereign and independent Ukraine". This is the problem. RUSSIA DOES NOT ACCEPT A SOVEREIGN UKRAINE. How many times does this have to be reiterated?

🧵This is Seyran Saliev, a Crimean Tatar political prisoner who Russia sentenced to 16 years in prison for alleged terrorist links. Seyran hasn't seen his children in 5 years. Last week, his family finally visited him "He didn't recognize his children. Only after seeing me, he realized that it's them," said his wife, a prominent Crimean Tatar activist Mumine Salieva. "He hugged his son and his daughter and cried".

🧵This is Eskender Abdulganiev –– a 24-year-old Crimean Tatar, who Russia sentenced to 12 years in prison for alleged terrorist links. His family visited him in prison; here's what they saw

Ph: Crimean Solidarity Eskender lost weight b/c he participated in two hunger strike in protest against inhumane conditions of his imprisonment. He can't eat most of the food given to him for religious reasons. His family sends him money every month, he buys instant noodles, and eats those every day.

Did I miss the point when Elon Musk proclaimed himself a diplomacy expert?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000

@elonmusk Crimea belongs to Ukraine, and more specifically, to Crimean Tatars. They were the absolute majority of Crimea's population before imperial Russia annexed it in 1783, and began its centuries-long russification campaign, which included a genocide of CT in 1944.

Guys, I haven't done fundraisers in a while, but this one is *very* personal

My boyfriend is deployed near Kherson, the city where I was born. His unit badly needs a night vision monocular, which costs $4,200

Do you think we could help them?

My PayPal: lapatinastya@gmail.com I always feel bad asking you guys for help, but I've been shocked at how quickly you've mobilized before – we've managed to raise dozens of thousands of dollars within days for equipment and aid. Remember my mom?

Finally! Our NFT collection goes live today at 5PM EST – in just an hour❤️

Here is a little thread🧵to tell you guys again about the orgs my friends and I are raising money for👇🏼 In case you haven’t heard about Come Back Alive – they’ve done tremendous work purchasing military supplies over the years. In February, they raised nearly 700K$ in just a day. They are our most trusted nonprofit🙏🏻

Advisor to Mariupol’s mayor says 540 orphans from #Ukraine are being kept in a village near Russia’s Rostov — #Russia is preparing them for attaining Russian citizenship, via an expedited process. Utterly terrifying. Along with all the long term effects this war will have on kids Every time my mother sends me these photos I’m just trying to imagine what goes through their heads, and how will these traumas manifest for years to come. A woman from Mariupol told me her 3-year-old girl keeps having terrible nightmares and screams in her sleep💔

Ukraine soldiers that returned from Russian captivity described torture – prisoners were brought on their knees, beaten on their wounds, strangled, tortured with pliers, forced to memorize the Russian anthem and history of creation of Russian national symbols, among other things Russian military also injected Ukrainian prisoners with some drugs, the name of which starts with M, after which Ukrainians would faint and lose memory.

Guys. I don’t know what to say. I just woke up to seeing $25,000 on PayPal…Mom thinks I’m crazy and I made it up, but is also already thinking of all the medicine and food she can buy and transport 💔 I’ll keep this 🧵 to share what she does with your donations. Beyond thankful

https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1529537911946895363

Well, she is crying now 💔

You guys all know my mom, Iryna❤️

For months, she’s been helping soldiers, kids, elderly, animals – everyone whose lives Russia ruined. She asked me to see if we can raise some money to buy her a diesel car, which is roughly $5000.

I set up her PayPal – lapatina2702@gmail.com Ukraine now has a terrible problem with gasoline (as in, there is barely any of it), and her car consumes way too much of it. She’s been traveling around Kyiv oblast delivering aid, and going between western Ukraine and Kyiv, transporting clothes, food, generators, medicine, etc.

🧵@Podolyak_M, summing up the national mood. Excerpts:

"After all, according to our European partners, the main thing is to not provoke the Russians? The main thing is so WWIII doesn't start? The main thing is that Russians don't get offended and don't use...Don't use what? 1/6 Missiles, air bombs, tanks, don't massacre civilians, bombard residential areas, mass executions, as in concentration camps? What haven't they used yet?...Hundreds, thousands of killed, torn to pieces, raped, tied, raped again and killed again. 2/6

🧵Peace talks in Istanbul: in exchange for its neutrality, #Ukraine wants security guarantees analogues to NATO's article 5 – if attacked, it has a right to demand consultations, and if diplomacy fails, signees of the agreement must provide military aid and "even close the sky". #Crimea – Ukraine and Russia would agree to continue negotiations about the status of the occupied peninsula for another 15 years.

#Donbas – to be discussed at a potential Zelenskiy-Putin meeting.

🧵As my partner and I were walking through Lviv just now, we saw a mother with 2 kids that was visibly struggling with luggage. We went to help them. They told us they just escaped #Mariupol💔👇🏼 "It's hell on Earth," the mother said. They WALKED from sieged Mariupol to Berdiansk, a city under occupation. They were then picked up by volunteers who put them on a train to Lviv. All they had with them was a little carry on, a bag, and a few backpacks. The kids kept a toy.

I keep seeing heartbreaking comparisons between #Mariupol and #Aleppo. I asked by friend, @ShaarH, who was born and raised in Aleppo, whether it gets better with time. Here's what he said👇🏼💔 "I can’t tell you for sure it gets better, because it really depends on the outcome. In much of Syria, including eastern Aleppo (which was under constant bombing for 4.5 years, first by the Syrian regime, later by Russia AND the Syrian regime), the fighting eventually stopped...

Breaking: State of emergency should be implemented all around #Ukraine, except for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine said. The parliament now has to vote on this. This includes possible measures like increased security around vital parts of cities, increased screening of transport, limitation of public transport, and so on – general security measures.

In the shadow of #Donbas, Ukrainians in occupied Crimea are fighting another war against #Russia – 15 Crimean Tatars were arrested today for coming to a local court to support their friend, also Crimean Tatar, who is prosecuted for an online comment from 2017.

#Crimea, THREAD: Since Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, it has been severely repressing any Ukraine sympathizers on the peninsula, mainly Crimean Tatars – a Ukrainian ethnic minority native to Crimea. Since 2014, 169 Crimean Tatars were prosecuted – nearly 3/4 of all political prisoners in Crimea.

THREAD: Revolution of Dignity through the eyes of a kid. 1/12 When Maidan happened, I was 13.

My first memory is me walking through Kreschatyk with mom and dad, possibly on Dec. 1, the first time a million people turned up to protest. A crowd of thugs appeared out of nowhere and began destroying the Kyiv City Council. 2/12