I think and speak Russian, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like a Ukrainian. A few days ago I already wrote about how these events affected me, and therefore, in order for you to understand my feelings, I marked my approximate location on the map (wikipediamap for February 28 is reliable).

At the moment, the situation is quite complicated, especially considering the fact that there is an active nuclear power plant very close by, which is probably why the residents of the Mykolaiv region are no less alarmed than the residents of Kyiv or Mariupol, (dry law, and a 12-hour curfew).


What foreign friends can do to help:

- Read verified Ukrainian News in English (List).
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- Petition in support of a ban on Russian oil imports.

But despite the complexity of the situation, I am quite optimistic, and I'll explain why:

• Over the past 8 years, the Ukrainian army has felt real support from the state and the world community. The Ukrainian army is very motivated, since we are on our own land, + the salaries of military personnel have been raised four times. As a result, in just 4 days, on a voluntary basis, 100k people with real combat experience were at the disposal of the general headquarters, (there are currently about 400k reservists in ukraine with combat experience).
• We have problems with aviation and navy, but this is compensated by the fact that our ground forces are the equivalent of Russian ground forces (let's be objective, Putin cannot afford to expose his eastern flanks, on the border with China).
• 15 million people are engaged in logistics support for military personnel, this is probably the main reason why Russia never managed to capture almost a single major regional center. I think such cohesion is also connected with the fact that for the first time in the history of Ukraine we have a president who, even before the war, was able to unite both the Ukrainian-speaking population and the Russian-speaking people, (previously, the president has always been a person representing only one of the ethnic groups).

It is sad that those who have no idea what ideas they are fighting for are dying on our land, and these figures clearly show our determination:

• It also affects the fact that, in addition to defensive structures, mobile groups operate in each settlement
• Moving into the depths of Ukraine, the columns of Russian equipment are divided into smaller groups.

Ukrainian losses are not known, but I can say that over the past 24 hours, 115 people have been admitted to the hospitals of my city. Yes, our hospitals are receiving hundreds of wounded, but the most amazing thing is that all the empty freezers that were previously delivered were filled in just a few hours.