CHRIST IS RISEN. UKRAINE WILL RISE! – Yuri Scherbak, former Ambassador of Ukraine to United States, Mexico, and Canada

CHRIST IS RISEN. UKRAINE WILL RISE

    On April 20, 2024, I spent several hours on end watching the U.S. House of Representatives pass H.R. 815 providing supplemental emergency appropriations for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. I watched the intense debate, listened to the arguments of the parties in favor of the bill and against it. Congressman Mike McCaul’s words, “The eyes of the world are watching,… and history is watching” have stuck in my mind above all, as well as his question to everyone in the room, “Do you want to be a Chamberlain or a Churchill?”

     All of Ukraine was waiting for the results of the vote very anxiously; among them, exhausted soldiers in wet trenches who could only respond with one shot to ten Russian shots. The air defense soldiers who, due to the lack of ammunition, could not effectively stop the invasion of enemy drones and missiles that killed civilians. Mothers in Kharkiv and Odesa hugging their children every night when they hear sirens wailing, as Russian killer pilots from the Volga region ruthlessly shelled Ukrainian cities from Tupolev strategic bombers.

    According to the British Ministry of Defense Twitter account, in March 2024 alone, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine increased by 20 per cent to 604, including 57 children.

       During the six-month delay, while waiting for the US aid, Ukraine lost not only people and favorable positions on the frontline, not only had its power plants, hospitals, and kindergartens destroyed.

       It started losing faith in victory. Faith in the U.S. leadership, faith in the solidarity of a powerful ally.

      That is why the passing of the law in a dramatic vote on April 20 was greeted in Ukraine with such enthusiasm and gratitude. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this day will go down in the history of the United States and Ukraine as well as in the history of Europe and the world at large.

       After a temporary halt, the bipartisan pulse of the U.S. lawmakers has started pounding again, and the faith in the existence of an invincible pole of light, goodness, and freedom, which the United States has always represented throughout the twentieth century, has been revived. The America that defeated the Evil Empire, i.e., the Communist-and-Russian monster. The America of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George H. Bush.

       After the defeat in the Cold War, despite the assistance and signs of respect from the United States, Russia shed its red communist mask and showed its true, black, imperialist and chauvinistic face. The country where Putin’s satanic sect had seized power, has borrowed Hitler’s ideology of armed aggression and Stalin’s methods of repression and enslavement of free peoples.

       I remember the extent of communist indoctrination quite vividly. Amplified by modern means of communication, today’s Russian propaganda, however, has surpassed the Soviet models. I would advise my U.S. friends to take a closer look at the Kremlin’s ideology whose pervasive tentacles have reached America and various sensitive areas of a free society.

       Let us not forget that the gigantic, generously funded Russian machine of lies is primarily built on a strong hatred of the United States and American values, of its freedom-loving, democratic, and liberal system.

        Having joined its efforts with Iran, China, and North Korea, Russia has created a continent of Evil. Not an axis, like Germany, Italy and Japan once were, but a gigantic geopolitical entity in Eurasia united by common borders, with enormous resources and a totalitarian ideology. This continent of Evil, which a number of other countries might well join, will pose a long-term threat to the free world.

        That is why the vote in the Congress to provide aid to Ukraine (Europe), Israel (Middle East), and Taiwan (Asia) was so important and promising. It would serve as a strict warning to the continent of Evil.

         The law has been adopted on the eve of Easter (according to the Byzantine Orthodox rite), the great and sunny holiday of the Ukrainian people. This is a good sign of hope because, as Ukrainians say, “Christ is risen, Ukraine will rise, too”.

                  Yuri Scherbak, former Ambassador of Ukraine to United States, Mexico, and Canada