Editor:
These days we all have our eyes on the news from Ukraine.
We can help, if only with our hands to donate, to address the dire state of the Ukrainians suffering from the Russian aggressions of the many bombings and shellings and the misery it heaps on the men, women and children. They are suffering from the lack of food, water, medicines, heat and electricity, while trying to stay alive to help each other.
I heard of a small church and its congregation on Whidbey Island — the Trinity Lutheran Church of Freeland, Washington — who along with the wider community have given over $67,000.00 to support those that have been disrupted by the violence in Ukraine, and there is still money coming in almost daily.
Most of the funds have been sent to Lutheran Disaster Response and some funds also have been sent to Lutheran Community Services Northwest, to help with refugee resettlement in our area.
You can also donate to USAUNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) — they have been on the ground in Ukraine since 2014. You can see their work in Ukraine at www.unhcr.org/ukraine/emergency.
At this tragic time in our history, our hands can speak for our hearts. By donating, you help people in great need live to hopefully see another day.
Let us do all we possibly can. The need right now is so great.
Thank you,
Ingrid Wolsk
Edmonds
Thank you Ingrid for highlighting opportunities to help when many of us feel helpless in the face of such loss and horror.
Another way to help is to demand form our politicians to stop waging war and seek every opportunity to prolong war by selling weapons. It is counterproductive so send humanitarian help and at the same time send weapons.
Absolutely correct Hector! Thank You.
But Hector, “our politicians” are not the people waging war on Ukraine! The weapons we send enable the Ukrainian people to defend themselves against aggression, against Putin and his demand that Ukraine become a vassal province of Russia.
Please read some history on the run-up to WW2, 1938-1940, which illustrates the foolishness of trying to appease tyrants like Putin.
The Ukrainians then should simply accept defeat and surrender because no one will help them?
We should not send humanitarian aid to people being bombed, burned out,
wounded while fighting for freedom?
Our politicians are waging war and seeking “every opportunity to prolong” it?
Right now, the hard truth is that the best way to bring peace in Ukraine is to send weapons to the Ukrainian army to push out the Russian army and bring an end to the war. Along with strong sanctions.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, they had prepared around 150,000 troops, followed by large numbers of riot police, 50,000 body bags, and lots of mobile crematoriums.
From the start, the Russians had prepared for genocide. Putin had for years been saying that there was no such thing as a Ukrainian culture. He had said that “if the Ukrainians don’t stop fighting, Ukraine will cease to be a country.” In addition, the Russian deputy finance minister has said that “Russians are a superior race,” and many Russian citizens have celebrated the attacks on Ukrainian civilians and cities.
After Bucha, Russians have increasingly started to cremate the estimated over 5,000 dead Ukrainians in Mariupol according to the mayor there in order to try to hide evidence of their war crimes.
Warm wishes of peace and friendship are not going to stop the genocide in Ukraine.
If we want to reduce the suffering and death from all sides in Ukraine, the best way is to send more heavy weaponry to the Ukrainian army, maintain tough economic sanctions on Russia, and continue to help the refugees of the war.
I am pretty anti-war in most cases, and am a strong believer in democratic dialogue. Unfortunately, Russia rejected that option in Ukraine. They have a history of ethnic cleansing, and they have outright started that this is their goal in Ukraine. Unfortunately we are in a situation where opposing shipments of weapons to Ukraine is simply just a way of supporting the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians by Russia.
I applaud Ingrid for this letter, and hope that more people will help the humanitarian disaster there. One important tip that I have read is to make sure to specify that donations are specifically for Ukraine with large stuff organisations. Otherwise it just goes in their general fund.
The still free world is sending weapons because the majority of Ukrainians, including their democraticly elected President, have chosen to fight back and asked for weapons to try to hold their fragile democracy. This is their 1776 moment which we have inspired.
We should be sending more weapons, not less, along with the humanitarian aid. The only way to stop a sociopath tyrant is to kill him or jail him. The Ukrainians could have welcomed the Russians as liberators and they chose not to. If we believe in their cause we need to give them guns and butter. They have asked for both.