March 29, 2022 Volume 4
Dear Friends,
Last week, I was interviewed on the radio. The host asked: What do you want Americans to know about Ukraine?
Here's my answer: The people there want to be like you. And they need you to tell your government to help them right now. Talk and moral support are nice, but air defense systems, Javelins, and other material items in the hands of defenders, first responders, and refugees are much more effective.
For the past 30 years, Ukraine has made tremendous strides toward being a representative democracy. It has emulated our Western values in a pollical, economic, and, most importantly, social sense. New, modern Ukraine values its people, minorities, democracy, and traditional family values.
This change in Ukraine is the main reason for Putin's attack. He's attacking Ukraine the way America was attacked on 9/11. Every day, for weeks now.
The people under siege are my family's personal friends. One of my wife's best friends, who shares an interest in photography, is Aleksandra Bolotina. They have traveled the world together. In 2019, Aleksandra stayed with us for several weeks in the United States. She photographed our twin girls. She was a hit with all our American friends.
In Ukraine, she invested in a brand-new studio to accommodate her growing business. Her clientele included people from other countries. On February 23, she was confident that Russia would not attack. "They are bluffing," she told us. "They just want us to get away from Western values and be more like them."
She sent her 19-year-old son to Moscow to attend the art university. That is where he and his two cousins were on February 24, when Aleksandra and her elderly, barely mobile parents were forced to hunker down amid the blasts.
Her parents were children during World War II. They did not evacuate then, and they refuse to evacuate now. So instead, they all took shelter—along with nine pets, including some fleeing friends left behind—deep in a basement on a city's outskirts.
The city around them crumbled under artillery and rocket barrages. The building above the basement they were in lost all its windows. A week later, food and medicine began to run out. Photographers are raising money to try and help them rebuild their lives.
For now, the people we know are safe. We want them to stay that way.
We want the United States to recognize the Ukrainian people as refugees and let Americans take them in. We want America to welcome these huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We need to demand the simplification of the bureaucratic hurdles we place on the process, making it almost impossible for the hundred thousand announced to be welcomed to overcome.
Until then, we anxiously await an update from Aleksandra. With every day of silence, we pray.
We also do what we can. For example, $18,240.00 will provide badly needed meals and medical care to some of the millions of internally displaced Ukrainian civilian refugees by the HelpingUkraine.center, a Ukrainian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). While the money collected Starting April 1 will be used to pay for shipping already donated medical and humanitarian supplies to Ukraine.