The Musical Innertube - Volume 2, Number 154 - Mykhaylo Tells Us How to Help Ukraine

JOHN

The Musical Innertube welcomes back a great friend of the podcast, a man we've had on several times before. As in previous episodes, we will call him Mykhaylo. Born in the USA, Mykhaylo served long and honorably in the US military but starting a few years ago when Russia began to attack Ukraine, Mykhaylo has been traveling to that besieged country, assisting the Ukrainian military by teaching soldiers battlefield medicine and guerrilla tactics. And with each visit to Ukraine, he has grown closer to the country, the people and the culture. He's recently returned from one such visit, and he goes back to Ukraine in a month or so for what will be his 9th deployment. He's our expert, indeed, eyewitness to what's going on in a war that, depending on how you count, is either in its tenth or third year. A very warm welcome to you, Mykhaylo.

MYKHAYLO

Добрий день, браття, which means good afternoon, brothers.

JOHN

I love the fact that the language that you're learning, because you're learning some Ukrainian, it's very loving and very familial. The greetings that you give me, I figure, are the greetings that you give people on your deployments, the people you work with behind the lines. And I'm just wondering if that's the case, is it? Is it the case? That's the kind of language that is used among the Ukrainians? On the battlefields.

MYKHAYLO

It's my opinion it's the most beautiful language in the world. And I'm half Italian.

JOHN

Give us your sense of the sudden turn that the war has taken. Ukraine struck across the border recently into Russia, catching the whole world, I think, by surprise. And after some desultory rocket exchanges, Russia yesterday hit Ukraine with a ton of rocket fire, attacks on the power and energy grids, including several important cities. I'm just wondering what you think militarily and tactically is going on? First, why did Ukraine go into Russia, and secondly, is Russia softening the country up for a larger occupation? What do you think?

MYKHAYLO

First of all, everything I'm going to tell you, you can find open source, just Google it and anything that I shouldn't tell you, I won't.

JOHN

Fair enough.

DON

Yeah, good idea.

MYKHAYLO

So, I think it did is open source that their DIU, Defense Intelligence Ukraine, planned this thing and they've been planning it for a long time. And I knew that they were in the planning stage for something. It was extraordinary when they told me, yeah, we’re probably going to take over some Russian territory and it's like really, you know?  Two people in all of CIA or the United States they can trust, they can say, this is what we're doing. Same with the British MI. And definitely nothing in Germany, because we don't trust them.  So, from what I see on open source, it looks like a brilliant maneuver. But the Ukraine has no interest of ever keeping any part of Russia for any period of time. They just want to keep their country free. They have to jump through some hoops on permission to even do anything across the border of Russia. Must have gotten some of that. And so, I know some friends that are actually there, you know, because most of the soldiers didn't even know they were going there until a couple of days before, because people leak, and they get on Facebook and other stuff. By the way, I am not on any social media, and I never will. But I do have surrogates there. So, when somebody dies, they'll tell me and stuff like that. In my opinion, but not my exclusive opinion, this is going to be a bargaining chip for negotiations to get back all Ukrainian territory, the Donbas and Crimea, which has belonged to Kiev for over 1000 years. Even under the Cossack hordes, you know the Polish, Lithuanian, Commonwealth and finally, many centuries later, Russia, Catherine the Great and everybody after her, and whatever change in Russia. OK, they were of vassal capital. But they have always owned Crimea. They have always owned the Donbas and there is no possible way Ukrainians can possibly forget them, no matter if Russia somehow manages to take over for a little while, it'll be short lived. The steppes of Ukraine, most fertile ground in all of Eastern Europe. Bread basket of all of Europe. Probably the world's most fertile soil. Which definitely helps them. This is soil from the steps of Ukraine. See how it looks like coffee grounds.

DON

Yes, it does.

JOHN

Mykhaylo is holding up a plastic bag full of what looks like soil.

MYKHAYLO

Yeah. Yeah, it looks it looks like the kind of soil you don't need fertilizer for, but anyway. So that's I believe the purpose of this mission. Meanwhile, as you will also find on open source information, Russians, a lot of them evacuated immediately, getting killed by Ukrainians in their mind. Most of them didn't go to Russia, they went to Georgia and you can find that open source. The ones that remained, some of them have praised Ukraine. “Thank you for liberating us!”  Amazing things, and said not so nice things about Putin. like Putin polio and some other things and Слава Україні, which means glory to Ukraine. These are the residents of Kursk. You can find it open source. I think it's been, I know it's been reported that there was one strategic advantage of this maneuver. They immediately took over the train station. They had a lot of computerware on supply lines in and out of Russia. So, they now have control of all the information about where Russia goes out of Moscow, out of Saint Petersburg, wherever throughout Ukraine. I'm sure it's only temporarily, you know,  because they'll change all that. But that was a very smart move. There is another strategic advantage that I'm not sure is on open source. But it was a brilliant move in my humble opinion.

DON

We've also heard that Kursk or that area was where Russia was launching a lot of its missiles towards Kiev and other cities. So is that another reason to move in there is to kind of knock down some of that rocket fire?

MYKHAYLO

Well, it looks like it to me. There's another strategic reason - I'm sure Putin and President Zelenskyy has read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, right? Yeah. So, you hit the enemy where they are not at the moment. And so, yeah, then yeah, they as far as I know, locked it all down. Putin has recently, also open source, changed his mind about three times and what to do about it. He actually told the Russian people three days ago, “We are not doing anything about it right now. So this is the new normal. It's only temporary. You will get it back someday.” But he didn't want to pull any forces out of the Donbas district because they would all be killed, and be you know, it takes away from his main objective at the moment. He changed his mind on that yesterday, open source. And so, he is sending some forces there and good luck on that, brot.

JOHN

Do you think that the Ukrainian forces are planning to stay there and wait for the Russians to come to them? I mean, what do you think? I mean, I don't know if anybody knows the answer to that, but perhaps you have some ideas.

MYKHAYLO

Like I told you before, I'm not a prognosticator of the future, but knowing the guys I know that are there, and some women that are serving, when it comes time to get their country back, then I believe in my opinion that they'll give it back. They don't want to keep that land, but they're not going anywhere until they get their country back, in my opinion.

DON

There have been some, over the last six or seven months, some Russian advancements and some Ukraine pullbacks, especially in the east. Did that kind of dampen the political and just the general feeling there in in the Ukraine about the war? And did this little incursion kind of ramp that up a little bit?

MYKHAYLO

I'm I think the answers to that question are yes and yes. Okay, about 5 or 6 months ago, I thought I might be on my last deployment, because my Ukrainian friends who were  before, you know, rather than “we win, we're gonna win, it's just a matter of time,” we're starting to lose a little bit of hope and it's taking a little while to get that hope back. And the reason is because America turned their back on them in their mind. And over the 61 billion that that we all sat on for six months and then Republicans are, you know, whatever. And so, I'm like, sitting on a bus with about 30 Ukrainians that I'd never met to go to a conference on post-traumatic stress, and I'm sitting with a doctor named Andre. He goes, “This is bullshit, Americans are all condescending. Nobody cares about us. Yeah, we're going to lose this war to the Russians.” And I’m like Andre, you're not telling this stuff to the Ukrainians, are you? He's a medical doctor and he goes to front lines. And he said, “Well, it's because your country is not helping us anymore. Most NATO countries never gave us enough supplies. And the Russians are going to take us over.” And I said, you know, Andre, so what are you going to do after this conference? “I'm going back to front lines and I'm probably going to die there.” I go, okay, but say you don't die there, and Russia does take you over. What's your plan after that? “I will attack every Russian checkpoint until they kill me.” And it's like, okay, that's not a good plan for your life and your family.  And I'm thinking, well, if they're giving up hope, what am I doing here?

JOHN

Yes.

MYKHAYLO

That changed after you know, a Republican named Crenshaw, former Navy SEAL and a couple of others that were, they're still Trumpers to this day, voted. Yeah, we don't want to go down in the record as voting the wrong way. And that's because those in the know realize that Ukrainians keep track of history better than we do. There is Ukrainian SBU, their version of the FBI. They record every vote in our Congress, all of. It so that it will go down in history. Did you support Ukraine and save all of Eastern Europe and probably Germany and Western Europe like we should have done three years before World War 2? Where will you go down in history, losing it all and going to World War 3? That's where we're at right now. Do we need to win this war? Decisively, and we need just a little bit of help because you know there's guys like me and some others you may know that, you know, are good fighters. But Ukrainians are the best, and they just need to have supplies to be able to protect their country in this completely black and white, no grey area war. Defending their sovereign homeland and it can be done in a month and a half. You may know I served in Iraq and various other places. There are 6 Arab countries, plus Pakistan. And you know, we locked down Iraq in a month and a half because we were well supplied. We had 45 countries helping us, not just NATO countries, but Ukraine itself sent their best special forces for us into Iraq. And you may remember George Bush landing on an aircraft carrier a month and a half after we left the borders of Kuwait and had a big banner,  “Mission Accomplished.” That can happen right here in a month and a half if we get the right supplies and then we're done. You know, who knows what Putin's gonna do after that? He'll probably find some other reason to do something, but they we need to get rid of the Russian orcs. They need to be gone. And it's possible, but we don't need pandering. We don't need, especially Germany, who has now come out in favor of Russia, my understanding, you know, checking the box. The only thing that Trump has ever said about Ukraine that makes sense to me is these NATO countries should be giving more money to help supply us. Poland, as far as I can tell, is the only one that has rogered up. And I'd go in and out of Poland on my way to Ukraine. I love the Polish, and I know some Polish. From what they are doing, they're the only native country I know that is doing what they should be doing to keep themselves from being taken over and protect all of the Baltic states, so Trump has that part right, but unfortunately, he doesn't understand geopolitics. And it's not any American’s fault that they don't appreciate Ukrainians like I do, because I'm a legal resident there. I know hundreds of Ukrainians personally, friends, brots, sisters. So, I get that. But he should understand what Nikki Haley understood when she ran for president in the primaries, which is, you don't want to be on the wrong side of this war, especially if you're American, because we're the biggest policeman of the world, whether any Democrat likes that or not. You know, whether Trump likes it or not. Yeah, it's just the way it is. We are the British Empire prior to World War 2 and we're blowing it if we're, you know, still farting around. And you know, we're killing Russians five to one, but that's not a good trade. That means for every five dead Russian soldiers, I'm losing a good Ukrainian brother, and it needs to end. All people in Ukraine and most in Russia want this thing over, we want peace. I'm honored to live with them in this genocide war, which is horrendous, but I want to live with them in peace and it's possible, but it's only possible if we stick to the goal.

DON

I heard, I guess it was, something on NPR recently, where they were talking to a military strategist and said this incursion in into Russia by the Ukrainians, does that set back any possible peace talks? And the military expert said actually, no. A lot of times, when you find peace talks happening, it's after an aggressive move. So, I'm assuming that you're going to agree with that.

MYKHAYLO

Totally. And I'm guessing that war criminal Vladimir Putin understands this, too, because the negotiations that they were talking about, and Putin said, oh yeah, it's time to negotiate and we'll get our troops out as long as we keep the margins of whatever we own now. You don't know anything. Ukraine still owns that territory, and nobody should have any delusion about that. And you know, so yeah, this definitely strengthens the hand of President Zelenskyy to, you know, finish this the right way. You know, he actually made something, I don't know, two months ago that actually sort of makes sense. He would consider splitting the territory of Crimea with Ukraine, mostly meaning that Ukraine would still pay all the money to manage it like they have for 1000 years. And, you know, he could still have some access to the Black Sea or something like that. And now, no Ukrainian told me to say this, but it does sound like a rational plan. Just that part. Donbas has to come back to Ukraine, lock stock and barrel. But if that was possible, well, I don't trust anything Putin says anyway, and neither should anybody else. But, you know, 10 years ago friends of mine would go to Crimea on vacation - one of the places I would love to live is the Ukrainian Black Sea shores of Crimea - and they would party with Russians who just want to get along. It's my understanding, now I've been on the seashores of Odessa, which are very beautiful, and everything about Crimea is a vacation capital, and there is oil there. So, you know, they were always sharing the oil prior to the invasion anyway. And okay, as long as it was a shared agreement and all Ukrainians have free access to Crimea, and whatever Russians. So, I don't know. But this is my opinion. It's not shared by any Ukrainian friend of mine. They want their country 100%, and I totally agree that Donbas has to come back to them, and I'm sure they'll give back Kursk, you know? So, but this is my opinion. Just my opinion.

JOHN

So you've worked with many different aspects of the Ukraine military Mykhaylo, and I can't get to all of the alphabet soup that I just started learning this morning. But there are two organizations that you've worked with that I want to talk about, one's going to be the House of Ukraine in just a minute. Because our listeners should know that Mykhaylo, when he goes back to Ukraine periodically, which he's about to do in another four or five weeks, he brings stuff with him. So, we're going to, we're going to hold that in abeyance for a moment, and ask him to talk about what it's like to work with some of these units. First of all, I'd like you to comment on the Azov Brigade. I know they're part of the offensive guard. I know some Americans might know that they've gotten some bad press for being called a Nazi revivalist organization and being responsible for human rights violations, but you've actually worked with them. What's your impression of these guys and what's it like working on the ground with them?

MYKHAYLO

Я люблю бригаду «Азов». Which means I love the Azov. I trained their entire unit about 9 or 10 years ago on their territory, I still train them in onesies and twosies, and some other training. We run all over the country, and I served with them, and there is no more core patriotic Ukrainian fighters, Cossacks basically, but at a higher sophisticated level now than they ever used to be. Because they are now not just some militia, they are part of their MOD Ministry of Defense, their brigade, or whatever. And yeah, the Nazi thing, give me a break. Yeah, I guess their insignia sort of looks like a swastika to somebody. But who's Putin to talk about Nazis? He's the Nazi. He's the Adolf Hitler, or one of the Adolf Hitlers. They are simply freedom firefighters, our freedom fighters, to their own country. They all have families and actually some of their forces are now special forces every bit as good as the Army special forces who I've also trained and worked with.

JOHN

OK, let's talk about the House of Ukraine. You're going to be taking back with you medical supplies and other things. Talk about the things that you will be taking with you that you can talk about back to Ukraine this time.

MYKHAYLO

Number one on the list is tourniquets, combat application tourniquets, the most universal tourniquet in the world, which we're running out of. There is a couple of Ukrainian tourniquets that are adequate, and they pass, but this is what they want because it's shared by NATO forces. Along with that, and almost as important, are training tourniquets, which are identical to the front line cap, just a different color, so you don't mix it up. You can't. You shouldn't train with your frontline tourniquet, if it goes even 100 times, this will eventually start to break, so you know training on a tourniquet is critical. Learning how to take it off is just as critical within two hours, but that's a whole another story. So that's if I can get enough funding, a couple hundred of these is what I'm bringing, surgical tourniquets. I've already distributed some to every one of the nine training centers I certified, but this is the best one on the market for training because it's all nice and tactical and you can put it away.

JOHN

And what's in there?

(JOHN REFERS TO A BAG USED ON THE BATTLEFIELD TO OPEN THE AIRWAYS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS ON THE BATTLEFIELD.)

MYKHAYLO

Standards and plus. So, you've got a number 10 scalpel. So, you can make your first fine stabilized slice cut to get into the trachea at the cricothyroid membrane.  This is the best airway on the market. It's in several other crate kits that are more expensive and then a crank hook so that you can lift up the cricothyroid cartilage and drop it in quickly, all within 30 seconds, if you're trained correctly. This is the #10CC syringe, and it inflates this cuff here on the airway. These are the main ingredients. And this is the way you can secure it, although we teach them all kind of improvised ways of doing it. This is the right thing for training because it's not sitting in some surgical triage in a hospital with a scattered bunch of stuff. I've got a lot of anesthesiology friends who have never done a crack in their own ER, and even if they did, they would have a lot of help with the nurse, with a lot of light and everything. We trained them (the medics) to be able to do it in the dark by themselves. And we now have100% success in case studies. We can't do scientific studies there of people doing their first crack, but they’re 100% successful, and I can send you the pictures of five of those, which will be written up in a journal article here in the next, you know, month or two. I'm bringing at least six of these, because I've already brought, like, you know, fifty of them. There is a another one on the market that shows a little more the bulky, which is why I won't wear it, but it has, it's called a bougie tube. So, if you can't see where you're going, you can do something with that. I pack individual first aid kits. High quality, not cheap junk out of China, but another cat tourniquet here, wound packing hemostatic agents, scissors for stripping and flipping. And that's the kind of stuff it's probably going to come up to about five or six thousand on this trip, and I'm glad you brought it up, because I think you were going to put the strip on how you can donate, right?

JOHN

Yes, we're going to. Yes, yes, we're going to put the House of Ukraine link up on our website. So, if people want to donate, they can. And this is for battlefield medicine. This is for keeping people alive, clearing airways, getting them to breathe. And if they are wounded helping to pack wounds. Things like tourniquets seem like such an obvious thing, but these are the best that you can have down on the battlefield.

MYKHAYLO

And House of Ukraine is part of the Ukrainian diaspora for 60 years. It's a Cultural Center in a place called Balboa Park, where there is a House of Korean, and all kinds of other, you know, houses, cultural centers. There is a House of Russia there too, but it's every time I go there, it's been padlocked for years. So anyway. That's their main function. 100% of the money goes towards supplies for Ukraine and it's all tax deductible. So that is one of the main reasons I agreed to this interview, is to advertise for my Ukrainian guys. For right now, I think for this package of what I showed you, we're up to about two grand and we need another 3 or 4 grand before I leave. And if we don't get it all, I'm going to kick in my own private money, tax deductible, along with a couple other people because I have to have it in the next week or two.

DON

All right. So again, go to the website, look underneath the flag of Ukraine, which is what the picture will be, and you will find the link to the House of Ukraine, and you can send whatever you can, but it'll help. It'll definitely help on the battlefield, and it's not - again for people who say I don't wanna contribute to war and I don't wanna contribute to killing - this is the opposite. You're contributing to saving lives on the battlefield by helping out with these medical supplies. So thank you.

MYKHAYLO

One more thing. Going to bring with me, that you don't have to pay for this, is called an AA JTS. It's approved by the Committee on T Triple C. I know this whole thing looks like a big speaker thing.

DON

 What's that? It looks like a big belt. Or a fanny pack.

MYKHAYLO

It goes right over your umbilical, your belly button, and it's the only thing we know of that can stop lower aortic bleeds. Because we can stop everything up to the junction of your humorous, but if they're bleeding internally from an aorta bleed, this is the only thing that will stop it. They've now been distributed to American military, but I don't know of anybody outside of Ukraine has ever used one inside of Ukraine. We've used it at least seven times that I know of, 100% successful. And luckily, these, like sixty bucks apiece, I've distributed 2 to every of my 9 training centers, one for training, the other the front lines, and now I'm bringing back another six or eight or whatever. They're gonna send me some this week. Because as soon as they go to front lines, we need to, you know, resupply. Yeah. Just to let you know.

JOHN

Taking a slightly different tack, I know that as the years have gone by and your service to Ukraine has gone by, you have become closer and closer to the people and the culture, and you were telling me a story that I'd like you to share with everyone about your introduction to nothing other than opera. One might not think of opera in a case like the war in Ukraine. But it is part of this turn to the arts that one sees in Ukraine. The BBC just ran a big overview of how the arts in Ukrainian culture have attained a new importance in a country where they were already very important. So how did you learn about opera?

MYKHAYLO

Well, I learned about it 10 years ago, and I took pictures of one of the most ancient opera houses in the world. And so, because it was a landmark and I'm into cultural stuff, I took pictures of it 9, almost 10 years ago. There is actually two other opera houses older than that, one in Lviv, one in Odessa. But as you well know, because you're much more cultured man than me, the Kyiv Opera House is known throughout Europe. It's very famous. So my fiancé, you know, and I've never been to an opera in my own country. I've never been to a ballet in my own country. I've gone to a rock operas but you know, most Americans just don't go there. Well, my, very well qualified, Masters degree, PhD medical colleague said, Well, you want go to ballet? OK, at the Opera House. And it was the Faust Ballet. And I think when we were in high school, John, we studied Shakespeare all the time. So, it's probably a Shakespearean play. No, no, no. She educated me and I'm thinking, oh, no, it's gonna be in Ukrainian. I'm probably gonna fall asleep. So, I go and it's like, oh my God, how could they be so good at this craft in the middle of the genocide war? You know, they are more sophisticated than we are culturally in places like Kharkiv, Odessa to some degree, and Lviv. And yeah, I was like, yeah, I wasn’t asleep when she checked on me. And it's like, because in their mind, it sort of is about Putin. And so, I'm sure, you know it very well and, you know, 2 days ago I was muddy and dirty and could have been killed. And I'm sitting here watching the ballet. OK, so next trip. Oh, we can go to opera, real opera. And OK, I'm with her father, and we're drinking vodka that he made. And you know, we’re both kind of chuckling, you know, I hope we don't fall asleep at the opera, and then he takes he takes his wife, and we go. And it's La Traviata, so, once again, it's like I am in another world, all of a sudden, you know. Now, they kind of have little translated stuff in a few languages about it, and it's like, yeah, I probably should have gone to all those when I was in the United States, but it is much more meaningful there because they do restaurants better than we do, when there's time to go to them, they their food is better than here and a lot cheaper cultural events. They've got parks and forests that are incredible. So, this is one of the reasons that I will always live, you know, in Ukraine.

JOHN

Well, Mykhaylo, the frequent moments when you get choked up and emotional, let us know the depth of your commitment to Ukraine.

MYKHAYLO

I was trying not to let that out because I'm...

JOHN

Well, you know, that's that that adds to the amazement of this story is, here's a guy who, like us, is (redacted) years. old and he is putting his ass out on the line and no doubt about it, you're one of these guys who runs toward the shooting, Mykhaylo. And. It's simply an amazing life story. And if the war is concluded somehow, I guess you're going to move there.

MYKHAYLO

I'm a legal resident of Ukraine, and I guess in the last few months, they're gonna give me a pathway to citizenship, but I've got a couple residences in the area, and I they accommodate me, and wherever else I go, I do live there. I live there most of the year. I only come home for a few weeks to resupply. And then get back there because, you know, I missed the Kursk occupation in the beginning stages, and I don’t like leaving my Ukrainian friends, and I'm at no more risk than any other Ukrainian that just comes home, including the warriors that sometimes I serve with - when they get a vacation, they come home. Then they get bombed. In all the big cities, I think I told you, you might have heard about the Children's Hospital. They got bombed by a cruise missile, deliberately attacked. I went to that for an hour or so because it was a couple blocks from where I was. And prior to that I saw, like in the middle of the day, six or seven Cruise missiles hitting buildings, big columns of smoke and like, no, I'm not even at front lines, but I guess I am now. Our train stations closed, everything's closed. And then what? The Children's Hospital. Oh, I'm going. The Ukrainian firefighters and the light rescue do a good job. I have many friends that work on the ambulances there and do a really good job. And that's the oldest and biggest Children's Hospital in all of Ukraine. I would hope, I'm sure you will put that at the top of his (Putin’s) atrocity list because there is nobody in there except patients and hospital staff, of which we lost over 30 as soon as it hit. You may know that cruise missiles go to supersonic speed s they're kind of hard to shoot down by our air defense. And they’re expensive. So he spent a lot of money destroying a Children's Hospital. Their main specialty is cancer, children's cancer, which is more prevalent in Ukraine than probably anywhere else cause of Chernobyl. And I carried out two kids that couldn't walk under their own, not because they were bombed, but because they had radiation, chemo and all that. And got them out, and took care of a lady that was crushed by concrete for a little while. And then the real guys showed up, Ukrainian medics, and they did a very good job. So. I'm in no more danger than any Ukrainian walking down the street when I go there.

JOHN

We want to reiterate where you can contribute to the House of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, the House of Ukraine has been soliciting donations for various tactical medicines such as tourniquets, blood clotting, bandages and chest seals. They put together over 2000 individual first aid kits and gotten them delivered to various defenders in need, including firefighters and search and rescue teams who often get overlooked and undersupplied. Currently they are working with Ukraine and America and other NATO tactical combat casualty care trainers in Ukraine who do courses for soldiers, combat medics, combat medical doctors, EMS personnel, search and rescue workers and volunteers. They are raising money for tactical tourniquets, decompression needles, surgical airway and blood transfusion kits. So, the Musical Innertube will put the House of Ukraine link on our web page. You can go there and contribute to this very worthy cause.

MYKHAYLO

Велике спасибі, Джон, which means thank you very much, John. One more plug if I could. On political things. Contact your congressman, Democrat, Republican, whatever, and ask them to push for Ukraine to have the ability to attack further into Russia. They have gotten approval for Kursk. Apparently, there's certain places we can hit that are all bombers and all that other stuff but. Zelenskyy is very careful not to tip the scales. So, we need more support for defending themselves in places that are attacking them. It's pretty critical. We won the battle by squeaking it out with 61 billion. Even some Republicans voted for that, one of which was a congressman Cranshaw, who like the other 4 SEAL congressman, initially said oh no, we not gonna spend another dime on Ukraine. And they finally figured out you better be careful what you vote for, cause it'll go down in history. So, your congressman, if they are doing their job, understand that these votes that they put into Congress will not just be a flash in the pan in history, it will go down in history on who supported Ukraine and who did not. So, contact your congressman to stand with Ukraine. And specifically, at least during this year, push for allowing President Zelenskyy and the Minister of Defense to do the strategic things they need to do to eliminate the Russian threat. They don't go in and bomb civilian communities like the Russians do. They do it very deliberately, and they normally go after military targets. But you know, everybody is saying we always want to be careful how we talk to Putin and all that stuff. So, contact your congressman, and tell them when you say you're standing with Ukraine, you need to put some oomph behind it.

JOHN

Well, Mykhaylo, thank you very much.