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Christmas in a Ukraine Under Siege
“Merry Christmas and a happy, victorious New Year,” Ukrainian President Zelensky said last week. “Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine).”
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the U.S. to address a joint session of Congress last week, he left an embattled nation still in desperate turmoil.
“Ladies and gentlemen — ladies and gentlemen, Americans, yesterday before coming here to Washington, D.C., I was at the front line in our Bakhmut,” Zelensky said during his speech. “In our stronghold in the east of Ukraine, in the Donbas. The Russian military and mercenaries have been attacking Bakhmut nonstop since May. They have been attacking it day and night, but Bakhmut stands.”
“Last year — last year, 70,000 people lived here in Bakhmut, in this city, and now only few civilians stay,” he went on. “Every inch of that land is soaked in blood; roaring guns sound every hour. Trenches in the Donbas change hands several times a day in fierce combat, and even hand fighting. But the Ukrainian Donbas stands.”
All these many months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, things on the ground in country are as dire as ever. The Ukrainians have not prevailed in the conflict. But neither has the superior military forces of Vladimir Putin’s Russia managed to prevail.