20 Days in Mariupol
I’ve long said that what I write depends on my mood. To write prose, I have to be emotionally neutral. If I’m in love or if I am saddened, I write poetry. If I am angry, I write essays and diatribes.
This is an essay-form diatribe.
Anyone who has not seen 20 Days in Mariupol needs to watch it. This is especially true for the people who continue to carry Russia’s water or who insist that Ukraine needs to accept losses and end the war.
I knew going in that it would be difficult to watch. The friend who recommended the documentary to me told me as much. That aside, war in general can be difficult to process, especially when civilians are caught in the crossfire.
It took every ounce of self-control I had to watch the documentary to the end.
There were several points where I wanted to get up and walk away. There were points where I wanted to find the nearest object and throw it as hard as I could against the closest wall. In more than one moment, I realized I had been watching with my fists and jaw clenched, pure anger coursing through me as I took in those images.
I already knew that the Russian government were lying sacks of shit. It’s what they do. If the Russians are telling you one thing, believe the opposite. Anyone who thinks the Russian government is a trustworthy source for anything likely has an IQ hovering around room temperature.
Knowing they’re lying and seeing their lies unfold in real time (such as when a Russian tank crew opened fire on an apartment building, seen above) are two entirely different things. The first elicits a simple frustration; the second engenders rage.
What enrages me even further is knowing there is more of this in store for Ukraine due to the House of Representatives stalling on a Senate-approved bill that would provide additional security assistance to Ukraine.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson claims that he’s not looking to pass the Senate foreign aid bill because it lacked language providing for border security. He already shot down a Senate bill that had both border security allotments and aid for Ukraine. Then, he decided that border security was so urgent, it could wait two weeks while he and his buddies went on vacation. It’s so urgent, Congressional Republicans are bending over backwards to kill any border security deal so that Donald Trump can run on an “Only I alone can fix” platform.
Seems Johnson and his colleagues have taken lessons in falsehood from Russia. He certainly didn’t mind accepting their rubles.
The longer aid is delayed, the more Ukrainians get killed. With how many dead infants I saw in 20 Days in Mariupol, you’d figure the GOP would be racing to aid Ukraine, between their anti-abortion stance and citing Hamas doing the same as justification for continued aid to Israel.
I suppose Hamas just needs to pay Mike Johnson and his pals $37,000 and they’ll stall on Israeli aid, as well.
Normally, I would avoid such open political dialogue in a review like this. There are two reasons why I’ve deviated from that standard:
The politics directly play into the bloodshed and suffering depicted in 20 Days in Mariupol Without further aid, Russia will make increased gains and repeat the pattern until all of Ukraine resembles Mariupol and all Ukrainians are either dead, captured, or have fled the country.
I could write in depth about the horrors I witnessed second-hand through the documentary. It wouldn’t be as effective. I’ve included enough to let you know it is a very difficult watch. Beyond that, the best way to receive the message is not through me, but directly from the documentary.
If you watch the documentary and still find yourself ambivalent to Ukraine (or even openly hostile to them), then I question your humanity.
Either that, or you are Russian, and I’ve long questioned if Russians have a shred of humanity left. For Putin to reign this long and to get away with so many crimes, there has to be a level of societal complicity.
At the time of publication in time zone Bravo (local time in Ukraine during the winter months), the war has entered its eleventh year (and its third year of escalation from low-intensity conflict to high-intensity). There is no better time to educate yourself on the war than now, and there is no better starting point than 20 Days in Mariupol.
If, after watching, you find your feelings mirror mine, consider a donation to United24, the official fundraising site of the Ukrainian government. We can step up and help while Congress plays games and drag their feet. Any amount helps.
Слава Україні! Героям Слава!