SURRENDER

SURRENDER

“We made a promise we’d always remember

No defeat, no surrender”

–Bruce Springsteen

Russia gave the Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol a deadline to surrender or die.  They didn’t surrender.  Apparently, they are holed up in a basement of a steel plant, vowing to fight to the finish.  Russia underestimated the Ukrainians resolve to fight for their country.  Now the intrepid Ukrainian soldiers are fighting to the last, reminiscent of the Alamo.

Russian forces are re-grouping along the eastern and southern part of the country, amassing forces for an assault on the Dombas region.  They have given up, at least for now, taking the capital of Kyiv, except they’ve lobbed bombs into the town, also into Lviv along the western border of the country.  This in retaliation for the Ukrainian missel that sunk their grand warship in the Black Sea. 

There is a scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz where the wicked witch flies into the sky with a message:  Surrender, Dorothy.  She didn’t, and eventually learned there was no place like home.  For the people of Ukraine, they are fighting for their home as well.  Grandmothers are taking up arms.  Backs are against the wall.  No place like home.

I’m afraid this war will go on a long time.  Even though the Russian forces are bumbling, they still outnumber the Ukrainian forces.  Putin’s long-range goal remains the same—capitulation of the country and integrating it into Russian a la the old Soviet Union.  In the meantime, Ukrainians are putting up a resistance he never counted on.  No defeat, no surrender.