In one of the most famous scenes from the movie “Braveheart”, the main character, William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson) is in front of his outnumbered Scottish army about to face the English forces in battle and gives a little speech.
Wallace: Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace, and I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What will you do without freedom? Will you fight?
Man in crowd: Fight? Against that? No. We will run. And we will live.
Wallace: Fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live, at least a while. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom?
[Crowd roars]
Wallace: Alba gu bràth! (Scottish Gaelic phrase meaning “Scotland forever”)
In America we love a good story of heroism and courage against insurmountable odds, especially when they’re based on a true story, as in the case of Braveheart.
Such movies inspire us because they place before us scenes that depict the highest struggles of human existence: The outnumbered and outgunned putting their very lives on the line for the loftiest of human ideals — things hard-wired in our souls, like truth, justice, freedom, dignity… things worth dying for.
These stories make challenges of our daily lives seem trivial.
At the same time, the wide variance between the epic struggles depicted in such movies and our everyday lives make these kinds of stories seem almost contrived, almost like they are more of a children’s fairy tale.
So we brush it off… it’s just a movie, right? It’s “based on a true story”, but 700 years have elapsed since these events, and surely many details were altered to neatly fit the three hour movie format. For all practical purposes now it’s just a good story that makes us feel good for a while like a bedtime story makes a child feel good.
But if you want to see a GREAT movie — like Braveheart, but far bigger and better, and more recent — look no further than everyday life in Ukraine right now.
The story in Ukraine isn’t 700 years ago; it’s happening while you read this. It’s recorded by mobile phone cameras capturing things in real time and posted online. It’s real. No Hollywood studios, actors, or scripts, and all the guns fire live rounds. And people and animals were/are harmed, and even tortured and killed.
And in this drama unfolding before our eyes there are stories of courage and heroism that surpass anything Hollywood could create.
Oleksandr Matsievsky
Remember this picture, and remember the name “Oleksandr Matsievsky”. You may see it spelled a little differently, maybe “Alexander”, maybe “Matsievskiy”, maybe with a middle name “Igorevich”.
If you visit Ukraine after the war – maybe even sooner – you won’t be able to visit a city that won’t have a statue of him prominently displayed in the center of the city, probably based on this picture.
He was a volunteer Ukrainian sniper who told his mother by phone on December 29, 2022, “Mom, I will never surrender.”
He was captured by the Russians and on January 7, 2023 he was executed in cold blood, unarmed, with the execution captured on phone video taken by the Russian executioners who posted it online as a boast.
The video is all of 12 seconds long and only in Russian, but you can hear him say to the Russian soldiers, “Slava Ukraini”. That’s Ukrainian for “Glory to Ukraine”. And immediately they opened fire on him with machine guns. He keeled over and died while the executioners slurred “Die, bitch!” at him in Russian.
Oleksandr didn’t flinch. He didn’t beg. He didn’t die on his knees pleading for his life. He didn’t even look afraid or nervous. He could have begged. He could have pledged allegiance to Russia and denounced Ukraine and possibly saved his life, or at least extended it for a while, but probably in a brutal prison where he would have been starved, tortured, and beaten to death anyway.
Instead, he looked evil in the eye and said “Slava Ukraini” (“Glory to Ukraine”), and died a hero, and will rightly be commemorated as such.
The picture above is a freeze frame from a video seconds before he was executed. The video is the kind of thing that may keep you up at night, but you may want to watch it just once to see the great man fearlessly face his death at the hands of evil. Click here for the video – WARNING – WARNING – WARNING – Don’t watch with children present!
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
As someone who lived in Ukraine during the 2019 presidential campaign I can confidently tell you that almost no one I knew respected Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Now remember, my survey sample wasn’t a really balanced cross section of the Ukrainian population. I taught English and most of my informal polling came from interactions with my students. This skewed my sample in two significant ways.
First, almost all my students lived in Kyiv – the country’s capitol, which means I had no farmers, miners, or factory workers in my sample. Second, they STUDIED ENGLISH voluntarily. In other words, they were of the ambitious, educated class eager to learn and improve their lives.
Among that segment of society at least 95% were strongly opposed to Zelenskyy.
He was a sitcom star — a clown… almost literally.
Ukrainians I spoke with thought of Zelenskyy running for president a little like you might think of Jim Carrey running for president in the U.S.
And no one’s opinion improved much after he became president. His approval rating was 31% two months before the war started.
And look at him… Not now, but his pre-war look… Does he look like the “give me liberty or give me death” type? Does HE look like the guy you want leading a country against the most evil predator the world has seen in at least the last half century?
It turns out looks are deceiving.
His words were relatively few, but what we know of him now is based on evidence that cannot be faked. It was well known that Ukraine’s president was Russia’s #1 target for capture or assassination.
Yet despite being offered safe passage out of Ukraine by U.S. president Biden, he DECLINED, saying “I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition”, and HE STAYED IN UKRAINE to lead his country during its greatest trial when he could have easily accepted safe passage out.
And he stayed in Ukraine, VISIBLE, AND IN PUBLIC. He WANTED to be seen, along with his top cabinet and military leaders as encouragement for his people.
On the evening he was reported to have spoken with President Biden, he recorded a 35 second selfie video and uploaded it to the internet. In the video he is standing in front of the easily recognizable presidential office building with four of his top advisors standing behind him.
He said,
Good evening everyone. The leader of the party is here [points to Davyd Arakhamia, who leads the president’s political party, Servant of the People]. The head of the presidential office is here [points to Andriy Yermak], Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, is here [points to Shmyhal], Mykhailo Podolyak presidential advisor is here [points to Podolyak], the president is here. Our troops are here. Our citizens are here. All of us are here protecting the independence of our country, and it will continue this way. Glory to our defenders, glory to our heroes, glory to Ukraine.
Source: Zelenskyy: I’ll remain in Kyiv
While Vladimir Putin has one-on-one meetings across a ridiculous 50 foot long table to not get covid and remains mostly out of public view, Zelenskyy constantly appears in public, walking around famous sites in Kyiv with visiting foreign dignitaries.
Ukrainian Civilians
As soon as the war started martial law was immediately declared. This prevented Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 years old from leaving the country, but many women, children, and foreigners initially fled to neighboring countries for safety.
But within a few months those Ukrainians who fled returned to Ukraine. They didn’t do this because it was safe. They did it because Ukraine was HOME. Even while it was at war, it was home, and they would rather be there at great risk than be a refugee elsewhere.
As I mention above, I taught English to Ukrainians while I lived in Ukraine. Some of those students wished to resume their lessons remotely, so I am still in touch with Ukrainians IN UKRAINE via Zoom/Skype.
Every lesson starts with “What’s new?”, and I hear about the number of explosions they heard since our last meeting, or about the air raid alerts that woke them in the middle of the night and kept them awake until early in the morning, or about their rolling blackouts and how they structure their lives around them.
It’s not all of that every time. Sometimes they can go a few weeks without any nearby explosions or blackouts, sometimes they get a massive raid where there are several explosions on one day.
One young student (under 20) I’ve taught for a long time tells me how she has learned to live knowing life is temporary and that it wouldn’t be that farfetched if she was killed in the war. She lives on the far western edge of Kyiv – less than 15-20 miles from Bucha and Irpen, cities that were occupied by Russian forces in the first weeks of the war, and where the Bucha massacre took place.
It doesn’t get more real than that.
After around two weeks of the war her and her mother fled to Denmark where they stayed with a distant relative for a few months, but like so many others, they returned to Kyiv and still live there now, again hearing air raid sirens and bombs.
A Country of Heroes
Without a doubt this war has awakened something buried deep in the collective soul of a great people — something many of them probably didn’t even realize themselves.
President Zelenskyy gave a New Year’s Eve speech just before midnight on December 31, 2022 where he said (keep in mind that this was spoken in Ukrainian so the English is just a translation and not always smooth),
We woke up on February 24 into another life. Being another people. Another Ukrainians. The first missiles finally destroyed the labyrinth of illusions. We saw who was who. What friends and enemies are capable of, and most importantly, what we are capable of.
On February 24, millions of us made a choice. Not a white flag, but a blue and yellow flag. Not escaping, but meeting the enemy. Resisting and fighting.
Source: New Year greetings of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Unfolding before us today is a battle between good and evil, tyranny and freedom. Ukrainian people stand courageously, valiantly against a regime whose depths of evil rival the worst in history.
This will be the stuff of legend for generations to come. For centuries stories of Ukraine’s valiant, fearless defense will be passed down from generation to generation.
I am honored to know them.
Slava Ukrayini! Heroyam Slava!