Ukraine Will Hold Out “Forever:” Former Ukrainian President Joins Frontlines

I just told y’all about the current Ukrainian president’s inspiring presence on the frontline of the resistance to Russian invasion. Turns out, he’s not the only high-profile politician to join the fight– literally.

Poroshenko is a vocal critic of the current president. He's currently on trial facing treason charges related to his gov'ts conduct in Donbas. Russians despise him and would probably kill him if captured. But here he is anyway. https://t.co/2oqo1VxH8w

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) February 25, 2022

Former President Pedro Poroshenko was interviewed on CNN from the frontlines in Kiev. After running through the weapons they have (and haven’t), Poroshenko went on to describe the willingness of Ukrainians to join the fight against Russia.

We created that for the two days, this is the long line of the people who want to enlist in the batallion, but we don’t have arms for that. . . And this is the only limit why the simple defense. The normal, ordinary people, sometimes never been in the army, they’re in line now to join us. This is extremely touchable [sic] and extremely great demonstration how Ukrainian people hate Putin.

In addition to how freakin’ rad this is, I loled– dare I say lmaoed– at his conclusion. It’s so touching (which is what I think he meant) and great to see Ukrainians come together and fight for each other, not because of their love for Ukraine, but because they just f*cking hate Putin.

I also chose to link to a retweet that added some context. Noah Rothman wrote,

Poroshenko is a vocal critic of the current president. He’s currently on trial facing treason charges related to his gov’ts conduct in Donbas. Russians despise him and would probably kill him if captured. But here he is anyway.

If, like me, you have no idea about any of the inner squabbles of Ukraine, allow me to enlighten you with the research I started literally 85 seconds ago:

The current Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was formerly a comedian (who ironically starred in a TV show about a man who accidentally becomes the president of Ukraine), who beat Poroshenko in 2019 with 73% of the vote (compared to Poroshenko’s 25%). So that probably didn’t engender a lot of nice feelings.

As for the treason charges, Poroshenko is accused of “helping to organize the sale of large amounts of coal from the war-torn eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass in 2014 and 2015, which prosecutors say helped to finance Russian-backed separatists” and, in doing so, collaborating with a close friend of Putin’s. He has dismissed these charges as “bullsh*t” and did some international travel in early 2022, which Zelensky’s team characterized as avoiding arrest.

When he was president, Poroshenko did not appreciate Russia’s annexation of Crimea, so he made it harder for Russians to cross the Ukrainian border. Russia did not like this.

So now we’ve all learned something today (or maybe just me, I don’t know, I just want to watch Servant of the People now).

BACK TO THE CLIP:

The CNN interviewer ends by asking Poroshenko how long he thinks they can hold out against Russia. He gives it a few moments’ thoughts before his answer:

“Forever.”