Let's not pretend that everything is business-as-usual – right now it is not 😔

Russian forces, commanded by their dictator leader Vladimir Putin, started an unprompted war and invasion on Ukraine on February 24th 2022, targeting civilians. This is not a war that anyone apart from the dictator leader and his oppressive regime wants – we must stand together as a united world against this madness.

On the 21st century war is not only weapons and destruction, but also increasingly information war. The good people of Russia do not support the war, but their oppressive leadership does anything they can to censor and silence the people and keep them in the dark. Democracy is not really a thing in Russia where those who think differently are repressed, jailed or even murdered by the dictator's regime. A large portion of Russian people don't necessarily even know there is a war, as they don't have access to free media and information.

Yet despite this there have been hundreds of thousands of Russians across Russia demonstrating against the war, even though they know that standing up can result in being arested and beaten, or worse. These are people that need all the support we can give.

Also, Putin's narrative was that invading Ukraine would be easy and fast. The brave nation of Ukraine has proven that wrong, by defending themselves and their country successfully.

Even an individual person can help substantially with seemingly small things, including but not limited to:

The armed forces of Ukraine are the shield between the free world and Putin's violence. Everything we can do helps keep Ukraine, Europe, and the rest of the free world safe. There are two different trustworthy sources for direct donations to the Ukrane army:

• The Come Back Alive foundation: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/
• The Fund of the National Bank of Ukraine: https://ukraine.ua/news/donate-to-the-nbu-fund/

Countries across Europe and the rest of the world are showing their support, but even as individual people we can help.

Unicef and other established organizations have specific channels for helping the victims, some funds specially targeted to helping women and children.

• Unicef donations: https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/conflict-ukraine-pose-immediate-threat-children
• By googling you will find lots more to choose from

Any Russian citizen that we can reach and convince to be on the side of peace is a step in the right direction. The worst thing we can do now is live our lives business-as-usual, now is the time to take a clear stand. So in a nutshell:

• Use your social media for good. Share, like, retweet, repost, any and all trusted facts about the situation. Avoid sharing other content to give more space to important communication.
• We are all parts of various communities, companies, organizations, teams, you name it. Use your leverage wherever you have it to spread the message and unite people for the good cause. There have been greate examples of e.g. companies cutting all ties to Russia, business leaders and other influential people taking a stand, even so far as Elon Musk activating Starlink in Ukraine to stop Putin's intent of isolating Ukraine from the Internet, and Anonymous declaring a cyber war against Putin.
• Participate in peaceful demonstrations to suppor Ukraine and stand up to the war the no-one wants.

I created a free to use HTML banner that you can drop at the top of your site to link your visitors to a help resource of your choice. All awareness, support, and donations help, so please consider using your platform for good: https://gist.github.com/anttispitkanen/cfc6df6b8cba3b6d02f752fc3ddf0637

This is not their war. This is their dictator's war. We are on the same side as the good people of Russia, all in favor of peace.

These are rought times in Europe. However, Europe has never been as united as it is now. Let's take care of ourselves and each other.

• Various links and resources for getting informed and helping: https://ukrainewar.carrd.co/
• List of peaceful pro-Ukraine demonstrations taking place around the world: https://www.stopputin.net/
• A list of actionable things to do as a foreigner to help: https://supportukrainenow.org/