You can take it for granted that Putin considered Odesa – a historically multiethnic and multicultural city –easy prey. Once again, he was wrong, and the family of Zhanna and Kostyantyn is an example.
They have four children ranging between eight to 29 years of age. In 2014, when the Russian-Ukrainian war began, Zhanna and her friends organized a “culinary hundred” of volunteers who cooked and sent food to the front lines. Immediately after the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Kostyantyn and his 29-year-old son, Oleksiy, joined the army and now serve in an Odesa Oblast Territorial Defense unit. Aksynia, one of the daughters, now lives in Kyiv and collects medicines for Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in combat areas. The two younger daughters, weave camouflage nets and help their mom dry vegetables for borscht sets.
This is just one of the millions of such families across all of Ukraine that together make up one big family of Ukrainians – regardless of their ethnic origin. That is why Ukraine is invincible. A good thing to remember on this Family Day in Ukraine.
Source: Vgorode
