How many signers are native Ukrainian-speaking?
Looks like Kiev’s authority doesn’t run far in the Russian-speaking east.
Ukraine was independent since fall of Soviet Union. She had plenty of time to build a reasonable sized military. Instead her leaders and politicians created a kleptocracy where people are elected into high office to use the office to loot the national treasury. Look up the Ukraine military, it is in bad shape. Not enough uniforms, load bearing vests, ammo and weapons to equip her reserves or standing troops. Tanks and aircraft rotted in storage as funds for defense went overseas into Swiss accounts. Ukrainian people may want to fight but her leaders are thieves. IAW Ukraine is a lost cause. Best thing is Ukraine is a wake up call for NATO to draw up defensive line from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. While most of the EU and Scandanavia made cuts to their forces, Poland was the only EU/NATO nation that maintain war plans and forces for a possible major land war in Europe involving the invasion of Poland by a foreign attacker. Unlike Britain, France and Germany whom slashed their tank forces to 400 or less, Poland maintain her tank forces at 1100 and replace the older Soviet models slowly with modern German Leopard tanks. Despite the higher unit costs of western weapons, Poland intends to maintain current numbers and replacing them with modern systems. Polish defense budget in terms of percentage of GDP is the same as Israel’s. IAW Poland may be the only European nation that gets it.
As an aside, imagine a young man taking an evening walk with his girlfriend, and three men stepping up to block their way. The three want more than just to act the fool, and the young man has the options of either doing nothing (maybe even running), or he can engage the three. Assuming the young man is not armed, he still has an obligation to step forward, even if chances are he will still get the snot beaten out of him. He has an obligation to his lady to try - it is better for both of them to be in hospital than for his lady to be in hospital while he visits her with flowers and a card, looking all nicely put together because he ran away.
Ukraine needs to do something. The odds are (really) bad, the options are very few, it will probably not work.
All the same, form a line. If people only fought battles they could be assured of winning, the world would be a very different place.
Many people felt the same way when rioters chased the president they voted for out of office. The genie is out of the bottle now. That’s why that was such a boneheaded play by the EU, State Dept. and CIA. The people running our foreign policy are morons.
There’s a lesson for the US in this...