Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Secret Weapons of Ukraine
Esquire ^ | Feb 23, 2023 | By Matt Gallagher

Posted on 02/28/2023 11:00:45 AM PST by Candor7

ON THE ROAD

The air-raid siren sounded again through the defiant city, but William McNulty refused to be bothered by it. After a long morning of meetings in Kyiv with Ukrainian partners in need of medical tourniquets and cold-weather clothing, the man had earned an afternoon nap. The air flowing through the hotel room’s open window nipped of brittle autumn, and sunlight was leaking through gray clouds; winter, as the Ukrainians liked to quip, was coming.

F**k it, McNulty thought. The chances of getting hit by a drone strike in a city of three million people seemed low. A U.S. Marine veteran from Chicago who’s served in Iraq and done humanitarian work in dozens of conflict and natural-disaster zones, he’s grown numb to the frequent sirens that are now a mainstay of life in Ukraine. Since Russia’s latest invasion began in February of last year, he’s traveled throughout the country, by train and van, to rural villages and the front, delivering supplies to those fighting at democracy’s edge. His nonprofit group, Operation White Stork, makes no quibble about supporting Ukraine in the war. He’s had his fill of messy wars and ambiguous purposes. He believes this is it, the real deal, the righteous cause that people of action always not-so-secretly crave.

Even altruists need sleep, though. So McNulty, forty-five, lay on his bed, shut his eyelids, and focused, as much as he could, on rest. Then came a strident hum. It cut through the sirens, then over them, braying and obnoxious, like a great lawn mower in the sky. It kept nearing and nearing. Then it passed directly over McNulty’s hotel.

“That was enough for me,” he recalls days later, as we drive somewhere along the black ribbon of highway between Kyiv and the port city of Odesa in the far south. He identified the noise as the engine of an Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drone, one of many Russia has used to terrorize Ukraine’s civilian population over the past few months. He dared move only when the noise had faded out and there was nothing but air-raid siren again. To McNulty’s fortune, another target had been selected in Kyiv that afternoon in mid-October. “I headed down to the shelter room. Then we went out and ate at a nice Italian place.”

In the language of this new war, McNulty is a “volunteer,” one of roughly tens of thousands of internationals and local Ukrainians who’ve devoted themselves to supporting the resistance against the Russian military. The roles they play vary widely, from humanitarians like McNulty to social-media celebrities fundraising for military units. There are brash foreign fighters and humble food drivers and furtive gunrunners and ancient babushkas knitting camouflage ghillie suits in community gyms. Some are volunteers in the literal sense, burning through their savings to subsidize their work. Some earn a small stipend; still others are profiteers who see nothing wrong with benefiting financially amid a nation’s war for survival. It’s proven dangerous work, too—in January, two British volunteers were killed attempting to evacuate an elderly civilian. In February, American Pete Reed, another Marine veteran, was killed when an antitank missile hit his ambulance. For all the differences in type and approach, the volunteer movement is unified by a core belief that this is a fight worth fighting, that Ukraine is worth defending.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 100000russiandead; another500billion; anothertrillion; bidensrinolemmings; blueandyellowpompoms; demsunited4kickbacks; demsunited4payola; demsunitedforukraine; demsunitedforww3; failedinvasion; mercenary; noisylemmings4biden; russianattacks; russianmenace; soldiers; ukraine; volunteers
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-36 last
To: Louis Foxwell

Why do you discredit your own argument? No question there’s plenty of corruption in Ukraine (it’s one of the reasons more and more of the populace saw EU membership and rules as the least bad choice).

But if “90%” was even remotely true, Ukraine would have folded months ago.


21 posted on 02/28/2023 2:05:27 PM PST by Paul R. (You know your pullets are dumb if they don't recognize a half Whopper as food!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

So, this guy McNulty in the article delivers humanitarian aid. Pete Reed was running an ambulance. Both endeavors being in short supply.

Is that being a traitor? “Unproductive”?

Don’t get me wrong, some of these dudes one sees on YouTube fit your “profile”. But, then again, I’d say 50% of the men in the US are not really suitable for raising families anyway. That’s become worse, but it’s nothing new. Maybe make that figure 30% in the ‘50’s, and of those many did have families, but I look at how they turned out...

Reality is that the vast majority of these volunteers are unseen, again doing humanitarian aid, training Ukies, assisting with logistics, and so on. That makes them traitors?


22 posted on 02/28/2023 2:28:08 PM PST by Paul R. (You know your pullets are dumb if they don't recognize a half Whopper as food!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

Comment #23 Removed by Moderator

To: tlozo
our regional rival Russia

What region do we share with Russia? The planet?

24 posted on 02/28/2023 3:36:35 PM PST by Jim Noble (You have sat too long for any good you have been doing)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Paul R.

Agreed. It is outrageous. I did read a report that made the claim that 90% of the resources pumped into Ukraine are siphoned off by corrupt officials.
And, yes, Ukraine is clearly failing on every front in spite of the positive press promoting their heroism. I honestly believe this is a wag the dog campaign to bring about a war intended to destroy Russia. That will surely fail. Remember Leningrad. Russians really will die for the motherland.
We have a madman in control of our national treasure.


25 posted on 02/28/2023 3:54:22 PM PST by Louis Foxwell (We are not fit to live free but must be enslaved to control the chaos of our unfettered appetites.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: canuck_conservative

Your tag is dumb. Russia IS Europe. NATO may have kept us free, but it doesn’t any longer. Russia is no threat to Europe - if we pose no threat to Russia. Back off, turn the Ukraine into a DMZ and let peace reign.


26 posted on 02/28/2023 4:16:24 PM PST by libertarian66
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: libertarian66
Russia is no threat to Europe

sure it is, that's why countries keep wanting to join NATO

have you forgotten how Putin recently threatened all our coastal cities with his "nuclear torpedo", that would unleash a tsunami?

just because you're too blind and oblivious to the dangers around you doesn't mean everyone is that way


27 posted on 02/28/2023 4:37:19 PM PST by canuck_conservative (NATO - keeping Europe Russian-free for 75 years ... you're welcome)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Paul R.

Ever hear of the US southern Border? Plenty for them to do here instead of propping up the nazi government. Traitors...seeking adventure. That’s all they are.


28 posted on 02/28/2023 5:14:27 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: canuck_conservative

This isn’t a simple matter of Russia bad, Europe good. Russia doesn’t even have the military capability to threaten Europe. It can’t even hold the Ukraine. Try to remember also that the centre of the EU is Germany - an incorrigibly fascistic people who are always one (goose) step away from a Fourth Reich. It’s not about Nazis in Ukraine, it’s about Germany going Nazi while screaming “democracy”. The EU is an inherently fascist entity. Not that you and I can talk, being Canadian under neo-fascist rule. The west has a strong streak of fascism in it, we just call it “ Progressivism”.


29 posted on 02/28/2023 5:36:15 PM PST by libertarian66
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Boogieman

THat is what is being sold.

You are my hero Masturdebator.


30 posted on 03/01/2023 4:14:28 AM PST by Candor7 ( ( Ask not for whom THE Trump trolls...He trolls for thee!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Candor7

Ukes want NATO to bomb Ukraine into the stone age like they did to Libya. Nothing less is enough.

He plays the piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oua0Puihrkc


31 posted on 03/01/2023 10:57:51 PM PST by Fred Nerks (Fair Dinkum!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: jimwatx
"They're gonna need one humdinger of a false flag incident that they cam blame Russia for to get the American people willing to send our troops over there."

It's not the American people who are going to send our kids to fight for Ukraine it's going to be the Usurpers that have stolen the last two elections and their propaganda apparatus.

32 posted on 03/02/2023 1:43:32 AM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Fred Nerks

I am beginning to think that Zelensky is the mythical 666 predicted in the end days.It looks like much of the biblical prophesies and those of Nostradamus are being fulfilled. I am not a subscriber to the end of the world theories, but the characters seem to be falling into place, including Germany.

When will the Great Battle of Megiddo happen in Syria?

Trump needs to turn this while thing around.


33 posted on 03/02/2023 6:22:40 AM PST by Candor7 ( ( Ask not for whom THE Trump trolls...He trolls for thee!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Fred Nerks

Thats how I play my piano. I too want to enter International politics. ( sarc.)

Such lightweights now seek world rule. NO wander Putin wants to destroy him.

Can you imagine Winston Churchill doing that. Or Ronald Reagan?

Trudeau would. You have found a litmus teast whichi reveals any Globalist.

And we send them billions to be laundered into the Biden Crime family?

We need to send in the Oz hit team to chop it off.


34 posted on 03/02/2023 7:29:53 AM PST by Candor7 ( ( Ask not for whom THE Trump trolls...He trolls for thee!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Fred Nerks

I would be really worried of he actually could play a melody like “One Moment in Time.”


35 posted on 03/02/2023 7:50:38 AM PST by Candor7 ( ( Ask not for whom THE Trump trolls...He trolls for thee!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Paul R.

What’s more, the DNR ombudsman (Russian agency operating out of the same Donetsk building as the FSB!) has published monthly reports and annual reports which confirmed that by the end of 2020 the casualties IT documented were in the low double digits.

The January 2022 month had fewer than casualties documented, and all three of them were combatants.

Even the separatists’ own auditors admitted that any “genocide” ended about 4 years ago and all that was left was militants on both sides sporadically attacking each other.

2 weeks after the January stats were published, Pushilin flogged the narrative of ongoing genocide, the Kremlin knew it was a lie but ran with it, and western useful idiots swallowed it.


36 posted on 03/02/2023 10:24:36 AM PST by MalPearce ("You see, but you do not observe". https://www.thefabulous.co/s/2uHEJdj)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-36 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson