iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

On proximity, imperial memory, and the peace Europe is already building

My argument: Eastern Europe’s memory is not distortion. It is data. And if Europe builds peace with the same assumptions that gave us Minsk and Nord Stream, it won’t be peace. It will be intermission. medium.com/@brandon.war...

medium.com

What Kaja Kallas Knows

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The central question isn’t just how this war ends. It’s whose knowledge gets to shape the peace. The observer’s? Or the people who have spent centuries being the object of Russian empire?

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My new essay takes on Owen Matthews’ argument that Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) and Europe’s eastern hawks are “absurd” for insisting Russia must lose before peace can endure. I think he’s wrong — and I think that mistake is older than this war.

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

For decades, Eastern Europe warned Western Europe about Russia. On Nord Stream. On Crimea. On Minsk. On imperial revanchism. They were dismissed as paranoid, historical, too emotionally invested. They were right.

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One of the most mediocre people imaginable.

B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Day 30 — Svitlana Russian forces abandoned a tank in her vineyard. Her staff towed it out with a tractor. She put it on the wine label. "We want to present the taste of Ukraine to the world." Day 30 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Day 29 — Serhii Every morning he loaded a van with bread, put on body armor, and drove into Chasiv Yar to help his neighbors who refused to leave. Russia took the city in 2025. He kept going anyway. Day 29 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Day 28 — Father Taras Some days he officiates at 5 funerals. Before his first trip to the front he wrote a farewell note. He went anyway. "Every day is like the last. You live for the sake of others." Day 28 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Day 27 — Agnieszka She runs a soup kitchen and a free shop in Kraków. Refugees gave her a name: Our Lady of Kraków. Last spring she sent a 5k-lb shipment to the front line in Donbas. "I can't ignore their suffering." Day 27 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Day 26 — Petro In 2023 he stood at the funeral of his daughter's fiancé, a soldier, and felt called to the seminary at 59. He's studying to become a Greek Catholic military chaplain. "Go to the seminary now." Day 26 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Fundacja Kraina, Svitlana's organization, is still doing this work right now, restoring dignity and agency to people who arrived with nothing. If you would like to support them directly, you can find them at fundacjakraina.pl/en. Follow them on social media at @fundacjakraina

fundacjakraina.pl

Fundacja KRAINA wzmacnia lokalne wspólnoty | Fundacja KRAINA

W Fundacji KRAINA skupiamy się przede wszystkim na projektach integrujących i wspierających osoby w kryzysie m.in. uchodźczym, bezdomności, zdrowia psychicznego

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Day 25 — Svitlana In Feb 2022 she gave her apartment to her parents and slept on couches. She and 4 colleagues opened a center in Warsaw. No budget, no org, no experience. They helped 20,000 refugees. It's still going. Day 25 of 40. Donate: razomforukraine.org/donate #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Day 24 — Andriy He's the head of neurosurgery 60 miles from the front. He keeps a bag of shrapnel he's removed from soldiers' brains and pours it on his desk for visitors. 2000 war surgeries since 2014. "War is random." Day 24 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Day 23 — Pavlo He drives supplies into the Kherson region 25 times a year. "Sometimes I put a box of sweets in the street and the children just stand there and look. They don't grab them because they don't believe it's real." Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Day 22: Artur "And then it passes on to the living." — Artur Dron, author. Yuliya Musakovska, translator. @JantarBooks www.jantarpublishing.com/product-page... Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Day 21 — Cuba She left the front in 2019 to start a fashion brand. She showed at Ukrainian Fashion Week the last week of February 2022. She put down the fabric and picked up her kit. She has not put it down again. Day 21 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Day 20 — Dmytro He left his platoon of 35 soldiers to compete at the Paris Paralympics. No signal to reach them. "I sure hope there are still 35. They're in the middle of hell. Let's just assume there are still 35 of them." Day 20 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Day 18 — Leonid A sniper took his leg in 2015. He got a prosthetic and went home. In 2022 Russia invaded again. He rejoined at 39. 'I could not stay aside.' He is 42. Ten years of this war. Day 18 of 40. Donate: razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Day 19 — Redis Youngest commander in Ukrainian military history at 26. Held Mariupol for 86 days. Captured. Detained in Turkey. Came back. "This is the war of exhaustion. Russia is exhausted too." Day 19 of 40. Donate: razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Open Letter: I’m Not a Dove. I Still Won’t Support This War. On the $50 billion Iran supplemental, the question isn’t whether Iran is dangerous. It’s whether anyone in Washington has a plan. medium.com/@brandon.war...

medium.com

Open Letter: I’m Not a Dove. I Still Won’t Support This War.

On the $50 billion Iran supplemental, the question isn’t whether Iran is dangerous. It’s whether anyone in Washington has a plan.

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Olena is a remarkable woman and an advocate for women's rights in the Ukranian military. You can see an interview with her here: facebook.com/share/r/1DpK...

facebook.com

Redirecting...

B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Day 17 — Olena She left 20 years in restaurants to serve on Ukraine's front lines. On leave she gets her nails done. "Clean nails for one day gives me such relief." 70,000 Ukrainian women chose this. Happy International Women's Day. Day 17 of 40. Donate: razomforukraine.org/donat… #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The GOP just accidentally declared the Nicene Creed to be woke. In their defense, you can’t read your Bible *and* beat people over the head with it at the same time. Choices had to be made.

B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Day 16 — alyona alyona She spent four years as a kindergarten teacher. Then a silly rap video went viral. Then she sang about saints to hundreds of millions at Eurovision — and rebuilt a school Russian rockets destroyed. Day 16 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Day 15 — Yustyna She showed up at hospitals and orphanages with paints and paper. She asked nothing. She just watched what came out. "It's hard not to start crying," Yustyna said. "But they continue living." Day 15 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Day 14 — Maksym "Fear can influence people in various ways. Some are paralyzed. Some are liberated." Two months later Russia invaded. He called his coach. "You won't convince me. I've made my decision." He was 22. Day 14 of 40. Donate: razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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B Warzybok @bwarzy.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Day 12 — Polina Her school was destroyed by a missile. She studies online in her bedroom, 100km from the front lines, with a stress condition that flares with every attack. She keeps going. That's its own kind of heroism. Day 12 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

Day 11 — Volodymyr Before the invasion he didn't know he was an extrovert. Now he's 16, leads a youth organization, runs his school, and is rebuilding his country from the inside. "The war was a powerful push to start moving." Day 11 of 40. Donate: www.razomforukraine.org/donate/ #Ukraine #Razom

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Donate to Ukraine | Razom

Thirty more Ukrainians to meet. Thirty more days. If you want to give: razomforukraine.org/donate/ If you can't or don't want to, that's okay — I mean that sincerely. But if you want to walk the rest of Lent with me, I would love the company. Слава Україні. 🇺🇦 #Ukraine #Razom

razomforukraine.org

Your donation, no matter how small, helps to sustain Ukrainians with life-saving resources during their time of greatest need. We deeply appreciate your support.

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We are raising money for @razomforukraine.org — rated 99% by Charity Navigator, nearly $140 million in aid delivered, born out of the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. Our goal is $1,991 — the year Ukraine declared independence. The thing this war has always been about.

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That is the character of Ukraine. That is what a free, sovereign Ukraine offers the world — not just its own survival, but the hard-won knowledge that comes from three years of fighting for it. And that is why the next 30 days of this campaign matter.

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Ukrainian drone intercept specialists — people still fighting for their own survival, still absorbing nightly attacks on their own cities — are deploying to help protect civilians they have no obligation to defend. Because they can. Because they know how. Because people are dying.

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This week, as Iranian drones threatened civilians in the Middle East, President Zelensky announced Ukraine would share that expertise with allies.

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Russia has fired more than 57,000 Iranian drones at Ukrainian cities, hospitals, and power plants. Ukraine's air defenders have spent 3 years under live fire, every night learning to find and destroy them. They are now the most experienced drone intercept force in the world.

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Ten people. Ten lives. None of them waited for someone else to do what needed to be done. That's the thread. That's Ukraine.

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Day 10. Maria Prymachenko. She taught herself to paint. In 1982 she painted a white dove and called it: A Dove Has Spread Her Wings and Asks for Peace. Russian tanks destroyed the museum holding her paintings on day two of the invasion. The dove survived. She is still asking.

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Day 9. Asya Serpinska. She runs a shelter for 700 dogs and 100 cats. When Russian soldiers came through, she didn't leave. When journalists reached her after liberation, she was simply still there. "How can I stop? I have almost 1,000 animals here."

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Day 8. Valentyna Danchenko. Russian forces came for the Ukranian language books — to destroy them, replace them with Russian texts, erase Ukrainian culture from its own shelves — but the librarians had already been there first. They knew exactly what they were protecting.

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Day 7. Oksana Sologub. Twelve miles from the Russian border. When the invasion came, she didn't close. She opened her doors wider. Soldiers, displaced families, elderly neighbors — anyone who needed it. No charge. No questions. Just food.

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Day 6. Volodymyr Ivasyuk. On the 4th anniversary of Russia's invasion, we remembered Volodymyr, who was murdered by the KGB in 1979 at age 30. His crime: writing Ukrainian songs that Ukrainians loved too much. You can kill the singers. You cannot kill the songs.

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Day 5. Vira Tselyk. When the invasion came, she moved her maternity ward underground and stayed for 42 days. Artillery struck the hospital three times. Women labored sitting upright in chairs. 143 babies were born. "I don't have the right to panic."

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Day 4. Oleksandr Abramenko. He won his medal on February 16th. Eight days later, Russia invaded. Sixteen days after the podium, he was on a mattress in his apartment building's parking garage while sirens sounded above him. The next day he packed his medals and drove west.

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Day 3. Rina Reznik She cannot remember what her life looked like before February 24, 2022. She performs blood transfusions 200 meters from the front line because helicopters can't fly — Russian air defenses won't allow it. The blood has to come to the wounded.

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Day 2. Yuri Kerpatenko. When Russian occupiers planned a propaganda concert, they asked him to conduct. He refused to let his orchestra be used as a prop. Soldiers came to his apartment. He wouldn't open the door. They shot him through it. He was 46.

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Day 1. Svitlana Popova. Russian forces occupied her school. A tank destroyed her house. She moved into the shed. Then she went outside, propped a blackboard against a donated cupboard, and taught math like it was any other day.

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