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KBC's avatar

Dear readers of "A Kind of Refugee:" greetings! My name is Kevin Cohen. I am a medic in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, Hospitallers Medical Battalion. I am also a long-time reader of the "A Kind of Refugee" blog. In a war where the enemy wields disinformation as a weapon, the only defense that I know of is the truth. That's why I read the blog, and that's why I support it financially, too.

I want to thank you for *your* support of our work here in Ukraine. The medical supplies that your contributions have purchased can keep a lot of Ukrainian mothers from crying. On their behalf: thank you, again.

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KBC's avatar

The genesis of "How Do You Dance in a War Zone?"--what an interesting story. I am in the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, and I love to dance whenever I am in Kyiv. Invariably, some Ukrainian will apologize to me for the fact that there is dancing happening in a time of war. I tell them one true thing, which is that when we are not at the front, we do not want to talk about it--WE WANT TO DANCE. I do not tell them another true thing, which is that by the end of the war some of the guys who are dancing today will be missing a foot, so they MUST dance now, as much as they possibly can, while they can. And how many people do *you* know from the Kyiv dance community who have already given their lives to defend freedom, democracy, and the lives of our grandmothers and children...

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Larissa Babij's avatar

Yes, I do know dancers who never came back to dance. Every morning at 9 AM there is a nationwide minute of silence to remember the people killed by russia's assault that's been going on for nearly 900 days. And I know dancers who are just going off to war *now*. Because we are still fighting and fighting, which also means losing friends and losing limbs until we defeat russia.

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