Discussing with 🇺🇸 how to continue to help 🇺🇦, a view from 🇪🇪
The other day, me and some other 🇪🇪 NAFO fellas and friends of 🇺🇦 met with US Ambassador to Estonia George P. Kent and US Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern Europe and Policy and Regional Affairs Christopher W. Smith.
Mr Ambassador is a great friend of Ukraine and NAFO, and we’ve met several times. Mr Smith is a high-ranking US official that deals directly with Ukrainian matters, and he was interested in the Estonian civil society view of how things are, and what more we can all do together.
Mr Smith is well aware of NAFO, and he was excited about my NAFO pin 😀 I guess it’s only natural that he knows about us, given that we are a CIA operation.
The content of the meeting was off the record, and I won’t comment on the details. But I can share that it aligned with the NAFO missions of fighting russian poison and influence, and providing material assistance to 🇺🇦 defenders. Both of those topics were present.
As I walked away from the meeting, I reflected on what I heard in the room firsthand, vs what I see happening online in regular and social media. Any kind of media provides us a warped view of reality, and it is especially warped on social media, and enormously warped on Twitter.
Twitter today has this schizophrenic character. It is still the best place to get real information and expert views from Ukraine and on Ukraine, and raise funds to help the 🇺🇦 defenders. At the same time, the algorithm suppresses this content, and boosts extremism and fascism, because the site owner has made it clear that he supports Trump and his fascism in the November 2024 election. So it is really the best and the worst put together.
It’s important to consider this warped nature of (social) media and not be lost in it. I can use it sustainably because I intentionally look after my mental health and wellbeing, and have many other things happening in my life which take me away from the screen, often for extended periods.
So if I were to undo the warp, combine all my sources, and provide my own assessment of what’s happening overall with Ukraine, and how we can help, it’s this: overall, things are going in the right direction, but at a great cost to Ukraine. Ukrainians continue to bravely hold the line and pay in blood and lives, while the West is slowly coming to terms with how to undo the damage done by russian poison. russian influence campaigns, nuclear threats, and all these things are not having the desired effect (from russia’s POV), so russia will have to amplify these and possibly start using more extreme hybrid war measures in a hope that its poison and fear would undo the Western and Ukrainian resolve.
The one big unknown in the formula is a big hybrid and information war battle that will be held at 🇺🇸 ballot boxes in November 2024. If Kamala Harris wins the 🇺🇸 election, things continue to generally go in the right direction. If Donald Trump wins, things will become likely worse for Ukraine and the world (and unfortunately definitely worse for many Americans).
Going back to where this post started, we had the meeting at Vabamu, a modern museum in Tallinn with a mission to educate the people of Estonia and its visitors about the recent past, sense the fragility of freedom, and advocate for justice and the rule of law. Just now, there is an exhibition on this very topic, “Defending Freedom: Estonian Civil Society in the Russo-Ukrainian War”, until April 2025. Check it out if you come to Tallinn.
Estonians have supported Ukraine through volunteer work, fundraising, humanitarian aid, protests, and many other activities, providing assistance to both the military and civilians. The exhibition highlights the role of civil organizations and the state in aiding Ukraine and sheds light on the close cooperation between Estonia and Ukraine.