This shouldn’t be normal

I was cleaning up my emails and had sent this to myself. I owe someone the credit for it but I didn’t save that information so this is uncredited but so worth sharing and I did not come up with it….

This is not a drone you get for Christmas.

This is a Russian drone - about the size of a car - built to kill civilians. And it does.

I’ll never be able to fully describe the feeling of walking through city streets while hearing these above your head. The constant buzzing. The waiting.

And then the sound stops.

If you hear a missile, it’s already passed you.

If you hear a drone - look out.

I shouldn’t need to know that.

No adult should.

And yet children here do. Kids who can tell you, just from the sound, whether it’s a Shahed, a missile, or something else entirely. They know how long they might have. They know what to do. That knowledge should never belong to a child.

This is the reality in Ukraine while the future of the country is discussed like a poker game in Florida.

While Kyiv is hit by hundreds of drones and missiles overnight, while people freeze in their homes with no heat, while apartment blocks burn, we’re told by Donald Trump that Ukraine “doesn’t have the cards” - that nothing matters until he approves it. As if sovereignty is a favour. As if democracy is a bargaining chip. As if survival is something to be granted by a man who has never heard this sound overhead.

Trump talks about peace.

Russia answers with drones.

Zelensky talks about democratic legitimacy, about referendums, about letting Ukrainians decide their own borders. Russia answers with missiles aimed at civilians. If anyone still wonders who wants peace and who doesn’t, listen carefully: the negotiations sound like words - the war sounds like this.

And while this is happening, we see Ukrainian refugees abroad being told to “study Russian.” As if the solution is adaptation to the aggressor. As if conquest just needs time to feel normal.

It won’t.

To everyone who supports Ukraine - politically, materially, emotionally - thank you. Truly. Your aid saves lives. Your voices matter. Your refusal to look away matters more than you know.

Ukraine is not a pawn.

Ukraine is not a card in someone else’s game.

Ukraine is a country defending its people from annihilation.

Stand with Ukraine.

Because this sound should never be normal.