r/AskUkraine

I suspect millions of people have similar questions now after hearing about Zelenskyy's former press secretary Iuliia Mendel's Carlson interview, where she depicted her former boss as a dictator, probably no better than the Kremlin KGB thug.

I would love to see some credible facts, not emotional remarks about Iuliia Mendel, and her claims.

Mendel will be rich from her current book, The Fight of Our Lives: My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World, and/or the books she claimed to be writing, thanks to Carlson's promotion.

I have not read her book and do not plan to. I checked the reviews of her book from publications and readers out of curiosity. They do not seem to indicate she demonizes Zelenskyy in the book. They even suggest that her book compliments Zelenskyy.

Here is the top reader's review:

https://preview.redd.it/9vqoxbps9p0h1.png?width=1766&format=png&auto=webp&s=aaa60d771593c110d265d175e488739a6a06ca12

Does it mean that her view of Zelenskyy has had a 180° turn since publishing the book in 2022?

Basically the title. Why show Russia any goodwill, when they continually refuse to show any towards Ukraine?

I have a Ukrainian friend and she keeps on ranting that Ukrainian politicans are corrupt and passing laws against Ukrainians themselves. They are passing laws to sieze (usurp) land and properties of native Ukrainians. She has migrated to a western country since the war broke out. She further said that the government is letting in people from Bangladesh and Pakistan on an astronomical scale and they are getting all the benefits of staying in Ukraine, while she struggles in an alien country just to get by. Even went to the extent of saying its a grand plan to replace Ukrainians in their own land.

Normally, I don't care about politics or politians of any country but yesterday evening was really bad in that she lost her temper and I felt uncomfortable.

I quickly asked the same question to ChatGPT and ChatGPT said its not true. I suggested it might be all fake news on social media and she needs to do some fact checking. She said ChatGPT is lying.

So, turning to this sub to check if this is true or not, and if my friend is just being paranoid for no reason.

Wasn't sure which tag to use, so Politics I guess

DISCLAIMER : It is completely optional to answer my question. If you don't want to answer, you're free to not do so

I have a curiosity that gave birth to my question to Ukrainians : those of you who before the war had Russian friends, how are your relationships now ? If you cut ties or still occasionally talk with them, why?

I'm Russian who has an online discord Ukrainian friend with who we are in good friend relationships.

So I was wondering about other experiences.

Що означає: Призваний чи хтось обрізаним, нехай не ховає; призваний чи хтось необрізаним, нехай не обрізається.

1 Коринфянам, 7 глава — Біблія — Синодальний переклад

Hi everyone, this is a bit of a longer post, so thanks in advance to anyone who reads it and gives advice. I’m still not fully sure about the overall plan or some of the practical details, so I’d really appreciate any recommendations or corrections.

I’ll be staying in Chișinău for a few days and was thinking about taking a short trip to Odesa. Odesa has actually been on my “places to visit someday” list for around 15 years, ever since I first saw the Potemkin Stairs online.

I noticed that SARVALTEH AUTO and GAL Trans run buses very frequently from Chișinău, usually arriving at either Pryvoz Bus Station or Starosinna Square bus station.

My current ideas are:

Option A:
Take a morning bus that arrives around 13:00, get a hotel, spend the rest of the day exploring the city a bit, then on the second day check out of the hotel, leave my backpack there for a few more hours and continue walking around the city until late afternoon, maybe around 17:00, then take an evening bus back and be in Chișinău around 22:30.

Option B: Stay one extra night and spend an additional full day in Odesa.

A few things I’m not fully sure about:

- I read that there is/was a prohibited to be outside in Odesa Oblast from 00:00 to 05:00. Does that still apply?

- When I travel, I usually carry a camera with a zoom lens. It’s medium sized but noticeable enough. I completely understand what should absolutely not be photographed, but I’m still wondering whether walking around the city with a camera could potentially attract unwanted attention / problems. Basically: “why is this guy photographing things?”

- I speak English and some Russian that I learned a long time ago. Would it be better to avoid trying to speak Russian altogether?

- I also installed the Air Alert app and tested it a little, but I noticed there’s often very little difference between alerts for “Odeskyi District” and “Odesa / Odeska Community.” I assume that if either of those goes off, the sensible thing is just to slowly head toward the hotel shelter or a nearby public shelter immediatelly ?

Places I found so far:
Monument to Ilf and Petrov, Potemkin Stairs, Primorsky Boulevard, Odessa National Academic Theater, Palais Royal, Arcadia seaside, Deribasovskaya Street, Odessa Passage, Lanzheron Beach, N.L. Shustov Cognac Museum, City Garden, Taras Shevchenko Park

Places to eat/drink:
Beerteka, The Roastery by Odesa, 12 Coffee and Croissants, Zheto, Dvor 12 City Cafe, Pierre - La Sweet Boutique

Thanks

Hello Ukrainian friends!

American from Los Angeles here. I have been wondering if you all are connected to the Ukrainian diaspora in the US, or if you have family memory or cultural connections with immigrants from the past. I recently met a couple Ukrainians who are in Los Angeles on asylum, and it made me remember how many people of Ukrainian descent live in some other cities that I am familiar with, like Chicago. My sister lives in Chicago so I am there often and know it fairly well. A very large number of Eastern European immigrants arrived in Chicago in the last century, and when I am in residential neighborhoods in Chicago it is common to see flags of Eastern European countries hanging on people’s porches, a lot of them feel proud of their grandparents’ country of origin. The Chicago neighborhood Ukrainian Village still has Ukrainian cultural institutions but has become a very hip neighborhood for young people, and still seems to have some much older Ukrainian people who still live there, not many.

Do you have family members in your family history who immigrated to the US, either a hundred years ago or one year ago or any other time? Is there much current connection between Ukrainians in the US and in Ukraine?

Найстаріші українські картини що я бачу в інтернеті - це картини Шевченка. Чи відомо нам щось про більш старовинних митців? Наприклад, часів Хмельниччини, чи ще раніше?

The oldest Ukrainian paintings that I see online are those of Shevchenko. Do we know anything about earlier artists? For instance, from the age of Khmelnytsky, or before?