Issue of the Week: War

Published October 1, 2025

Today was the first day of a journey to Ukraine by Keith Blume, founder, and Clara Lippert, project director, of Planet Earth Foundation.

The day began early in the morning with an air raid alert, instructing everyone to go to shelters. We did.

Mercifully, the alert was lifted soon. It was not the beginning of hundreds of drones, bombs and missiles, for hours, such as from two days before, and so often for years. Since the invasion by the Russian aggressors on February 24, 2022. With countless deaths and maimings and injuries and the trauma of never-ending terror, intentional, to destroy a people and their will to go on fighting for freedom, democracy and human rights, against dictatorship and autocracy–a fight for their homeland, and in many interconnected ways, for all lands on the planet.

This was Defender Day in Ukraine. The courage and fortitude to sacrifice everything by the men and women doing the fighting and supporting them, was honored. In Independence Square, on the Memorial Wall, and in Sophia Square. Thousands of pictures and flags and flowers and candles honoring thousands who have died defending freedom. And the wrecks of Russian tanks bearing testimony to the will of a people to fight for freedom that would not be destroyed.

Our journey to experience and gain more insight into, in person, the journey of Ukraine, and the world, will be described at length to come as our experiences in Ukraine unfold.

For now, a journey through pictures, photos and screen shots from video we took today. This surely speaks for itself.