On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, following a months-long buildup of forces across their shared border, and in Belarus. U.S. intelligence agencies warned of the impending operation, Russian authorities denied it, and most of the Ukrainian population existed in a state of denial due to normalcy bias, including most of their elites. “We didn’t think this would happen,” explained the wife of a Ukrainian politician we interviewed. “There was no reason for Russia to invade.”
Of course, history took a different turn. In the West, people who previously had a Black Lives Matter icon in their Twitter profile embraced the Current Thing and switched over to a Ukrainian flag. Others took a different approach and decided the only way to counter Moscow’s aggression was to shoot Russian troops in the f*cking face. So when the Ukrainian government sent out an appeal for foreigners to serve in a hastily organized international fighting force, Americans, Brits, Poles, Mexicans, and a whole ragtag army of other nations’ citizens showed up to pick up a
