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THEY are used to fighting their battles with words. Politicians taking aim across a parliamentary chamber armed with arguments.
But right now there is no place for debate in their beleaguered homeland.
So Ukraine’s MPs are ready to take on the Russians – with rifles in their hands and a burning determination in their hearts.
They stand side by side with a growing army of brave citizens from all walks of life – from mothers making Molotov cocktails to men aged 18 to 60 queuing up to fight.
Sviatoslav Yurash is the country’s youngest parliamentarian at 26 and an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Yesterday Sviatoslav was on a street in Kyiv trying to get to grips with loading an AK47.
He has spent the last two days desperately searching for weapons for his parliamentary team. “I plan to arm some of them who don’t have guns,” he told us. “They have chosen to stay in Kyiv and defend our capital.
“For our nation, this is a struggle for our very existence. We don’t have a choice. We must stay, we must fight.
He and his team are following the example of the country’s brave leader Zelensky who refused an offer of evacuation from the US government, vowing to remain in his capital as Russian forces advance.
Another MP Inna Sovsun, deputy leader of the pro European party Holos, told BBC Breakfast yesterday she was armed and would also remain in the capital.
She said: “I received a weapon. I am not trained to use it. I am a political scientist elected to parliament.
“It is as weird as it sounds. If someone said this even three days ago, I wouldn’t have believed them.
“But I have a gun, and if the situation comes to that, I will have to use it. I am not surrendering, I will join the fight.” She moved viewers to tears when she revealed her dad, who has mobility problems, had returned to Kyiv after taking her mum to safety in the west of the country.
“He is an Afghan war veteran. I said, ‘Dad why are you coming back? You are 61 years old’. He told me, ‘I’m coming back to defend Kyiv’. I said, ‘You have weak knees, you can hardly walk’. He said, ‘Well, I can crawl’.”
Kira Rudyk, leader of the Voice party, is also armed. “I was given a gun by our authorities – first as an MP, and second as a member of our resistance force. I have never used one in my life, but after spending time in a bomb
shelter, after seeing your family hiding under the stairs, you have to do something. I am learning how to shoot. I don’t want to flee. We have to fight Russian soldiers on our soil.”
She spoke as harrowing footage emerged yesterday of women making Molotov cocktails in the city of Dnipro. One told journalists: “We are good at cooking, it’s just the same thing.”
A Pravda brewery in Lviv further west is now believed to be churning out hundreds of the petrol bombs.
Meanwhile, there are Brits here ready to fight too. Expat Jacques Quigley, 29, an IT worker from Warwickshire, has vowed to stay. He is sheltering in a bunker with Ukrainian wife Kat, 31, and their five-year-old son Nikolai in Kharkiv in the north east of Ukraine.
He said: “I’m a British citizen but
Ukraine is now my home. This is where my son was born. If it means I have to bear arms to protect my family and my city, then I will. I will take on Putin’s mob. I’m not scared – I’m angry. I’ve got a crowbar and a Taser and I’m on the search for an AK-47 or a pistol.”
Roman Yuriychuk, a security guard in Nottingham, told us he wants to return to Ukraine to face the invaders. There are others like him.
Roman was in the Soviet Special Forces until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. “I would go back to fight for my country. I think about this every minute,” he said. “I am willing to risk my life for Ukraine’s freedom.
“We call Ukraine our mother, and we will fight for our mother.”
I will learn to shoot. I don’t want to flee. We must fight MP KIRA RUDYK ON FACING THE RUSSIANS