It has been more than one hundred and twenty months since Russia invaded Ukraine. It has been more than twenty four months since Russia intensified its invasion, instituting a genocidal programme of murder; destruction and deprivation of the essentials for life; rape and other torture; forced labour; child abduction and indoctrination; and other destruction and deprivation of the essentials for a free life, including cultural heritage.
It has been more than twenty four months, too, since one of my oldest friends, a pacifist, volunteered to fight. And it has been more than twenty months since he, Maksym Butkevych, was captured and made a prisoner of war.
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