Russia did believe that when they roll their tanks into Ukraine, they will surrender or flex some muscles but in a week or two, it will all be over. I guess they thought it would work out just like when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021 or when Russia seized Crimea in 2014.

Don’t dare a man ready to die fighting. Zelensky, Ukraine’s President said they will not surrender until the last man is dead. They defended their territory.

The USA called the President, “let’s fly you out of Ukraine to a safe place”. He replied: ” I don’t need a ride, give me weapons”. The US and NATO felt, “well, let’s help these guys with weapons to defend themselves. We know they won’t last but at least, they would know that we tried”. Weapons were supplied, Ukraine soldiers used them well, and they lasted the night. The world was again surprised. And said, okay, let’s send them more weapons then.

Zelensky wanted to drag NATO into the war by calling for a “no-flight zone”. If NATO declares a no-flight zone over Ukraine as they have freely done in some warring territories, it means they will shoot down any Russian aircraft in Ukraine’s air space. If they do that, Putin has an excuse to attack the US or any NATO country. That will result in an escalation because NATO will have to fight back. That is simply World War III because North Korea and other Russian friends can join in. NATO said it’s not the wise thing to do.

Meanwhile, more defensive weapons began to pour in. Note the word “defensive”. Ukraine has not shot down a fly in Russia since the start of the war. If they do, Russia has an excuse to wipe out Ukraine from the map with more sophisticated weapons. So far, they’ve only been defending.

More support rained into Ukraine on the following day. Foods, basic needs, transportation for fleeing citizens into other European countries especially Poland, the next-door neighbour. Russia was going to cut Ukraine’s internet. They ran to Elon Musk the richest man who has a satellite in the space for help, he gave them under 24-48 hours. Supports and cheering everywhere. People volunteered to go fight for them from various countries as well.

NATO decided to join the battle but indirectly. Aside from supplying weapons, they supplied intelligence and training. Intelligence is key to winning any war! It is reported that it is NATO that reveals to Ukraine where the Russian army is, they tell them where to shoot and when to shoot. That way, they have reported the killing of up to eight major army generals of Russia. That’s unprecedented.

Europe and the USA also started slamming economic bans, travel bans and especially targeted bans on Russian billionaires hoping those billionaires will influence Putin’s decision. Even private companies banned Russia. It was enormous.

The toughest of all the bans is the OIL BAN. I told you that Europe is dependent on Russian oil. The US is also a major customer. Banning the oil would mean starving yourself while trying to make your enemy suffer. Putin had thought that they can’t do it since the war will be over in a few days anyway. But the longer it takes, the more the pressure on those countries to act selflessly. Biden took the bold step. Some other European and NATO countries followed suit. Yet, in most quarters, it is still a partial ban and not a total ban. And they still buy the oil through third parties. Like they won’t buy from Russia but can buy from a third party who bought from Russia. However, the ban led to increasing in demand, shortage in supply thereby, increase in price. This affects every country and every man in the world.

Negotiation is always the twin in every war. It is believed that war could only end on the table. Ukraine and Russia began to discuss. Russia listed her demands- “give us Crimea officially, the land we seized from you the other time. Also, allow those guys who have been trying to break away to go in peace. And also, forget about your dream of joining NATO. And lastly, we don’t want you to have military again”. Russia quickly erased that last one and replaced it with, “your military should be neutral, it should have nothing to do with NATO or other country’s military”.

At the beginning of the negotiation, Ukraine was ready to succumb. They told Russia, we will forgo NATO ambition. We will look into those guys that want to break away provided we can address the needs of those living there that wish to stay with Ukraine. The piece of land you stole, you know we can’t give you. We may just pretend that it’s yours but we won’t make it official.

As the negotiation was on, the war was on and Ukraine was making gains. At least, they were beating back Russian troops and have a large support base. I believe they started backtracking on succumbing at that point.

I should tell you about the approach of Russia in this war. Russia didn’t want to wipe out Ukraine. That will be too much and unforgivable. They only want to oppress them and wear them out by destroying their country, the buildings and kill people to order to pressurize the government to surrender and say, “it’s enough, we can’t take it anymore”. If Russia has it’s way, they also want to seize the capital, remove or assassinate the president and install another person. But Ukraine’s president seems to have a coconut head. His statement has been, ” you have to kill the last man. You have started already, you must kill us all”.

In all sincerity, the world powers and NATO especially could help Ukraine negotiate its way out quickly. They just need to give Russia some concession here and there. But they are not ready to do that for some reasons:

“At this point, if we give Putin what he wants, he would think he is smart. He could do the same for another country tomorrow.”

“If Ukraine is ready to fight, why should we stop them? Let’s see how much Russia can go”. We may even use the window to study Russia to know their weak points against future wars”.

When a teacher is beating a student, the teacher also gets tired. NATO believes that Russia is getting tired too of the loss at the war and the sanctions. “Let’s allow them to suffer for long so they won’t even try such again ever in their life”.

Lastly, they are like, ” what tells you that Ukraine will not even win this war. We thought they would surrender in 7days but it’s over 70 days already and they are still standing. They should hold on a little more.

What’s your TAKE AND best advice for UKRAINE?

😰I’ve been trying to be a good reader but I do lose my zeal a long way

😰I planned to be reading 2 books monthly, but this is the 7th month of the year, and I’ve not been able to read up to 5 books

😰 I used to push myself to read but books are always boring to me

😰 I’ve done everything in my capacity to be a good reader but all are not just working.

These and many more are the complaints of so many great minded people outside there. There was a time I was in this mess as well, but when I discovered that for me to be great in life book reading is not an option, If Jesus, Daniel, Paul, Luke, and many great men in the Bible age and our century are functions of book, and I wish to be enlisted in their ranks, then I must consciously look for the way to develop the reading culture in me.

It was the 7th of January, 2020, My Spiritual father(Pastor Ife Adetona) told me that he just finished reading the 11th book (big books)of the year and this stroke a chord in me and I took up the challenge via some steps he gave me. And by the grace of God, I read 53 books in that same year and since then reading at least 60 books (excluding the books of the Bible) in a year has been my yearly goal.

#1. KNOW THAT THERE ARE TYPES OF BOOKS

You must firstly sustain the understanding that we have 2 major types of books, it’s either Mini or Voluminous books, for you to start developing this habit, don’t start by moving closer to voluminous books, start with mini-books.

Mini books are books that won’t take your time before you finish reading them, they are mostly less than 100pages with very bold fonts inside but voluminous books are books that will take your time, you can even go on days before you finish them, it mostly more than 100 pages and some are less than 100 pages but with very small font size and can take you days as well. Starting the development of a reading culture with voluminous books is like saying you want to start your academics from tertiary institutions and neglecting the primary and secondary schools.

#2. UNDERSTANDING CONCEPTS

What some people use to hunt for is to read books, you must first identify your area of interest and go for it first. Are you starting with Spiritual books? Which concept is your area of interest? Faith? Prosperity?Healing? Deliverance? Prayer? Other areas of interest may be your personal development, human and resource management, leadership etc.
The understanding of the concept you need will magnetise you to the books to read at a particular period.

#3. AUTHORS

While developing the reading habits, go for interesting authors, some authors use too much grammar which will always make book reading boring to you. You may want to ask how are you going to know interesting authors? Go to the introduction or the first chapter of any book, you’ll know how boring or interesting the book is going to be. The first book I firstly finished reading was “The Communion of Holy Spirit” By Pastor Ife Adetona.it was the first page of the book that created a craving for the whole book in me.

You can also go for recommended authors, many people love listening to messages, when you heard a preacher recommend an author, It will also help you in developing reading habits. Same with Popular authors as well.

#4. INTENTIONALITY

In developing this habit, you have to know that it’s your responsibility, so you have to be intentional about it, to be intentional about it, take note of these;

A. Set a specific goal on book reading, and this goal must be fact and not fat, saying I want to read 50 books in a month is a fat goal, the fact goal is the one that is attainable when coupled with your schedule. This calls for intentionally sitting down and planning it out.
B. It must be Time-bound; to realize your goal monthly you have to set a daily goal for it, which means that there must not be a day that will go without you opening to read a book, in actualizing this, you must decide to be reading a certain number of chapters per day or schedule a particular number of minutes for book reading daily, E.g I must read for 1hour every day or I must cover 2 chapters daily out of a 10 chapters book.

C. Have a reading mentor: The role of a reading mentor is that you will be accountable to such fellow, S/he must be able to query you if you didn’t report to them on daily basis.

#5. READING TECHNOLOGY

With Reading technology, you can read faster using a reading application, the one I use mostly is @voice, just type it on Google play, and you’ll see the image beneath this paragraph there, just download it and do the necessary settings. With the reading application, you can increase and decrease the reading speed rate and cover many pages in fewer minutes.

#6.SOFT COPIES vs HARD COPIES

Some people planned to start reading books but couldn’t start because of money, the money attached to soft copies is free compared to the amount on hard copies, Even there are some soft copies that you can even get for free. Visit Fountain publisher through available links to access some books of your choice.

Make your order via https://wa.link/a3na1j