'We are fighting for our very existence': Ukrainian politicians take up arms against Russia

Ukrainian politicians are taking up arms to help repel the Russian invasion.

“We work as a shield for Europe,” member of Ukrainian parliament Kira Rudik told CTV News Channel’s Power Play on Monday. “If we fail, there will be no European Union.”

Rudik leads Ukraine’s liberal and pro-Europe Holos party, which is advocating for full EU and NATO membership. The day after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a brutal attack on Ukraine, Rudik picked up an assault rifle.

“It was the first time in my life where I was even holding a gun,” Rudik said from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. “I haven’t fired [it] except for training, and I hope that I will never have to—but I need to know that I will be ready to protect my family, my house, my city and my country.”

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The Ukrainian military has distributed thousands of weapons to civilians, who are also preparing Molotov cocktails, tearing down road signs and even standing in the way of armoured vehicles in an inspiring show of opposition that has so far kept its powerful neighbour from seizing the country and Kyiv, a city of nearly three million people.

“This didn’t happen magically itself,” Rudik said. “It’s a result of the constant resistance of Ukrainian people who bore arms and who are right now protecting their city.”

For her part, Rudik has assembled a militia composed of parliamentarians, party members and military veterans of the war against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, which broke out in 2014.

The former tech executive spoke to Power Play as Russian forces reportedly amassed outside Kyiv, for what many fear will be a vicious siege. Using the chaos of continued airstrikes as cover, Rudik says Kyiv is now being infiltrated by small groups of Russian soldiers who are probing the city’s defences.

“That’s why the city needs resistance crews like I have assembled, and many other people have assembled, who are armed and who are able to go and check what’s going on, because our army cannot close all the small doors that the entrances to the city look like,” she explained.

Despite the stiff resistance, Rudik says she still fears what lengths Russia’s nuclear-armed “dictator” will go to conquer her democratic country and destabilize the planet.

“He’s crazy and unpredictable,” she warned. “He’s just like Hitler, but without the moustache.”

I learn to use #Kalashnikov and prepare to bear arms. It sounds surreal as just a few days ago it would never come to my mind. Our #women will protect our soil the same way as our #men. Go #Ukraine! 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/UbF4JRGlcy

— Kira Rudik (@kiraincongress) February 25, 2022

Lesia Vasylenko is also a parliamentarian with Ukraine’s small opposition Holos party, which won 20 out of 450 seats in Ukraine's last election.

“I am one of the members of parliament who has always been against weapons being distributed to the civilian population,” Vasylenko told CTV News Channel from the outskirts of Kyiv on Monday. “But today I hold an AK-47.”

Vasylenko says reports of Russian attacks on civilian targets like schools, hospitals and homes have only strengthened Ukrainians’ resolve to fight back.

“We are fighting for our freedom and we are fighting for our very existence, and I think it comes as a shock to the Russian army, and it comes as a shock to the Russian president,” Vasylenko said. “Russia must be stopped right now, because otherwise they will continue and their aggression will extend not just to Ukraine, but to the whole of eastern Europe and beyond.”

Working the international media to get audiences across the globe to #SupportUkraine. In between interviews mastering the AK-47, my new best friend in these turbulent times. pic.twitter.com/6l8u2o9uLv

— Lesia Vasylenko (@lesiavasylenko) February 27, 2022

To Vasylenko, taking up arms​ to defend Ukraine is her duty as a parliamentarian—and also a “necessity.”

“I have three children, I have two elderly parents—I have things to lose,” she said. “But I also have things to gain. I have to gain my freedom and my independence, and also the freedom and independence for the future of my children. So, this is why I hold the gun in complete readiness to use it, to use it against the aggressor, who is now raising the stakes and breaking my country apart.”