My family comes from Ukraine, although I would not presume to call myself Ukrainian. We were nomads, wandering Jews, fleeing a significant diaspora.

(Above photo is from the Associated Press)

When the Nazis came, the Ukrainians were among the most enthusiastic killers of Jews in the world next to the Germans.

An estimated 1.5 million Jews were shot to death at close range in the ravines, open fields, and forests of Ukraine. It was called the “Holocaust by Bullets.”

But that was then, this now.

Ukraine has the only Jewish head of state on earth besides Israel, and the Russians are trying to kill him. And millions of angry Ukrainians are trying to kill them in those same forests and ravines.

The world is upside down, and Ukraine is the most powerful and admired nation on earth at the moment. The world is paying attention.

Nothing in my lifetime has captured so many hearts and minds as this awful bloody struggle for freedom.

To me, the tide seems to be turning. Something profoundly important is happening.

All those deadly arms pouring in from Europe and the United States are beginning to take their toll.

According to the Pentagon, at least 3,000 Russian soldiers are already dead, the victims of another holocaust by bullets.

The Ukrainians know how to do it.

I don’t know how long it will take the pundits and talking heads to see it, if at all, but I see and feel a great light and momentous history coming from Ukraine.

It is not quite what we are reading about and seeing on TV.

But it is there, and it is becoming stronger by the day.

Every day the Ukrainian nation fights on is a victory for them, a defeat for Vladimir Putin, and an enormous boost for the idea of freedom and democracy.

It is the most inspiring thing I can recall watching and seeing. It gives me great hope and faith that humanity and compassion are alive in the world, even as they have been missing in our own country.

What is wrong with me for daring to think this way and contradict the pundits? One outraged reader – his name is Benson –  put this to me in what he hoped was a sarcastic message:

“God, it is wonderful to have someone like you who knows so much more than those who are trained in these issues and work with them day in and day out. You must leave your snowy hole up there in NY and accept the offer of the State Department or the White House, who can use that special insight you have and those personal connections you have with all those Russian military scholars.”

Sorry, Benson, but I see something extraordinary happening in Ukraine, and I will dare to write about it from the boondocks. It is something special and, amid the horror, uplifting, we see it from our snowy holes.

It is right to focus on the slaughter and suffering; it is essential to step back and find perspective.

Every day we are told it is just a matter of hours before the Russians overwhelm the Ukrainian government and capital. This war has been going on for two weeks. That hasn’t happened.

When I listen and read between the lines, I see another story,  a powerful story filled with courage, bravery, and a fierce passion for freedom.

The Ukrainians have reminded us of something many Americans have forgotten. Freedom is precious. It shouldn’t be taken for granted. It shouldn’t be undermined or lied about.

Good people are willing to fight and die for it.

It was supposed to all be over by now, President Zelensky dead or in prison, a puppet master in charge of the country,  the people welcoming their liberators, the cities overrun, the unstoppable Russian Army omnipotent and overwhelming, the Ukrainian state gone and absorbed by Putin’s dream of a lost and forgotten empire.

And Putin himself, the Emporer and mad master of a new universe. Hitler wanted the same thing and set about it in the same way. Only he was victorious, at least initially. But he tried to do to Russia precisely what Russia is trying to do to Ukraine, with the same disastrous results.

History is no good unless you learn from it.

But connect the dots for yourself.

None of what Putin thought would happen has happened. The Ukrainian people have risen, a new European Viet Cong,  reminding us again that a people whose freedom is being taken from them by invaders are the fiercest fighters on the earth.

And the Russian Army, it seems, is stoppable.

Americans are fat, lazy, and whiny when it comes to democracy. They have forgotten what it means to lose it. Ukraine is reminding us..

Our soldiers sacrifice themselves all the time, but we hide behind our cell phones and computers and look for outrage and grievances to whine about.

Shame on us. The Ukrainians are humiliating us also.

The Russian Army is stalled all over Ukraine, its lumbering convoys trapped, sitting ducks for guerrillas with portable missiles, its jets and helicopters starting to get shot down as thousands of deadly mobile missiles pour into the country to be used against the invading Army, which looks more like a raggedy paper tiger than a powerful military force.

Putin and Trump, his greatest fanboy,  suffer from the same fatal disease foreseen by the Greek playwrights: terminal hubris.

Once again, a standing Army is outmaneuvered and hampered by a small guerrilla army with what they feel is an absolute moral authority.

We’ve seen this movie before.

The cities are holding their own, fighting off the Russians, or trapping them and hunting them down. There is fierce fighting everywhere. Big heavy tanks and trucks are manna from heaven for guerillas hiding in the woods and hills and moving in small groups with lethal modern weapons.

The Ukrainians are taking a terrible beating and rise out of the rubble every day to fight back. Putin can’t kill 45 million people, much as he might try. And every one of them seems to want to fight him.

President Zelensky, who is supposed to be dead by now, has evolved into the new Churchill of Europe and the Western World.

Today, he broadcast out of his own office in his headquarters. “I’m not hiding,” he announced, thumbing his nose again at Putin’s Army, who has been hunting for him for weeks.

Yet another humiliating moment for Putin and his generals.

Putin underestimated him, as did the pundits. He is much more than a comedian; he wields media like a nuclear weapon. And in a way, it is. He has turned the tide, almost by himself.

The Ukrainian Army has not been overrun and obliterated. They are fighting all across the country. And they are getting more weapons by the day.

America and the European nations have not splintered and been mired in politics and conflict.

They have come together and overnight turned Russia into a canceled culture, a pariah nation, cut off from the world, its business, and its technology.

If moral authority counts for anything, the country will pay for this barbarism for decades.

For a country that hopes to be a superpower again, that is a catastrophe.

The Russians have trouble staying free, but they know how to get rid of leaders who fail. And they will. Putin has no rationale for this war beyond his twisted ego.

Lies and censorship only go so far in this global economy and linked world.

He is a marked man.

Trump thinks Putin is brilliant, but Putin was wrong about every aspect of this war, including the Western response. It seems democracy is unwilling to roll over and collapse; there is still life in the old girl.

If media is a weapon, economics is even more potent, and Russia is choking to death. Desperate, Putin is waving his nuclear weapons around to intimidate.

To me, he seems the last person on the planet willing to wipe himself out in a nuclear exchange. He is now a defeated shell of a leader, pathetic, humiliated, reviled worldwide. I’m not hoarding food.

In the past week, say the New York Times,  tens of thousands of lethal anti-tank and air-craft portable missiles have been pouring into Ukraine, and the Russian casualties are beginning to mount rapidly.

There are no signs the Ukrainian citizen and military fighters are losing heart and giving up.

Quite the opposite,  the destruction of homes and businesses and the horrific slaughter of innocent civilians has enraged the Ukrainians, turning grandmothers, mothers, and teenagers into fearsome guerrilla warriors.

There are many signs that the Russian Army is demoralized, ill-equipped, poorly supplied,  surprised, and in disarray.

Many soldiers didn’t expect to be fighting mothers and grandmothers; they thought they were told they would be welcomed as liberators, not war criminals.

The pundits are saying the Russian Army will regroup and figure out how to win, but it seems to me that the opposite is happening. And the clock is ticking for Putin; the Russian economy is disintegrating under the weight of sanctions.

The headlines today are all about the Russians being stalled, not victorious.

The Ukrainians are regrouping and changing the nature of the conflict. More than a million of them have fled the country.

But there are at least 44 million left, and every reporter on the scene is reporting that they are entirely and passionately united in their hatred for Russia and Putin.

They are determined to fight.

It feels from my snowy hole that President Zelensky and his People’s Army are saving democracy, not only for them but perhaps for all of us. The leaders of the free world all seem to know that Putin must not be allowed to win if freedom is to thrive and be safe.

Good news often comes from evil, light after darkness; there is a lot of light coming from Ukraine. Democracy is back and looking better than ever.

The thing about pundits is that to be a good one, you have to stick your neck out sometimes and go with your gut. I did this in 2020 when I wrote Donald Trump would not be r-elected (he won’t this time either), and I’ll do it again today.

I might well be wrong  – a good pundit must be willing to be wrong – but I won’t cover my ass with qualifications and maybes and might be’s.

Vladimir Putin and his humbled Army have lost this war.

The Jewish ex-comedian and his guerrilla Army are poised to win it, soon or over time. Isn’t life strange?