I ask you, people who care about the soul of Ukraine, those who

Host: The airport was damp with rain, the lights along the runway painting puddles like lanterns on a black sheet. A low wind moved through the terminal, carrying the sound of voices, luggage, and a news broadcast faintly in the background. Two figures — Jack and Jeeny — sat close to a window, watching the silver skyline where the city met the river.

Host: The mood was tense, but still — the kind of quiet that arrives when people are waiting to decide, to act, or to pray.

Jack: “Yulia Tymoshenko said, ‘I ask you, people who care about the soul of Ukraine, those who want to preserve the heart, the spirit and the faith of our country for future generations, to please defend it.’”

Host: He said it softly, as if speaking aloud might make the request heavier. His hands folded on his knees, his jaw tight with a memory that would not loosen.

Jeeny: “Soul, heart, spirit, faith — those are not political slogans, Jack. They’re living things. They belong to people, not to flags.”

Host: Her voice was calm, but hard at the edges — the kind of tone that carries when anger has been tempered by care. She looked at the window, seeing the city as if it were a map of the wounds she knew.

Jack: “She’s calling for defense, yes — but whose defense? Military men, civilians, the diaspora? Tymoshenko is speaking to a world that’s fragmented into princes and panics.”

Jeeny: “She’s speaking to people, Jack. People who remember the Maidan, who felt the crowds sing and stand. She’s asking those who care to make a choice: be a bystander, or be a keeper.”

Host: Jeeny’s hands moved — a light gesture of invitation that seems to ask the world not to look away. The neon from the signs outside caught in her pupil, making her eyes glow like signal fires.

Jack: “Defend it how? With words? With arms? With sanctions? With foundation money? People debate the means while the place bleeds.”

Jeeny: “All those things can matter. The point she makes is deeper: when a country loses its soul, it loses the reason to exist beyond borders. Defending the soul is both practical and moral — it means protecting language, memory, schools, sacred sites, art, the lives of families.”

Host: Her voice softened. The light shimmered on the window, and for a breath the world outside felt both near and fragile.

Jack: “You’re talking about culture while people are dying on frontlines. What she asked for is beautiful, but beauty doesn’t stop a tank.”

Jeeny: “Neither does silence.”

Host: The air thickened with the heat of an argument that wanted to be tender but couldn’t avoid truth. Jack’s hands clenched; Jeeny’s jaw set.

Jack: “History teaches us harsh lessons. In the 20th century, Ukraine’s people lost lands, lost language, survived Holodomor, then Soviet eras that tried to erase identity. Defend the soul — yes — but also defend the borders that hold the people who carry that soul.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why defense is not only military. It’s educational, cultural, legal, humanitarian. It’s schools that teach language, archives that protect memory, hospitals that heal, refugee programs that receive, sanctions that penalize aggression. It’s the whole spectrum.”

Host: Their debate escalated, not with shouts, but with fever — a kind of heat that forges clarity. Jeeny spoke with examples: the Maidan mobilization, the volunteer hospitals, the schools that reopened in war-torn towns — facts both simple and sacred. Jack countered with practical fears: escalation, exhaustion, the danger of ideals that don’t pay for fuel or medicine.

Jeeny: “When people protect their heritage — the songs, the books, the prayers — they also protect the will to fight for home. A nation without stories crumbles faster than a wall without mortar.”

Jack: “And a nation with no food crumbles faster than a soul with no songs.”

Host: The argument shifted, heated, then honed into something sharper. Each round drove closer to the same truth: defense must be comprehensive.

Jeeny: “Look at people who escaped in the first days of conflict. They carried family albums, icons, cookbooks. Those small things held home. Protecting the soul means ensuring those albums survive — so children later ask, ‘Who were we?’”

Jack: “And the children who ask need shelter, medicine, and education first. Not metaphors.”

Jeeny: “They need both. A child who is fed but forgets why their grandparents suffered will repeat old mistakes. A child who remembers but is hungry cannot learn to act.”

Host: The tension softened into intensity that wasn’t hostile, but sacred — the two people testing one another’s limits and finding space for both truths.

Jack: “So how do we answer Tymoshenko’s call? We cannot all take up arms. Many of us live in other lands. But we can vote, write, donate, advocate.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And we can guard the narrative. Defend the story at home, online, in museums, in universities. We can support sanctions that penalize aggressors, help rebuild schools, sponsor refugee families, fund medical evacuation. We can press for war crimes investigations. We can teach the world the name of Ukrainian poets and why their verses mattered.”

Host: Their voices lowered into plans. The argument had done its work — it had cleared fog into route. They mapped practical steps: letters, fundraisers, the hosting of exhibitions that tell the story of Ukraine’s people. They spoke of connective acts — hosting children for summer, translating books, adopting orphaned choirs.

Jack: “So defense is also kindness?”

Jeeny: “It is. Protection is often quiet. A safe classroom is a fortress. A stable salary for a teacher is resistance. Delivering medicine is courage.”

Host: The air changed. The storm outside lost some of its edge. In the reflection of the glass, the city now looked like a map of small lights each working to stay on.

Jack: “Tymoshenko asked for defense of the soul for future generations. That phrase — future generations — is heavy with duty. We must plan for schools, archives, festivals, the legal frameworks that protect language.”

Jeeny: “And we must pass down witness — oral histories, music, recipes, memories. We must make the world feel what Ukraine is, so the threat to its soul is not abstract but personal.”

Host: The dialogue moved from sharp disagreement to sturdy strategy. Their voices softened further into a shared rhythm. The camera of the mind pulled back to see two people who had become a miniature of the larger choice: act or abstain.

Jack: “If we ask our neighbors, our friends, our parliaments to help, we must offer ways they can help that aren’t just words. We must be specific.”

Jeeny: “So we start with specifics. We fund a mobile clinic. We subscribe to a school rebuilding project. We create an online archive where voices are recorded in Ukrainian, translated, and shared. We lobby for cultural protection in international law.”

Host: Each step felt like a stone placed in a bridge. Neither grand nor glorious, but necessary and lasting. Their anger quieted into resolution.

Jack: “And we must remember the risk. Defending a soul can provoke violence. We must be wise.”

Jeeny: “Wisdom means courage with calculation. It means finding the balance between visibility and safety, between protest and protection.”

Host: The wind eased. Beyond the glass, the runway light glowed steady — a small promise of movement.

Jeeny: “Tymoshenko’s plea is urgent: ‘Please defend it.’ Not just with guns, but with our hands, minds, and voices. We must guard the books as fiercely as we guard the bodies.”

Jack: “Then let’s begin. A letter tonight. A donation tomorrow. A coalition next week. Not for fame, but for fidelity.”

Jeeny: “For the soul.”

Host: They stood, their shadows long on the terminal floor. The rain stopped, and a thin strip of dawn split the dark. In that light, the city looked both vulnerable and unyielding — exactly as a country defended by its people must.

Jack: “We are each other’s keepers, then.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Until the gates are sealed by law and time, we hold the flame.”

Host: The camera pulled back further — two figures becoming part of a constellation of actions: letters, clinics, schools, archives, rallies, quiet sacrifices.

Host: Yulia Tymoshenko’s words resounded in the terminal like a bell — not a command, but a call: “I ask you, people who care about the soul of Ukraine, those who want to preserve the heart, the spirit and the faith of our country for future generations, to please defend it.”

Host: And in that dawn, Jack and Jeeny did not promise to save a nation by themselves. They promised to begin — to tell the story, to tend the wounds, to pass the baton of memory and care to the next hands.

Host: The symbolic moment — a sunrise unfurling over the river, a single wild sunflower held between their palms like a token — closed the scene: a fragile, bold promise that as long as people remember and act, a soul can be kept, a heart can be mended, and a spirit can be passed safe and whole to future generations.