The People's War, Day 28. As NATO leaders meet in Brussels, Volodymyr Zelenskyy goes over their heads, speaking directly to the citizens of the NATO states: Get into the streets. Make noise. Get loud.

"Come from your offices, your homes, your schools. . .Come to your squares, your streets. Make yourselves visible. . . In the downtowns of your cities. All as one together!"

Today is a day of European super-summitry. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union and the G7 are holding back-to-back meetings in Brussels. It’s intended as another big show of strength and unity in the face of Vladimir Putin’s war of conquest in Ukraine, the bloodiest upheaval in in Europe since the Second World War.

I’m going to get into all that in just a sec, but first: Remember this backstory from a couple of weeks ago on the Disco generation Quebec politician & Conservative leadership contender Jean Charest, and the claims he made for himself about his gallant role in emancipating Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor from their Chinese dungeons? I’ve updated that newsletter a couple times, which you’ll see, but I’ve been making further inquiries and it’s way, way worse than I thought. I’ll be dishing for paying subscribers in a kind of special-edition newsletter in a couple of days. Hell of a yarn.

See, this is why you really should subscribe (click right here), and pony up for a paid sub. If you do, since we’re all freaking out about the end of the world these days in my next newsletter along with the Charest backstory there will be a special treat waiting. I’ll tell you how to know it when the world really is coming to an end, and where the End Times will kick off, exactly, with instructions on how to get there, in maybe a day’s walk, from my ma’s family farm back in County Clare. For reals.

So.

There may not be any big surprises at all in Brussels today. But you never know. There’s a hell of a lot more financial pain that the EU & the G7 could inflict on Putin. Here’s an idea making the rounds. About half of the $600 billion in Moscow’s now-frozen Central Bank war chest consists of foreign-exchange reserves invested outside Russia. Why not expropriate the accessible half of that frozen money and set it aside as immediate war reparations to Ukraine?

As for NATO, alliance secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg held a press conference late Wednesday to provide a run-down on what decisions are likely to be announced (as in, the decisions already made) today. These include a big troop-strength buildup on the NATO states’ borders with Russia, including four new NATO battlegroups, for In Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.

The NATO leaders are also going to say means things about Chinese strongman Xi Jinping. Stoltenberg said Beijing has joined with Moscow in questioning the sovereignty of independent nations and has provided Moscow with political support, “including by spreading blatant lies and disinformation.” No kidding.

As for Ukraine - remember Ukraine? There’s a war going on there - NATO states are expected to step up military support, including anti-tank weaponry, “air defence systems, drones, fuel and ammunition, and financial aid.” And this really scary-sound bit: NATO will also be providing Ukraine with equipment to help protect against “chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.”

Still, for all NATO’s crowing, Zelenskyy says the important arsenals haven’t come through. “We have not received aircraft and modern anti-missile weapons. We have not received tanks, anti-ship equipment. Russian forces can keep killing thousands of our citizens, destroying our cities. . . .We asked to close our sky. And we asked for assistance from Nato to be effective and without limits. Any support in weapons that we need. We asked the Alliance to say it will fully help Ukraine win this war, clear our territories of the invaders and restore peace in Ukraine.” Still waiting.

“At these three summits we will see who is a friend, who is a partner, and who betrayed us for money,” Zelenskyy says, and that’s serious exasperation, right there. “We know that the Russians have already begun to lobby their interests. These are the interests of war. We know that they are working with some partners. We know that they want to put this issue out. The struggle against war. But this is the war that needs to be put out.”

What Zelenskyy is also coming to know is that he is the leader of the free world, and he commands the loyalty and respect of millions of voters in the EU, the G7 and NATO. Just a few hours ago Zelenskyy issued an appeal to those voters in a Facebook post, of all places. “Starting from March 24 – exactly one month after the Russian invasion, from this day and after then. Show your standing! Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities. Come in the name of peace. Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life.”

This brings me to a point I was making in my National Post column today: The outpouring of solidarity Zelenskyy has summoned from millions of ordinary people all over the world is an unanticipated state of affairs that requires U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and lesser figures like Justin Trudeau to at least give the impression that the toleration and impunity they have all afforded Putin during his rampages and invasions all these years will at long last be denied him.

“Politicians must also support freedom,” Zelensky said. “All of them. They must support the struggle for life.”

Notice how Zelenskyy refers to politicians as “them”? Zelenskyy is a 44-year-old satirist who played a fictional Ukrainian president until he declared his candidacy for the real job on New Year’s Eve, 2018. It was just a few months before the presidential elections. He ran on hard anti-establishment, anti-corruption themes, but instead of political rallies he did stand-up comedy. He won the presidency in a run-off vote on April 21, 2019, with 73 percent of the cast ballots. He’d never held public office of any kind, and the next thing you know, he’s the president of a country staring down a notorious mass murderer who’s threatening a full-metal invasion of his country.

What Zelenskyy gets is that democracy matters, and democracy matters to Ukrainians, and for all the clever talk in foreign-policy circles, Ukrainians would apparently prefer to die on their feet than live on their knees. It’s all very well to offer Zelenskyy counsel about the art of negotiations and the necessity of concessions - he’s already given up on getting Ukraine NATO membership, as if that concession was going to be enough to satiate Putin’s bloodlust - but Zelenskyy answers to the Ukrainian people. He’s not Joe Biden’s proxy. Ukrainians may well be fighting and dying for free people everywhere. But they take their orders from no one.

What’s happening in Ukraine is not some inscrutable military conflict between nation states. It’s a war of conquest waged by a Stalinoid war criminal and his massive war machine against the free people of Ukraine, against human beings, and as free human beings we’re all implicated.

It’s great that Ukrainian fighters have pushed back the Russian advance on Kyiv, but this is a terrible, bloody war.

The Independent provides a helpful running update. The Guardian’s news from the front might be the best.

All for now.