Brave Ukrainian Woman Offers Sunflower Seeds To Russian Soldier – So They Will Grow After He Dies

Background: Why is the Sunflower the National Flower of Ukraine?

Sunflowers (sunyashniki) are especially loved in Ukraine, where golden fields of them face the sunrise in the east. They are Ukraine’s national flower, and in folk imagery represent the warmth and power of the sun, which was worshipped by pre-Christian Slavs.

In a strange twist, the fact that Ukraine is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of sunflower seeds and sunflower oil is partly due not to pagan practices, but to those of the Orthodox Church.

Sunflowers made their way to Ukraine through the efforts of the early explorers of North America, where it was one of only a few native food crops (along with squash, blueberries and pecans). Seeds were brought back to the old world, and found to grow well in hot, dry places with rich soil, such as the “Black Earth” regions of Ukraine.

The Orthodox Church comes into the story because during Lent, believers were not supposed to use butter or lard for cooking. Since sunflower oil was a fairly recent arrival, there were no specific restrictions on its use. Sunflower culture took off. By the 1800s, there were big fields of them all over Ukraine and western parts of Russia, and people were chewing the seeds and spitting out the shells.

Later, Soviet plant breeders developed a line of sunflowers that produces much more oil, and oil of a type that doesn’t go bad when it’s heated to a high temperature. In the 1990s, when the world began to turn away from trans-fats, the new sunflower oil quickly became popular– especially for frying potato chips – and even more fields were planted.

Today this versatile crop covers huge swathes of central Ukraine[.]

The Daily Mail (London) reports, ‘Put sunflower seeds in your pockets so they grow on Ukraine soil when you DIE’: Moment defiant woman bravely confronts heavily armed Russian troops:

A brave Ukrainian woman voiced the outrage of her nation today as she confronted heavily armed Russian soldiers and demanded to know what they were doing in her country.

The woman shouted at two of the invaders: ‘What the f*** are you doing in our land?’ while one of the embarrassed soldiers in Henichesk, a port city on the sea of Azov, tried to calm her.

She walked away, then called back: ‘You should put sunflower seeds in your pockets so that they will grow on Ukranian land after you die.’

On Twitter, she was hailed for her courage, with one admirer commenting: ‘The bravery is amazing! Thank you! We stand with you!’

Video from The Guardian (London).

Fierce fighting raged in parts of Kiev overnight.

The incident came as protesters in Moscow voiced their support for Ukraine as they chanted ‘there is no war’ outside Pushkinskaya Metro station in the Russian capital.

Rarely seen protests against Russian president Vladimir Putin broke out in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as the global outcry against the Russian strongman grew louder.

Posting a video of the rally on Facebook, Ukrainian government advisor Anton Herashchenko added: ‘Ukrainians! Call, write to your friends and acquaintances in Russia – ask them to tell everyone that Russian soldiers are now dying in Ukraine – sons, brothers, fathers!’

Russian police have detained almost 1,400 people at anti-war protests across Russia after President Vladimir Putin sent troops to invade Ukraine, an independent monitor said Thursday.

“More than 1,391 people have already been detained in 51 cities,” said OVD-Info, which tracks arrests at opposition rallies.

More than 700 people have been detained in Moscow and over 340 people in the second-largest city Saint Petersburg, the monitor said.

Pictures showed officers physically picking up protesters and dragging them away from the demonstrations, which are rare in the authoritarian country which does not tolerate dissent against the Kremlin.

NBC’s Matt Bodner joins CNBC’s Shep Smith to report from Moscow on protests against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine inside Russia.

Remember that it was a popular uprising against Czar Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Revolution of 1917 during World War I, that ended the Russian Empire (which unfortunately led to Lenin’s Soviet Union). Putin sees himself as restoring not just the Soviet Union but the Russian Empire. But killing the family members of Russians living in Ukraine could lead to his downfall. May he meet with the same fate of Czar Nicholas II and the Romanov family. It would be in keeping with Russia’s violent history.