Russian vodkas are coming off the shelves for Ukrainian products at the Fish House in Key Largo. At the Southernmost City, city officials plan to fly the Ukrainian flag, and perhaps light City Hall with blue and yellow spotlights.
“What Russia is doing in Ukraine is tragic, inexcusable and unacceptable,” Commissioner Sam Kaufman said on March 1. “Today they bombed the historic Holocaust site in that country. It is not OK. My father-in-law is a Holocaust survivor who’s from Kyiv. It’s outrageous and I’m all for any show of solidarity that we do. Plus, we have a lot of Ukrainians living in Key West.”
Since Feb. 24, Ukrainian citizens have taken up arms in a battle to defend their country’s freedom from Russian adversaries continuing to come from various fronts. President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an address to the European Parliament on March 1, said the country is now dealing with the fallout from Russia’s attack.
“We’re dealing with killed people, real life. And, you know, I believe that we today we’re giving lives for the rights, for freedom, for the desire to be equal as much as you are. We are giving away our best people, the strongest ones, the most value based ones,” he said.
Islamorada resident Frank Derfler is a retired Air Force officer. He graduated from the Air War College and spent eight years in the Pentagon in plans and policy, and in the office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
Early in his career, he worked on joint plans with the staff of the 82nd Airborne Division. The 82nd is now deployed on the Polish border. Derfler, in an interview with Keys Weekly, said the first rule of the war in Ukraine is “don’t believe 90% of what you hear.”
“All sides are experts at producing false information. While Vladimir Putin plays chess, the Western powers play … not checkers, but bingo. Western Europe depends on Russia for about
40% of its natural gas and 30% of its oil. Putin controls Europe’s heat and light. As the prices of natural gas and oil rise, Russia becomes wealthier.”
Derfler said Western powers have no good moves on Ukraine. The economic sanctions are practically as “inconvenient for the West as they are for Russia.”
“Let’s put ourselves in Putin’s shoes. Of the original 15 states of the USSR, three are now part of NATO along with several other countries that were USSR satellites,” he said. “NATO countries hold military exercises only a few hundred miles from the Russian border. Imagine that Russia was rotating 5th generation fighters, drones, and advanced ground weapons system through Mexico and Cuba. That’s how it looks to Putin.”
The reasonable response of the U.S. has been to reassure Poland, Defler said. The 82nd Airborne is playing the role of tripwire on the Polish border.
“They can help process refugees, but so can the Red Cross. They are there as a failsafe point. Speaking of failsafe, the U.S. flew high altitude B-52 missions with orbits over Poland well before the Russian nuclear forces went on high alert.”
Keys resident Abe Conn retired from the Army as a full colonel. He was deployed to various parts of Afghanistan in 2002-03, 2006-07 and finally in 2012-13. Conn’s received the Bronze Star Medal 2nd Award, Meritorious Service 2nd Award, Army Commendation Medal 2nd Award and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. As the youngest Army colonel in the history of Florida, Conn completed three one-year deployments to Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom.
In a recent Keys Weekly podcast, Conn gave some insight into world affairs and the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
“They say history repeats itself. What happened is very similar to what happened in the Cuban missile crisis,” he said. “Cuba went ahead and told Russians go ahead and put missiles on soil here. We went ahead and almost went to World War III with that. But at the last minute calmer minds prevailed and that didn’t happen.
“Now, they’re (Russia) looking at us becoming so friendly like a place like the Ukraine, or where we’ve gone ahead and put interceptor missiles in Poland. That’s a little too close for comfort for them,” Conn continued. “If the U.S. and NATO attack, which I don’t think would ever happen, all nuclear capabilities would be moot because we can take them down in Europe before they even made it to U.S. airspace.”
Conn added that he doesn’t feel Ukraine will become a part of NATO because “we don’t want to get into a political quagmire of ticking off Russia.”
Mariam Tvaliashvili, who owns Key West Soaps and handcrafts each clean creation in her studio and store in The Shops at Mallory, is from the country of Georgia.
“My country is also occupied by Russia, so I know what that’s like, and when my country fought against Russia, Ukraine fought with us on our side.”
On Monday, she was creating handmade soaps in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. She plans to donate a portion of the proceeds from their sale to humanitarian aid organizations for Ukrainians.
Fish House in Key Largo announced on its Facebook earlier in the week that it would no longer be serving Russian vodka. “We will serve quality Ukrainian vodka instead.” The post received some 700 likes.
Key West resident Paul Menta, who owns Key West’s First Legal Rum Distillery, told the commission that his business now makes vodka and will use it as a fundraiser for Ukrainian support efforts.
On March 1, U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez said he’s filing legislation in the House of Representatives to ban Russian aviation companies, such as Aeroflot, from operating in U.S. airspace. In addition, he’s pushing to ban Russian oligarchs from flying personal aircraft within American airspace.
“President Biden should have closed the U.S. airspace to Russian aircraft weeks ago and kept in line with the similar move made by Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union,” he said in a statement.
— Mandy Miles contributed to this report.
