Dan Bilak, a Canadian citizen living in Ukraine, told Newsmax why he joined the military in the war-torn country.
He made his remarks in an interview on Thursday's "Wake Up America."
"Everything I have is here," said Bilak, an attorney. "My younger children live here. My family is here. It's a moral issue. Why should other people go and die to defend what's mine? ... I love this country fiercely. I love the people fiercely, and it's really something that I felt I had to do.
"I made this decision a long time ago. It also gives people some hope. You have a foreigner who is living here, who is working and fighting with them side-by-side. It sort of boosts morale on that level as well."
Bilak said Ukrainians will never surrender to Russia President Vladimir Putin.
"Nobody is giving up here," he said. "He's going to have to exterminate the last Ukrainian. This is a war of extermination, after all, in order to control our territory. Eighty-nine percent of Ukrainians said they would continue fighting even if Putin used nuclear weapons.
"Are we going to get arms to the extent that we need to get arms to finish this war and at a pace that we need it? My sense is we could get this war done this year, which we would all dearly love to get done.
"But we need to have the long-range missiles. We need to have the tanks. We need to have the infantry fighting vehicles in the quantities that have been promised to us and in an accelerated time frame. We need to start our own counteroffensive soon."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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