Ukrainian Hands Soldier Seeds So Flowers Can Grow From Corpse

Brave citizens are resisting Russian aggression, despite deadly risk
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 25, 2022 8:25 AM CST

She stood just a few feet from two Russian soldiers holding guns. If the Ukrainian woman was intimidated, it didn't show. "You're occupants, you're fascists!" the unnamed woman shouted in their faces, according to the Independent's translation of the viral video shared on Twitter by Ukraine World. (The woman's own alleged footage is here.) "What the f--- are you doing on our land with all these guns?" Then, in what's quickly become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Russia's invasion, the woman held out a hand of sunflower seeds. "Take these seeds and put them in your pockets so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here," she said. Sunflowers just happen to be Ukraine's national flower.

The soldier to whom the woman was primarily speaking, who was blocking a street in the southern Ukrainian port city of Henichesk, told her he was part of a military exercise, per the Telegraph. "You came to my land. Do you understand? You are occupiers. You are enemies," she responded in the video, viewed 4.9 million times in less than 24 hours. "Put the sunflower seeds in your pockets, please. You will lie down here with the seeds," she said, predicting the soldiers' deaths. Twitter users have applauded her bravery. (Thirteen soldiers who had four choice words for Russia before being killed are also being hailed.)

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