Retreat! Retweet! Retreat!
The real story of how Ukraine won the war.
Frankie is twelve years old. He lives in New York City. On the other side of the world, invading Russian troops are blasting cities and killing people like him and his parents and his friends. He can’t sleep. He watches all the streaming news. He obsessively reads #ukraine #kyiv on Twitter.
He felt secure and happy. Now, he feels helpless. He is scared to live in a world where this can happen — anytime, anywhere.
Then he reads that the city of Kherson has fallen. After a week of fighting, that is the first city taken by the Russians. That is the beginning of the end. That news hits him like a sucker-punch to the belly. He falls asleep.
He dreams he is in Kherson, in the basement of his apartment building, huddled on a pile of blankets in the corner. For the first time in days, the streets outside are silent. The silence is terrifying. That means the fighting is over. That means defeat. That means for the rest of his life, he and everyone he knows now will either be downtrodden victims or (if they are lucky) refugees.
Then he shuts his eyes and imagines that this hellish world is really a video game. In the game, he has a cellphone and is connected to the internet. And he realizes that not only can he read about what is happening, but he also can write about it. People in Kherson can read his words. People in the Ukraine can. Russians can. People all over the world can.
And he realizes that the silence isn’t just ominous. It’s an opportunity. If the Russians have taken his city and are occupying it, that means that they can no longer bombard it with rockets and missiles. That means they are now sitting ducks for street guerrilla warfare.
He tweets, “Occupier beware! By entering #kherson, the Russians accepted an invitation to a Molotov cocktail party. Vive #ukraine!”
He tweets, “#kherson may prove that occupation of a #Ukraine city is the Russians’ worst nightmare, unleashing full-scale street-to-street urban warfare.”
He tweets, “Spread the word. Occupying a #ukraine city is a costly stupid blunder. It gives the home team a huge advantage. Occupying any part of Ukraine is a mistake. Russians should run for their lives. #kherson”
He tweets, “#ukraine #kherson Message to Russia ~ Retreat! Retweet! Retreat!”
Within minutes, he starts to hear explosions outside in the distance, then near, then in all directions. Maybe people read his messages and are acting on them. Or maybe many people had this same idea. No matter. The real battle has started.
He stands up and shouts, “We can win! We will win! The Russians just handed us the game.”
Frankie wakes up. He’s in bed. His mother is hugging him, comforting him. “It was just a nightmare,” she reassures him. “That war is happening on the other side of the world. You’re in no danger. You should stay off Twitter, stay off the internet. It’s not good for you to obsess like this. Consider this a life lesson — don’t worry about things you can’t change.”
He pulls away, runs into the bathroom, locks the door, and checks the news. Heavy fighting in Kherson. The occupying force is being bombarded with Molotov cocktails. Russian soldiers are throwing down their weapons and running.
Reports that a series of tweets, retweeted over and over during the night, went viral and inspired the uprising. Reports that this is the beginning of the end of the Russian invasion.
