Some are incredulous about the war, others are afraid, but thousands of Ukrainian civilians have decided to join forces with their army to defend the country from the Russian invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin on February 24.
Citizens of all origins have responded to the call of the Kiev government, which has a military force and a population significantly smaller than that of Russia.
Some have resorted to so-called Molotov cocktails, homemade firebombs made from flammable substances in a glass container.
The images of common people dedicated to the elaboration of these homemade bombs have gone around the world.
With this type of explosives, as well as with other weapons supplied by the State, civilians have helped keep the main Ukrainian cities, such as Kiev or Kharkiv, still under their control.
The Defense Ministry even gave them guidance on their social media on how to use them against Russian Army vehicles.
The name of these “homemade bombs” comes from a former dignitary of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, who was the protagonist of another military conflict.
Here we tell you his story.
Who was Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov?
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, of Russian nationality and born with the surname Scriabin, was foreign minister of the USSR twice, between 1939-1949 and 1953-1956.
Born in 1890 of middle-class parents, he was from 1906 part of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which later became the Communist Party of the USSR.
According to the Wilson Center in the United States, he was a collaborator with Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in the 1917 revolution, which led to the fall of the tsarist dynasty and gave way to the Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of Russia.
Later, he held various positions in the party, such as secretary of the Central Committee and the leadership of the Party Committee in Moscow.
This last position, according to the Wilson Center, was achieved after participating in the so-called “purge” of the Soviet Communist Party, a process of persecution against Stalin’s opponents.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
However, he is best known for signing – as foreign affairs commissioner – the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in August 1939, a non-aggression treaty between Stalin’s USSR and Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
The agreement, according to various sources, also contained an agreement between both powers to divide their interests of conquest in Poland and the rest of Europe.
Without fear of provoking the USSR, in September 1939 the Nazi government attacked Poland, an invasion that led to World War II.
The Soviets, meanwhile, entered Finland in November of the same year, which became known as the Winter War.
This conflict was in which Molotov cocktails gained their fame.
The Winter War and pipe bombs
A review of the book “A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish War of the Winter of 1939-1940” by historian William Trotter explains why Finnish soldiers impromptuly named their homemade bombs “Molotov cocktails.”
Diplomat Molotov, on Soviet radio, said that his country’s army during the conflict did not drop bombs on Finnish territory, but “supplies and food”.
At his words, the soldiers sarcastically began calling the Soviet bombardments “Molotov picnic baskets.”
Later, they adopted the name for their own makeshift bombs.
Although the article relates the name to the intervention of the USSR in Finland, it establishes that the origin of Molotov cocktails dates back years before, as there are records of the use of these devices, for example, in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.
Now, Molotov cocktails are back in the news with the resistance of the Ukrainian people to the Russian invasion.