A bombed university building.
Bullet-strafed apartment buildings.
A captured Russian tank in a town square.
Those are of the pictures State Representative David Cook, (R) Globe District 7, brought home after his trip to Ukraine.
"They want to be out from underneath someone else's rule. They want to be their own country and rule themselves. Now who does that sound like when we look back in history?" Representative Cook said.
Cook was part of a delegation organized by the Arizona Defense and Industry Coalition that took a week-long trip to Ukraine. There, they met with high-ranking Ukrainian government and military officials, business leaders, academics, and the victims of war.
"There wasn't a house that I saw that wasn't burned down, blown up, or riddled with bullets," Cook said.
Last year, in a speech to the Arizona State Legislature, Ukrainian Consul General Dmytro Kushneruk called on Arizonans to support his country's efforts to defeat Russia.
"The war is not between East and West," Kushneruk said. "It's a war for the soul of humanity."
That speech proved to be a defining moment for Cook. Arizona delivered 9,000 pounds of body armor, donated from various law enforcement agencies across the state, to help the Ukrainian war effort.
Cook is looking to find more avenues for the legislature to help the Ukrainians.
"I believe that we will go back after we process this information and find out what is possible for us to do for those people in that country."
Cook said the trip was a life-changing experience for him. Now he must come up with a plan to convince his fellow lawmakers it's in Arizona's best interest to continue to invest in Ukraine's war effort.
