My friends were bombed today by the Ukrainian Air Force.

Three years ago, some lovely, peace-loving people in Donetsk and Krasny Luch, Eastern Ukraine, opened their homes and hearts to collaborate on my now critically-acclaimed book, Call Sign, White Lily.

We lived, we laughed, we ate, we drank together for days, as I proudly gathered rare never-before seen materials about the determined Russian teenager, Lilia Litvyak, who became the world’s first female fighter pilot (268 missions and 125 solo kills), and, in the process, Hitler’s worst public relations nightmare.

My dream was that everybody who read books would buy a copy, so I could send tons of money to my friends, Yelena and Valentina, to make their life a little better. I’m still dreaming, but they are not. Yelena sent these pictures a short time ago. They are the tarnished remains of the house where we ate and the yard where we laughed. Unfortunately, there are more to come.

I have a question for Ukraine’s new president, Petro Poroshenko, swept into office in a “democratic coup,” that removed the previously democratically-elected President. Is this the humanitarian assistance you pledged to your own people in your recent phone conversation with President Obama?