Bob Homans March 18

20220318

As usual, Bob's source is in light face, Bob's notes in bold. 

Ukraine – 3/18 Sitrep
By: Robert Homans
March 18, 2022

First, some additional developments:

From Stanford to Ukraine

Last night my Ukrainian wife and I were at the dinner table, and she asked me what my two alma maters, Harvard College, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), were doing to help Ukraine.   In response, I found this most extraordinary article, about GSB students organizing an airlift of 130 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine, including raising $120,000 to support the effort.   As the article describes, Josh Pickering, MBA ’22, a Navy veteran and an emergency medical technician, accompanied the shipment.  Pickering is now in Ukraine helping to distribute the supplies and offer necessary technical assistance.   Once again, GSB students have shown their resourcefulness and commitment.

Oxford English Dictionary

Recently, it has come to our attention that a Ukrainian individual has reached out to the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) with a request to delete the reference to Russian history from the definition of “Cossack.”   Cossacks are Ukrainian.   The OED replied that it will be scheduling a meeting in May to review this change.   I would encourage all academics, authors, and others getting this email to contact the OED to support this proposal.

International Coaching Federation

Yet another professional association that announced its disengagement from Russia is the International Coaching Federation (ICF/Global).   ICF/Global announced that they are cutting ties with ICF/Russia, and ICF/Russia will no longer be allowed to use ICF/Global’s logo or trademarks.  ICF/Global will no longer accept certifications from either individual coaches or coaching academies.   Individual coaches will continue to be members of ICF.    The membership of ICF/Russia exceeds 1,000 coaches.   My wife Larysa, Immediate Past President of ICF/Ukraine, as well as the current President of ICF/Ukraine and other ICF Chapters, all played significant roles in ICF/Global’s decision.

The disengagement of international professional organizations from Russia, like ICF/Global, plays a significant role in isolating Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Yale Russian Chorus

Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Yale Russian Chorus continues to use the Russian Double-Eagle, on its tab.   From the review of YRC’s web site, the YRC has not issued any statement, condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.   The YRC specializes in performing Eastern Orthodox Liturgical music, in the Slavonic Language.   Slavonic is used in all Eastern Orthodox churches, including Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Serbia, and other countries.  There is nothing in YRC’s performance of liturgical music in Slavonic that makes YRC exclusive to Russia.   We hope that the YRC eliminates the double-eagle and, in addition, change its name, because these are the kind of things that gets Russia’s attention and drives Putin nuts.

3/18 Sitrep

As usual, comments that I add are in bold face

Freedom of movement and intercourse in Kyiv has been severely limited because of the war.  Most of my interactions outside of that with my wife is with other Ukrainians when shopping.  Prior to the war most discussions were about COVID and the poor quality of governance.  Now that we are at war all my interactions are discussions that revolve around the question of why this war started.  The discussions all end with the consensus that Russia and Russians must pay or be annihilated.

A third to half of the people I speak with are ethnic Russian Ukrainian citizens.  All of us never hated Russia, even if many, like me, didn’t like Russia.  Now every Ukrainian, no matter what their native language might be, hates Russia. 

What we see daily is Russian shelling, bombing, and rocket attacks that barely damage our military and, save for Mariupol’s steel mills, not one major industrial complex.  The long-distance attacks focus on killing, terrorizing, and destroying Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure.  The ground attacks are to take cities and not to win a war.  In occupied communities, invaders are instructed to shoot civilians and arrest community leaders.  This war and Putin are a repeat of Holodomor and Stalin.

The loss of Russian lives and the destruction of Russia’s economy is collateral damage in the drive to eliminate Ukraine.  Putin’s Russia intends to solve Russia’s Ukrainian question once and forever. 

The peace agreement, leaked by Russian sources, and immediately picked up the Financial Times, is an attempt to freeze the situation as was the Minsk agreement.  Minsk gave Russia time to plan its invasion, and Russia needs another peace agreement to give it four to five years to rearm. 

Failing to freeze the front means losing its campaign of programmatic genocide.  Russia has recognized its losing battles and needs peace to avoid losing the war.

The leak is another round in Russia’s ongoing narrative that it was forced to war by NATO, America, Ukrainian Nazis, etc, and that Russia’s objective is a peaceful or military solution to the problems created by its foes.  The people that “leaked” the agreement did so on orders for if they leaked as a matter of individual choice they would be in jail.  Russia has narrowed the range of individual choice to a range of questions regarding what a person can eat and when they can go the bathroom. 

Ukraine’s cyber forces quarantined a Russian hacker attack on Ukraine’s military servers and counterattacked with virus’s that destroyed the programming on the attacking servers.

The Stalled Russian Advance - Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense reported this morning that the Russian advance has stalled on all fronts and that counter attacks are pushing the invaders back around Kyiv, Mykolaiv and the Donbas.  In the Donbas the Russians are regrouping to focus their attacks on Severo Donestk and Mariupol.  The attack on Kyiv from the northwest, including Irpin and Bucha, has halted because all Russian command centers on that front have been liquidated.  The invaders are regrouping around Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv.

The report indicated that Russia has not achieved air superiority although attempts to destroy Ukraine’s air defenses on the Black Sea coast continue.  The Ministry also reported that a few Russian pilots have sought to delist and refuse to take part in the attacks on Ukraine.

The Ministry has intercepted reports that Russia has recruited 1,000 Syrian and Hezbollah fighters to take part in urban skirmishes but that some of the recruits intend to desert and use the opportunity to become refugees in the EU.

The Belarusian volunteer platoon made a public statement that after the war in Ukraine they will start deconstruction of the dictatorship in Belarus.   There have been reports of renewed street demonstrations in Belarus, not seen since last year’s Presidential elections.   One reason that Belarus hasn’t joined Russia in the invasion of Ukraine is because Pres. Lukashenko is evidently concerned that, once in Ukraine, that a substantial portion of his army may defect.

The International Red Cross indicated it cannot help in returning dead Russian soldiers home because Russia is withholding consent. 

Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture said that the Invasion has damaged or destroyed many historical architectural sites.  Last night, PBS Newshour did a segment on the danger faced by Ukraine’s cultural sites.

Kyiv has come under more intensive bombing and rocket attacks in the last twenty-four hours than since the start of the invasion.  Podil and Obolon continue to bear the brunt of these attacks but yesterday the city district of Sviatoshono was hit by rocket fire setting alight a covered market.

We have lived in both Obolon and Podil.   A few days ago, a rocket destroyed a high-rise residential building within 3 bus stops of my wife’s apartment.   In addition to outright destruction and the lives of fellow residents in our building, we are very concerned about blown windows from shock waves.

Kyiv satellite cities and communities in Kyiv Oblast – Irpin, Bycha, Vorzel, Hostomel, Borodianka, Makariv, the highway to Zhytomir, and communities in Vyzhorod counties were hit by rocket attacks.  The target in all cases was civilians and civilian infrastructure.  We note that the Russians continue to dismay with their ignorance of conducting war.  The attack on the Kyiv Zhytomir highway blocks their advance on Kyiv but has no impact on the movement of Ukrainian forces.

Evacuation from towns in Bucha and Vyzhorod counties is underway because civilians have been cut off from, electricity and gas as well as food.

Russian forces are based in satellite villages around Chernihiv and are shelling from the city from these bases.  Ukrainians are not counterattacking with artillery afraid to damage civilian infrastructure but are sending patrols to ambush Russians when they change positions.

An American citizen died in Chernihiv as a result of shelling.

The governor of Sumy Oblast reported that the number of incidents of Russian soldiers looting is increasing.  In addition to commandeering private residences, the primary targets of the looters are food and mobile phones.  Russians involved in the invasion had their phones stripped before invading and were given three days of Rations.  Resupply with rations is problematic as Ukrainian counter attacks are targeting Russian resupply convoys. 

Russian supply columns are long, close to 100 miles from the border of Belarus to Russian positions around Kyiv, and they are exposed to Ukrainian attacks.  This becomes increasingly significant as Russian front-line troops exhaust their supplies of ammunition and rockets.

Russian military kidnapped the mayor of Velyko Byrlychkoi, Kharkiv Oblast.  25 civilians were killed and 21 injured in Mereve Kharkiv Oblast because of shelling yesterday.  In the village of Zolochivsk, Kharkiv Oblast, a mother shielded her daughter and husband from a mortar with her body and died as a result.  The father and child were taken to a hospital.  Fighting continues around Chuhuyev, Izium and Derhachi.  Russia dropped two cluster bombs on the town of Derhachi killing six civilians.

Firefighters battled blazes at a covered market in Kharkiv, Balabashova, set alight by shelling yesterday.

Work at Mariupol’s theatre which served as bomb shelter continues and no new casualties from the attack are reported.  The column of private cars and trucks evacuating civilians freed more than 2,500 people.  However, over thirty people died from Russian soldiers firing indiscriminately at the convoy.  Practically every car was damaged either from the attacks on Mariupol or during the evacuation from the city.  The Italian government has volunteered to rebuild the theatre in Mariupol after the war.

The mayor of estimates that between 50 to 100 bombs a day are being dropped on the city.

A single mothers shelter in Severo Donetsk was partially destroyed shelling yesterday.

Kramatorsk, in Donetsk Oblast was the target of shelling this morning.

The invaders have taken the outskirts of Rybizhno, Luhansk Oblast.

Two Ukrainian pensioners in the village of Voznesensk, Mykolaiv Oblast, verbally chased three retreating Russian marauding soldiers from their property by employing a prolonged stream of Russian language curses and with their stout resolution.

As a result a Ukrainian offensive that has pushed Russia back from the City of Mykolaiv, the civilian military governor of Mykolaiv Oblast, Vitali Kim, initiated efforts to assist farmers to get into fields to start spring sowing in the safe regions of the Oblast.  The city of Voznesensk, where Ukraine won a significant victory early in the war, was hit by artillery fire.

The invaders blew up the dam on North Crimean Canal and water is starting to flow from the Dnipro to Crimea.

The mayor of Kherson said that in taking the city invaders damaged 50 high rise apartment buildings.  Ukrainian forces recaptured a community in northern Kherson, Posad Pokrovski, and are moving south.  Russian forces evacuated Oleshkiv also in northern Kherson.

Northern Ukraine - Ukrainian military forces liquidated a Russian colonel, Serhii Sykhareva, and his command center in Zhytomir oblast.  Sykhareva served in the two Chechen wars, the Invasion of Georgia and the invasion of the Donbas in 2014.  Russian forces shelled the villages of Iablukivka and Zazumia in Zhytomir Oblast destroying homes and barns.

Cruise missiles fired from Russian destroyers in the Black Sea hit the area around the Lviv airport without causing damage to civilian or airport infrastructure.