Exciting war news. Grandpa’s back. A rainy day at home.

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Interest in the war is heating up.  Readership of this blog has hit an all-time high, certainly because of the material I forward from Bob Homans.

I perused the English, Russian and Ukrainian language war news this morning.  Things are moving so fast that none of them seemed up to date.  My observation is that, just as fifty years ago in Vietnam, news outlets thousands of miles from the fighting seem to be as current as local sources.

Foci of the moment are the cities of Kupyansk and Balakliya.  Half the news reports still describe an ongoing battle for the latter, though it seems conclusively to have fallen.  Kupyansk is another 30 or so miles – a long ways indeed in what has been a static war of position.  Only a couple of sources will tentatively claim it has fallen.

A look at the map indicates the importance of these victories.  They straddle the two rail lines headed south to Izyum.  Major roads south also go through these cities, and the major European M03 highway runs between them.  They lie on the Severdonets and Oskil rivers, respectively, both of which pose significant barriers.  If Ukraine can hold this land, they will indeed have isolated the 20,000 or so Russians in Izyum.

Can the Russian drive them back?  Hard to tell.  Their avenues of approach appear limited and fairly obvious.  If Ukraine has adequate, accurate artillery, which they now seem to, they may be able to hold this ground.

I have mentioned Britishers Sam and Lawrence Freedman a couple of times recently.  Best commentary I find today is from them.

Needless to say, there is a lot of cheer in Kyiv.  All of Ukraine.  Nobody likes the Russians.  It is a contempt bred of three and a half centuries of experience.  Russians are brutal.  They are nasty.  Unsportsmanlike. Don’t observe the rules of war. Unlike the British and French, they brought nothing of value to the countries they have dominated.  Just about all of Central and Eastern Europe are thrilled to see them get their comeuppance. 

I’m slogging through Eddie’s biology book, picking up Ukrainian as I go.  As noted above, I feel comfortable now reading war news in Ukrainian.  I’m reading “The Lords of Easy Money,” another book about the Federal Reserve.  It is more nuanced than most, admitting the need for central banks as it points out the impossible set of demands they must face.  Leads me back to the theme of evolution.  These things will evolve in their own way.  They are hard to steer, and just like evolution, they lead to dead ends and extinctions.  In financial terms, recessions, depressions, and the ends of civilizations. But on the other hand, life on earth survived the five great extinctions, and civilization has come back stronger after every empire’s collapse. Look forward to my review.

Otherwise, a quiet day.  First solid rain we have had in a couple of weeks.  Oksana has invited friends with kids over for the day.  Grandpa is back from the hospital, the stents successfully implanted in his remaining leg and his carotid artery.  Zoriana is zipping around the house on her skates.  Last night we tried them on the street for the first time. 

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where even a quiet day is pretty exciting by octogenarian standards. 

Graham