Letters from and to my old friend Steve, member of Washington's National Press Club

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Good questions, ones you other readers might ask. His letter and my response.

The image here in the US is that Ukraine is in chaos, and that all citizens are either fleeing or armed and fighting, that Russia has been slowed but have only sent in their 2nd or 3rd tier armies so far, that inevitably Russia outguns and outmans Ukraine, and is ratcheting up their efforts.  It looks very bad there. I can't imagine staying based on these reports, but you are there and know more than me I'm sure.

US media from both the left and right side is passionately behind Ukraine. Some newscasters are wearing blue and yellow ties.  The only significant talk about Putin involves the question of whether hr is nuts, insane, deranged, etc. Those who say he's not get responses to say well, you don't know because lately he's changed and appears to be increasingly out of touch, deranged, etc. InfoWars is a lone exception.

However if I look closely enough I find plenty of evidence that - crazy or not - he's been consistent about saying he doesn't want NATO in his backyard, and he doesn't want Western values of wokeism infiltrating Russian society.  The InfoWars channel played an Al Jazeera broadcast of a meeting in which Putin made a number of statements that were translated with subtitles and referred to issues related to gender confusion and asserting this thinking would not infiltrate Russian society.

I do not personally claim to know anything for sure, I am merely sharing observations and conveying that which I have read and seen. I don't claim to confidently and fully understand anything.

But I'll add this: Western media tends to call those with whom they cannot debate "crazy".

P.S. I have two references to InfoWars but please note - I find Alex Jones to be emotional, flamboyant, dramatic, and extreme. But none of this means he is wrong, not about everything. I started paying attention to him when I discovered, in going through a huge 1 terabyte collection I have of scraped video from Jan 6 in DC, he was out there in the midst of it with a bullhorn warning the crowd to back off, predicting the day would be used against him - he was remarkably prescient that day in real time in the passion of the day and worked passionately there to change things for the better. That impressed me. I've tuned into him a bit since for that reason.

Example:http://zebrathepony.com/view?m=d5nR5LimF

Steve –

There are a lot of refugees pouring out of Ukraine. Something on the order of half a million. The families of many of Eddie's school friends have gone.

Getting out is difficult. The roads are jammed. Ukrainians are not letting men between 18 and 60 leave the country. Take a gun and fight. Particularly those that have had military training. We know one guy of about 20 who was planning to go on trails over the Carpathian Mountains. The trails are all blocked – he is stuck with about 10 other people in a one family house close to the borders of Romania and Hungary.

I called another guy, an older guy who lives in Brovary, which I have mentioned is being shelled 5 miles east of here. He and his family are stuck somewhere as they attempt to get out to Moldova.

Here in the city we don't see chaos. I see resolve.  The Ukrainians really do not want to be Russian. They will fight with everything they have. They are happy to have the Kalashnikov rifles. They have proven themselves pretty effective with Molotov cocktails.

They are pretty inventive. The company that makes road signs for the Ukrainian highways has put up a bunch of fake ones pointing the wrong way. Russian intelligence is so bad that the tank drivers don't have good maps, certainly don't have GPS, and are often asking Ukrainians for directions. When the electronic traffic signs are not misdirecting Russians, they have a sign up repeating what the border guards from told the Russian Navy – F**k you, Russkie.

Our friends Vera and Vitaliy live in Obolon close to that huge traffic circle with three roads leading out of it that you have probably seen on TV. It has been pasted fairly hard with missile blasts that cannot have had a military objective. It was a terror tactic, but they are not terrified. They are taking videos out of their windows. Where the apartments are closer to the street people are dropping Molotov cocktails on trucks and armored personnel carriers. The Russians know they are not welcome.

Ukraine has some pretty good psyops techniques. Putin lied to the soldiers, telling them they were going on a training exercise. Many POWs did not even know they were in Ukraine. There's a lot of footage of these guys being questioned. Footage of them being put in touch with their families who had not heard from the Russian side what it happened to their kids. Stories of the Ukrainians telephoning the families of dead soldiers to let them know what happened and where it happened.

Many of the conservative sites I have liked are in the tank for Russia. It makes me sad that they cannot be objective. This includes the Unz Review, Revolver News, dailyexpose dot uk and others. As I try to understand both sides I get accused by partisans of both sides. As usual I find Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald to be as reasonable as any. Tucker Carlson does pretty well for a US newsman.

That 40 mile long Russian convoy has not moved for two days. I had initially thought that they would be sitting ducks for Ukrainian javelin missiles, artillery and whatnot. I have changed my mind. Ukrainians have had time to blow up bridges and mine the roads leading to Kyiv. I have traveled those roads and there aren't suitable detours. Tanks don't work terribly well in deep mud.  My best guess at this point is that the Ukrainians will be able to successfully keep this convoy from moving. Doing so will achieve their objective – defending Kyiv – and they can simply wait until the entire convoy runs out of food, water and gas and has little alternative but to surrender.

My friend Gary is amazed at how poor the Russian logistics has been. They certainly don't have a Gen. Petraeus.  They are running out of gas quite frequently. They are probably hungry. He thinks that the pause in the war is to allow the Russian military to regroup and get their plans straight before attacking again. They do have a lot of reserves. On the other hand, the Ukrainians fully know what to expect.

Even if they do get to Kyiv, they will have to fight an entire civilian population that is now armed with rifles and Molotov cocktails. You do not want to send green and low spirited troops into such a hostile situation. Ukraine will simply never submit again to the Russian yoke.

Thanks for good info and inspiring me to share this.  I'll put it on my blog as well.

Excuse me all – this isn't terribly well edited