Putin’s farcical Easter truce.

20250420

Lasting one day? Sprung on us with one day’s notice? Not applicable everywhere, but no details on the exceptions? Already broken multiple times? Gimme a break. Supposedly to impress Donald Trump? How stupid does Putin think he is? Mick Ryan, the WSJ (as reported by Unian, my main Ukrainian news source), and just about every commentator I read have the same take.

Maybe that’s why we had what seems to be a record four air raid alerts on Good Friday. They were getting ahead of their game. Cynical bastards.

The good news is that Kyiv has finally wised up. They let the metro, trolleys and public buses continue to operate during air raid alerts. Local electric trains and jitney buses have never stopped and never been hit in three years’ time. We have been fairly lucky. It is a 15-minute walk to the train, 20 to the jitney buses, whereas the city bus is only five minutes from our house. And of course, now with good weather, we have been taking bicycles for the most part in any case. Still, it is good to see Kyiv decide not to be hostage to Putin’s terror tactics.

Ryan’s piece above enumerates reasons why Putin does not want Trump to walk away. Wasting the adversary’s time, sowing division among allies, is a time-honored Russian trick we remember well from Soviet times. Perhaps when Trump has relieved himself of the peacemaker role, he can say what he really thinks. A pipe dream, perhaps, but I can hope.

I continue to pound away at the Ukrainian Drivers License test. I get tripped up on prepositions. Are you forbidden to stop, back up or make a U-turn on, under, near, approaching or past a bridge, railway overpass or highway overpass (three separate words)? Distinguishing who from whom is determined by noun cases, the same as in German or Latin. I understand “priority to the right.” The problem is figuring out which car is approaching which on the right. But… I’m getting better. I take comfort in the fact that the stakes are low for the test itself. Oksana loves to drive. The real challenge is reading Ukrainian.

Yesterday I biked to the big Yunost market where I bought nori for wrapping sushi, pickled ginger and soy sauce in the Oriental store. Also salmon to salt for the sushi. Oksana has invited Sasha and Vika and kids Artem and Nastia for the Easter meal. They don’t eat meat, hence the sushi, which all of the kids love and Eddie likes to make. As I often write, I love shopping in a traditional market, each stall separately rented and managed. They all remember the old American. Depending on how well they know me, they will inquire about my children or grandchildren. They give good advice. When I mentioned that the Oriental store was closed, the guy selling salmon recommended that I phone him. I did, and he showed right up. He had five brands of Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Korean nori available.

Those are the brief thoughts from Lake WeBeGone this quiet Easter morning, where the good-looking woman has invented a second office for herself. Returning yesterday from violin lessons, she let the kids be with me for an hour as she remained in the car doing stuff on her phone.

Graham