Where news comes from. What next, Mr. Putin?
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In Saigon we got our news from the three American networks, CBS, NBC and ABC, rebroadcast by Armed Forces television. Of course, it was twice edited – first by the networks, then by AFVN. Nevertheless, the American public knew about as much of the big picture as we did on the ground.
That's the same today. Gary, calling from London where he watches a number of sources, knows what's happening here better than I do. Probably better as well than the Ukrainians. Although all the news has an anti-Russian slant, it seems to cover most of what's happening.
Meanwhile, I continue to hear occasional bombing. I'm pretty sure I heard machine gun fire, which would've been on our side of the river, in the early morning. I think some of the explosions are coming from our side also rather than the west side of the river.
The accounts that you feed me back indicate that the Ukrainians are putting up stiffer resistance than I would have expected. There really is long-standing, deep-seated fear of the Russians among a good deal of the populace. It was not highly visible to me in my first years here, but it has become more pronounced since 2014. Most of Ukraine feared and detested Yanukovych and his Russian-speaking coterie. Public opinion is formed by the school curricula, the media and people around them. The consensus since 2014 has become patriotically Ukrainian.
Meanwhile, our babysitter Anna and her daughter Sophia are in Poland, where Anna's mother has lived for some time and has apparently gotten her a job. We are out one babysitter. Several other friends and acquaintances have also fled west. If we did so we would have no place to go, and we would be leaving what we own to the caprices of a new government and whatever malign elements emerge to take advantage of the chaos.
My take is that world opinion, and Russian public opinion as well, will push back strongly enough that Putin ends this thing fairly quickly. That was his stated intention all along. The extent to which he will have fulfilled his objectives is a very open question. Once he has broken the military and taken over a nation that really doesn't want him, what then? I haven't heard, and can't formulate a good answer to that question.
You can't understand this war without understanding Russia's motivation. As we have learned in just about every war, you have to discount what you read in the press and hear on television. You have to read widely. Ukrainians, including my dear wife, can't believe that there is any substance to Russia's charge that Ukraine provoked the People's Republics. Others agree with the argument that NATO would not be a threat and do not understand why Putin sees otherwise.
Soldiers of fortune are drawn to both sides of every war. I wrote six years ago about some who hurried to Donbass to support the resistance to the insurgency, collecting supplies and donations to support the anti-insurgent forces. Some Americans and Canadians were likewise drawn to support the insurgent side. They have posted videos of shelling from the Ukrainians. There is no impartiality on either side, but one should listen to both, appropriately discounting what one hears. I hereby extend the offer of names to search on if want them, confident my mailbox will remain fairly empty.
I tell Oksana it's like fights between Eddie and Zoriana. You never know who started it, but you can be sure that if either one of them wanted to avoid a fight they could do it. In international affairs, there are always parties that will benefit by egging them on.
Putin has unleashed something I doubt he can control. War is like that. At this point the civilian infrastructure in Ukraine seems to remain mostly intact. Let us pray that this continues, to maintain electricity and civil order. The Russian army cannot have the people required to do it themselves. They have to depend on locals. I hope they are smart enough, and prepared to do so.
As yesterday, I will post throughout the day as I hear things. First step will be to walk to the corner and see if the store is open, the buses are running, and if there are any military vehicles to be seen.
10:30. Quite a few people on the main street. The smaller mom and pop store was open. We bought potatoes. No buses in sight. Just now some explosions to our east. That would probably be around Brovary, a suburb on the northernmost of the two main roads leading west to bridges across the Dnieper. The road passes about 3 miles to our south.
I encourage the use of adages. Поговорки in Russian. I offered Eddie these three over the past couple of days. Applicable to the war as well as home.
First rule of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging. When Eddie tries to make excuses about who started the fight with Zoriana. Applicable elsewhere.
He who rides the back of a tiger has a hard time getting off. Context: Putin, how you going to undo this mess?
Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule: You broke it, you bought it. Context: Putin, how are you going to put this back together? What's the plan?
Putin has used shock and awe just like the US did in Iraq. And by the way, how did that work out?
There are many different prognostications but no clear answers at the moment. We will see.
11:10 It seems odd that there are no airplanes in the sky. One would expect Russia to be using both fixed-wing fighters and helicopters if they have air superiority. Maybe they don't? Reports are that they are using Backfire bombers. Those fly so high we wouldn't readily spot them from the ground.