Don’t know what was up with my shoulder — felt like I’d whacked it along with some muscle strain, but I don’t think either of those things happened — but it’s doing much better now.
I’ll start with good news: both Katya 2 and Vanya have now been approved to travel to Canada. I didn’t really expect that they would be denied and it’s nice that Canada has acknowledged that. Slight issue to be worked out with Katya’s visa (there was a typo), and they still have to get a special travel document since they don’t have international passports. It will probably be another month-ish before they actually get on a plane, but every step to that end is progress.
Viktoria had been hoping that she could arrange for Artem to come to the US (through the US’s “Uniting for Ukraine” emergency parole program), but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Using a contact in one of the groups she’s been following, Viktoria sent a message to Katya 1 (Artem’s mother) proposing a plan where they and Viktoria would meet at a Russian city just over the Ukrainian border, Viktoria would take custody of Artem, and they’d travel to Poland or a Baltic country to make the arrangements for Artem to come to the US. Katya 1 didn’t agree with the proposal, that’s all off the table for now.
(I think I mentioned it before, but in case not and if you were wondering, Katya 2 and Vanya don’t qualify for the US program because they don’t have those international passports. Canada’s nice in that they are making some exceptions, but the US rules say you have to have legal documents that would let you travel to the US.)
It appears that the siege of Mariupol is now coming to an end. Multi-party negotiations have reached some sort of accord to evacuate the soldiers from Mariupol and then exchange them for captured Russian POWs. Several of the severely wounded soldiers have already been evacuated, and it’s my understanding that more will be evacuated in the coming days (Evacuation of Ukrainian defenders from Azovstal plant – ukrinform.net). There is already movement in Russia to nullify this UN/Red Cross brokered agreement. Some members in the Russian Duma (parliament) are saying that they need to halt the exchange/return of any members of the Azov Regiment, as well as put them to death after they’ve been tried and found guilty (In the aggressor country, they want to ban the exchange of azovstal defenders and for their sake lift the moratorium on execution – News May 17, 2022 – 0629.com.ua).
While it would have been amazing if the soldiers in Azovstal had ultimately prevailed, here’s a look at the sort of thing they were up against.
This was going on all the time. Last week I saw a post noting that 30 or more bombing missions were being carried out on most days. This would mean a bombing run every 20-30 minutes during daylight hours, filled in with artillery and on-shore bombardments. And if conventional munitions weren’t enough, they also had to deal with white phosphorus bombs.
Some views of Mariupol:
This post is video-heavy, but I have to include this one. This video is from someone who was probably checking on people who lived up the stairs from Viktoria’s mother. The video is rather dark, but in the stairwell you can see some of the destruction from the bombing and fire(s). There are little peeks inside an apartment too; there’s not much left to see. Right around the 1:10 mark you will see Viktoria’s mother’s apartment doorway. The outer door frame is lying on the landing (after the landing with the umbrella). It’s definitely not clear what of this apartment might have survived, but things do not look good.
Katya 2’s parents visited Mariupol the other day; it’s dicey to travel anywhere, but since they’re older and have already been “processed” by the Russians, they have generally good mobility. They had hoped to gather things from Katya’s old apartment and from Zhenya’s apartment. The former had been completely ransacked, with anything of potential value or use taken. We don’t know the status of Zhenya’s apartment because they couldn’t get to it; the stairwell was blocked by rubble. They will try to return in a few weeks and hope they can get in then. I suspect that once people are able to make their way into the stairwell, Zhenya’s place will be similarly burgled, so there might not be anything left to recover.