Just a quick follow-up to my last post: Rodion‘s summer camp is over and he has safely returned home. I’m not sure where the information about the camp being in Crimea had come from (it may have been a misunderstanding or miscommunication somewhere along the line), but he had actually gone to a place over/down by Krasnodar. Better, since it was away from the fighting, but also potentially worse, because it was in Russia proper as opposed to an occupied area. Also, since the trip and camp appear to have been sponsored by a Greek historical group (Mariupol has/had a strong Greek heritage), maybe Krasnodar was a more cost-effective choice.

Whatever the specifics, he’s gone and back now. It sounds like he enjoyed parts of it, but definitely not everything. Breakfasts were creamed wheat (remember Malt-O-Meal?), which he does not like at all. The “fun” was very regimented — he told Viktoria it was like being in North Korea. Like many things in Russia that aren’t Moscow or St. Petersburg, things were generally run-down and not always in working order; for example, the bus bringing him back home broke down four times on the way. He said nights were cold in the camp quarters. Still, he went with a friend and sent a couple videos where he seemed to be having some fun, so I don’t think it was all bad. But he’s back home now and getting ready for school. Given Russia’s penchant for abducting Ukrainian children (Russians stealing children to destroy next generation of Ukrainian defenders – UK ambassador (ukrinform.net)), I think things turned out as well as they could.

One more quick note: this active part of the Russia’s war against Ukraine has now be going on for 555 days. Russia’s overall actions against Ukraine have been going on for over 9 years — perhaps longer, if you count Russia’s efforts to undermine Ukrainian independence since their breakaway in 1991. I continue to hope that Ukraine’s incremental gains will start to snowball and finally push Russian forces out of their country completely.

Apparently, in the past week or so there’s been an uptick in the number of mentions in Russian of a negotiated settlement to the conflict. I don’t have an article handy that I can point to, but observers see this as perhaps tacit acknowledgement that Russia knows it has a losing hand and it trying to freeze things where they are now (i.e., keep what they’ve got and stop trying for more). For well over a year Ukraine’s position has been “leave the country and then we’ll talk,” so I doubt there’s any peace treaty coming soon. I generally agree with that position. It’s as if bank robbers broke into a bank, took hostages and started cleaning out the vault, only to be confronted by a substantial number of security guards. At that point, sure it’s in the best interests of the robbers to take what they’ve already gotten and leave, but they’re the only ones who get anything. Between the Russian robbers and Ukrainian security guards, I’m going to continue to side with the latter.