I’ve got to share this Twitter post. It came up in one of the larger daily collection of posts that I saw the other day (Thursday, I think), and it’s just utterly ridiculous. It’s also a little example of the sort of propaganda the Russians are creating to feed to their home audience. One of their ongoing talking points is that the Russian army in Ukraine is not only fighting Ukrainians, but NATO troops as well. Not true of course, but they need to do something to help them sleep at night.

What makes this hilarious and ridiculous are the accents. Very, very Russian, or at least some flavor of Slavic. Most people in Russia wouldn’t know a real American accent (I’m sure I have one when I speak what little Russian I can), which is why I’m pretty sure this was for “domestic consumption,” not some “a-HA!” proof Russia would try to present at the UN.

Plenty of vulgarity in this, so be warned.

The war is just shy of that milestone as I begin this post, but since I doubt it will end in the next couple days, I doubt I will need to change the headline. It’s been a while since I posted a family update, and since there’s been little bits of news over the past few weeks, this seems like an appropriate occasion for it.

Here’s some recent video from Mariupol, which is something of a rarity these days. I’m not sure exactly when it was taken — it was posted online just a couple days ago — but it was taken diagonally across from (and gives a good view of) the family apartment block. The big building on the corner as the video begins is where Viktoria’s mother’s and son’s apartments were located. Her mom’s apartment was on that corner, just above the shop level of the building, so technically you can see what’s left of the balcony. As the video pans around, the yellow building was a supermarket; just behind it was a restaurant where we all went when I was last there. The tall while building to the right of the supermarket was a medical clinic. Off to the right of the medical building was a secondary bus terminal; Viktoria and I would walk there to get the bus to Berdyansk. The video also pans through, what is now, a typical Mariupol apartment. No outer wall, complete rubble inside. It appears that this particular building hadn’t been in a fire.

We recently past a sad anniversary — one year since Inna‘s death in Mariupol. I honestly don’t know how accurate the accounting is on that, given what was going on at the time, but her death was recorded as being on March 24th. Since then, as noted in a previous post, Baba Katya was able to track down her burial site to one of the nearby mass graves, and in January, she paid (we reimbursed her) to have Inna’s grave site cleaned up and decorated with some fake grass. Viktoria showed me a picture (I’ll try to post it at some point); it looks nice(r) but a bit incongruous with the all the barren grave sites surrounding it.

A bit of news from Baba Katya and Rodion: They are both doing reasonable well, given that they’re living under an occupation. Around the one-year anniversary of the war (February 24), Katya finally told Rodion that his mother was dead. It seems hard to believe that she would have kept that news from him for so long, especially when she’d known what had happened for several months, but maybe she wanted him to have some hope to help get through the difficult times. I really don’t know. But since things were relatively stable, and with the one-year mark of the war, I think it was getting harder to maintain of pretense of waiting for some sort of news.

It seems that all the time they’d spent sheltering in the apartment block basement has caused a lingering medial issue with Rodion. I don’t have all the details, but it sounds like he will need to have a little surgery at some point in the near future. Katya is doing OK, but has trouble with her knees from time to time. That was true before the war (she had lived in a 5-story apartment building that didn’t have an elevator), but I’m sure the current conditions aren’t making things any better.

Viktoria had the opportunity to talk and/or chat with Artem a few weeks back. You’d think that would be a cause for some happiness, but it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. Artem was very angry with his father (Zhenya) for running away. He didn’t have the whole story (how Zhenya had plans for visiting Austria and was on the train when the war started; he didn’t leave on one of the few evacuation trains out of Mariupol), and I don’t think he was particularly mollified when Viktoria filled him in. He’s been attending the Russian-run schools (it’s mandatory), so he’s been hearing a lot of the propaganda that they’re feeding the students. He Viktoria how American kindergartens were teaching children to be gay, and was critical of Viktoria for “selling out” in some way. It was rather hard to get the exact story from Viktoria, because she was clearly upset by the conversation. While teenagers are typically moody and rebellious, merging that with being in a war, under occupation and being subjected to state-sponsored propaganda 24/7 likely makes for a disastrous result. (I don’t want to worry Viktoria, but this apparent mindset and a year or two more of the war might actually see Artem joining — or otherwise in — the Russian army opposing Ukraine.)

One little tidbit to wrap up this rather downbeat posting. Viktoria and Baba Katya were talking last week; they manage to connect roughly every three weeks. Usually their conversations are uneventful, but they were strangely cut off this last time. Viktoria was thinking about it — and I think she confirmed it with Katya when they re-connected a few minutes later — and it appears that everything was fine until their conversation got a little political. I believe they were talking about Artem, or schools in general, and the false narratives of the war that were being taught when their connection suddenly went dead. They waited a few minutes and connected again, and continued to talk (about non-political matters) without any further trouble.

This certainly could have been coincidence; to the best of my knowledge, this was the first and only time such an interruption had happened. But you have to remember that Viktoria and Katya both grew up in the Soviet Union and may have seen or experienced such things earlier in their lives. Also, to my mind, there are technology issues that might make such an event less likely when compared to the old phone lines. A VOIP conversation would look more like regular data as opposed to something a third-party could “listen in on.” I certainly wouldn’t say it’s impossible, especially if you’re the third-party (i.e., the Russian-run Phoenix phone and data provider that Katya has to use), so at the moment you can’t rule it out. So maybe Big Boris is listening.

You have probably heard — or could have reasonably guessed — that Russia has sharply clamped down on independent media, protests or any perceived dissent of the war. The crack down started years ago, but really ramped up last year, even driving a Nobel-winning media company to close shop and relocate out of the country. (Most independent Russian media now operates out of Latvia.)

Given all that, maybe this article from the BBC isn’t that much of a surprise: Ukraine war: How a Russian child’s drawing sparked a police investigation (bbc.com). I think that the real surprise for me was the extreme measures being taken here. It’s a good article to read, but in summary: A young girl draws an anti-war picture, the school calls the police, who fine her father, take her from her home, and now are prosecuting the father which could send him to prison for years. A child has an opinion! Stop it! Stamp it out! Punish anyone or anything tangentially related to this inappropriate thought!

Crushing dissent is the primary way an autocrat stays in power, but when even a kid can see the truth, the autocrat’s days are numbered. (But, of course, his true believers won’t go down without a fight.)

March 16 was an anniversary of something that should never have happened, but that no one should forget when they think about Mariupol and the history of the war. It was on March 16, 2022, that Russia decided to drop two 500-pound bombs on the theater in Mariupol, despite the word “children” painted in front of and behind the building in huge, visible-from-the-air letters. It is estimated 300-600 people were killed because of that action. (Curiously, the government of Ukraine was the one making the lower estimate; the higher number comes from external, largely-impartial sources.)

I never had the opportunity to go inside, but it was a pretty imposing building from the outside:

The AP has an article with plenty of video and photos to show what it looked like last May — AP evidence points to 600 dead in Mariupol theater airstrike (apnews.com). It probably doesn’t look any better today, but since the Russians erected a huge screen around it to block view of what’s happening now, it’s hard to say: Mariupol theatre demolished ‘to hide Russian crimes’, aide says (bbc.com).

That was the injury, now here’s the insult: Putin decided to pay the city a visit. He flew in at night and drove to a few places in the dark, when a curfew was in place so that “extra” security measures didn’t need to be taken. A few propaganda photos here and there, and he was gone again. Putin drove through occupied Mariupol at night, – Russian media. VIDEO (0629.com.ua). I’m sure there was nothing coincidental about the timing of the visit.

Probably the only coincidental thing was that the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant for Putin only a couple days before. While it wasn’t for his orders regarding the bombing of Mariupol or the theater, the publishing of the Mariupol City website still think the crimes committed in Mariupol will play a role: Mariupol will help Putin get to The Hague – VIDEO (0629.com.ua)

[There’s a poll at the bottom of that last article with some interesting numbers. The question is whether people are thinking about returning and/or planning to return to Mariupol. 49.9% (as of today) responded that they are still planning to return as soon as it is safe. 11.3% say they’re gone for good, and 16.7% say they’d like to return but don’t see how that’s possible.]

UPDATE (3/19/2023 9:35 p.m. PST): The BBC has some additional information about the visit: Putin in Mariupol: What the Russian president saw on his visit (bbc.com). It appears the tour included some of the most heinous crimes committed during the siege of Mariupol (the theater, the maternity hospital, etc.). The article references Myru Avenue, which is where the family apartments were located; from the map in the article, it looks like Putin drove right by the building. (Also, I think that Myru [also spelled Mira, meaning ‘world’] has since gone back to it’s old name, Lenina… at least, according to the occupiers.)

I just want to share a couple links I came across recently. Both are, I think, interesting but for very different reasons.

First up is an article from the BBC, who has been really good at documenting the war since the beginning. Although I usually post images of Mariupol, this is a collection of photographs taken from other areas in Ukraine that have suffered as well. The first photo in the article really sets the stage:

It’s a short article without a lot of text; definitely worth your time. Ukraine war: Images show devastated towns near front line

The second article is on MSN and comes from a very unlikely place: the G20 economic summit currently being held in India. As fascinating as global economics are, the title of the article almost tells you all that you need to know: Crowd erupts in laughter at Russia’s top diplomat after he claimed the Ukraine war ‘was launched against us’

Russia has had their own version of “Baghdad Bob” for a long time (remember him?) Lavrov — the “top diplomat” from the title above — not only drinks the Kool-Aid, he’s the main stockholder, chairman of the board, operations foreman and lead truck driver of the Kool-Aid manufacturing plant in Russia. How do you know he’s lying? His lips are moving.

I came across this Twitter post a day or two ago. (Putting an image of the tweet and a copy of the video here so I don’t have to link/embed it — just in case it or Twitter go away.)

It appears that most of the video bits are from New Year celebrations in the city (December 2021/January 2022). Definitely happier times.

I recognize most of the city in the scenes. That long set of steps leading down to the waterfront was near where I stayed during my first visit to Mariupol. You see a bit of the Mariupol drama theater is some of the clips; that was the site that had been marked “children,” visible from the air, that was bombed by the Russians. The holiday tree is (was) there every year, and that lighted fountain was behind the theater and a focal point of the central park. Occupying forces dug up the fountain and moved it to Donetsk, a pretty petty thing to do. (But since the invaders also pillaged or destroyed museums and ransacked individual houses for food, used clothing and appliances — the most notable being washing machines, apparently — stealing a water feature because of its pretty lights shouldn’t really be a surprise.)

If you watch or read any news source at all, you have no doubt seen at least one story about today (February 24) being the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. If that’s what you’re hearing, it’s wrong and sloppy reporting. The war in Ukraine actually started nine years ago, in 2014. But this is still a tragic anniversary of the war — the one-year anniversary of the primary (or current?) invasion of Russian forces into Ukraine.

It hasn’t been a good year for anyone involved in the war, clearly, and things aren’t going to end anytime soon. We can only hope and pray that a positive resolution comes soon.

Something interesting from the past week — and perhaps a sign that Ukraine will soon be upping their efforts to retake occupied territory: some unknown explosions were reported in Mariupol. Not just random explosions, like a faulty gas whatever blowing up in the winter. No, these were deliberate hits on Russian military infrastructure. The Russians scrambled some jets and were whizzing around the city for a couple hours, but didn’t find anything.

There has been some speculation about what might have done this. Viktoria (and whatever sources she reads or listens to) says it was HIMAR missile strikes. That’s not impossible, but it seems unlikely. Another theory I saw was that these were drones, some of those “loitering” drones that can do kamikaze attacks. This seems more likely. One writer I follow suggested it could have been some non-HIMAR missiles; it would have been at the extreme end of its range (if placed right up at the line of contact between the forces), but Ukraine might be willing to put a lesser missile battery closer to the front lines.

What makes this extraordinary is that Mariupol is some 80km from the front lines. That far back means it’s not going to be liberated any time soon. But if Ukraine is already able to make targeted strikes in the area, that’s a really positive and hopeful sign of what is to come.

It comes with some concern our part, though. One of the strikes was already near the district where Artem’s family lives. There are still people, including family and friends, in Mariupol and the surrounding area, and neither Viktoria nor I are anxious to see the city become a siege-point again this year. The city suffered a lot when and since it was captured; it would be awful if went through similar anguish being recaptured.

(I don’t expect most people would have heard the Mariupol news; I’ll try to find some articles about it to link to.) Here’s a bit of what I was talking about. It’s not sustained enough to mark the effort to reclaim Mariupol, but it’s a start. Maybe.

• Russian ammo depot destroyed in Mariupol at night (ukrinform.net)
• Three explosions recorded in Mariupol. Russian military personnel hit (ukrinform.net)
• Explosions in large enemy personnel cluster near Mariupol reported (ukrinform.net)

A recap of what’s happened in Ukraine seems appropriate, and this one, I think, is pretty good: Slava Ukraini: A year in disaster, a year in heartbreak, a year in triumph, a year in Ukraine It not only gives a run-down of the more notable events from the past year, it starts its narrative a little before that, so you can see what life in Ukraine was like before the Russians came.

I know it’s been a little while since I last posted. It’s not that the war is over or that nothing has been going on. The war continues, even if it’s not the lead story on the nightly news. I still read two or three summaries every day, as well as posts in the Mariupol Viber channel I follow. Things have definitely slowed down a bit, largely because of the weather (the cold, ice and snow in Ukraine make for unpleasant conditions to do anything, including fight), but also because of limits of men and materiel and the need to regroup and replan on both sides.

Additionally, as I’ve noted before I’ve (generally) got a fairly narrow focus for the things I post. I’m concerned about what happens in Ukraine as a whole because it impacts Mariupol, Viktoria’s hometown (and my hometown-in-law). There are still family and friends in Mariupol and the surrounding area, and we still do our best to stay up with what’s happening to them. Unfortunately, getting news from Mariupol is not easy. Not surprisingly, the occupation forces don’t really want to tell the world what a crap job they’ve been doing fixing and running the city. Why is that? Wasn’t Russia going to liberate Mariupol from the oppressive Nazi heel they were being ground under?

Russia has done little in the way of repair or remediation for the damage they inflicted during their four-month siege of the city. The citizens who chose to stay in the city or who were unable to leave haven’t yet seen any real improvement in their lives. The bombs and shelling may have stopped — which I suppose counts as an improvement — but they still (by and large) don’t have any of the basics of modern life, the things they had before the Russians came. Things like water, electricity, sewer service, communication with the outside world, ready supplies of the basic foodstuffs for life beyond bare subsistence.

Russia and their puppets in the DNR haven’t been able to provide any of that in any meaningful way. So naturally there’s little news coming out of Mariupol beyond the little “set pieces” the Russians create to show the home audiences.

We’ve heard little from Artem, Baba Katya and Rodion. Viktoria spoke with Katya a little around the holidays (New Years and Orthodox Christmas) but I don’t think there’s been anything since. We have been able to send Katya money, so we know they’ve been doing about as well as can be expected, but that’s still a far cry from being “OK.” We haven’t had direct content with Artem; the news we get is from when Katya goes to visit his family. Maybe things will improve a bit in the spring, when it’s a bit easier for people to get around again.

I’m sorry for not posting much of late. I never intended my blog to be a full, complete source for information about the war… though I’m sure I would have given CNN a run for their money had that been my choice. I will try to post a bit more regularly, especially as things heat up again in the Spring (literally and figuratively). There are already indications that year two of this war is not going to be any better for Mariupol (Invaders deliver about 20 tanks to villages near Mariupol (ukrinform.net)), and staying up with the family and friends still there will become more important than ever.