When I first started posting content involving family people who weren’t me, I tended to avoid using their names. Posts from 7-8 years often refer to “my wife,” but since the only likely audience for my ramblings know me and her, there’s not much point to not say “Viktoria.” I mean, if the deep state really cared, they’d already know who I was, as well as everyone around me.

So I’ve decoded I’m just going to put people’s names in my posts, as best I can, unless there’s some reason I can’t or shouldn’t. I mean, I’m not going to be a name-dropper, mostly because I don’t know anyone whose name I would drop, but there’s no reason to go to confusing extremes to avoid names. Especially since knowing the names will help keep everyone and their relationships easier to follow.

I’ll go back and update my previous post with complete names, but here’s a rundown of people in Ukraine that Viktoria (mostly) is talking to:

• Zhenya, aka Eugene (the English version of his real name, Yevgen) – Viktoria’s son
• Katya, referred to as Katya 2 – Zhenya’s girlfriend
• Vanya – Katya 2’s son
• Nellie – Katya 2’s mother
• Rodion – Viktoria’s nephew
• Katya, referred to as Baba Katya – Rodion’s (other) grandmother
• Oksana – Baba Katya’s niece
• Artem – Zhenya’s son and Viktoria’s grandson
• Katya, referred to as Katya 1 – Zhenya’s ex-wife and Artem’s mother
• Inna – Rodion’s mother and Viktoria’s sister

Also, here’s a quick list of sites that I’ve been watching for news out of Ukraine. I’ve added notes as appropriate.

• cnn.com – they’ve had a regularly updating feed for every day of the invasion/war. Reporting seems reliable and the information is in English.
• twitter.com/RichardEngle – he has been based in Mariupol, so some of his tweets initially were pretty helpful/informative. He hasn’t had much lately, just repeats of news from elsewhere, so I’ll probably be dropping him of the list soon.
• ukrinform.net – a platform of English-language Ukrainian news. A little more focused that CNN (which tends to include more global-related stories), but often where I first see content that later appears at CNN. Reporting seems reliable, but being single-sourced, could be subject to fake news at times. (I haven’t specifically seen any, but just be wary.)
• 0629.com.ua – the city website for Mariupol. You will have to translate and they just — like yesterday — switched from Russian to Ukrainian. Mostly updates during Ukraine’s day, so things will be old when you read them. Written for the people in Mariupol, so some content won’t make sense or be too relevant on this side of the world.
• ukr.net – a Ukrainian news aggregator. Pulls in headlines from multiple sites, so quite a range of content is covered. Unfortunately, it’s all in Russian and Ukrainian, so again, you’ll have to translate. Currently, the first two sections of the main column are relevant.

And, of course, I’ve got a great news resource in Viktoria and all the people listed above. Hopefully they will all stay safe and continue to be able to relate what is happening to and around them.

(A note on translations: if you use a Chromium-based browser, such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, you will probably be offered to see the page translated automatically. The quality of the translated content will vary quite a bit, but the gist will usually come through. The translations for the Mariupol website tend to be the most difficult, since I think the writing style there is pretty informal, but it’s usually not too bad. No worse than those Chinese-to-English translations you read about sometimes.)