Time for another trip to Ukraine, though it will really only be a handful of days there, most of them on the move. Then a quick stop in Krakow, Poland, which should be interesting (both in the getting there and in being there).

Most importantly, it will be nice to see my wife again; she’s been over visiting the family for the past month. Skype is fine for keeping in touch, but it’s not the same as having a face-to-face conversation.

As usual, I’m getting a little nervous and concerned, mostly with the travel plans going over. There aren’t all that many ways of getting the Kiev (well, there are, but most of the flight combinations offered you really don’t want to do), and I usually take the quickest version — one long flight that gets me to Amsterdam, and then the shorter 2-hour flight into Kiev. There are two flights to Kiev, one with a short layover from the first flight (50-60 minutes, depending on time of year) and one longer one. I’ve tried the shorter layover in the past and have gotten burned — a late arrival (even slightly) and a distant connecting gate. So I opted for the longer layover, something I’d done a couple times before. Not a super fan of that, but at least you don’t miss the connection.

The problem of late, though, is that that second flight has not been departing on time. The other day it was two hours late. I was doing some calculations, and it is late to Kiev almost 70% of the time. (Just recalculated with the latest numbers — it’s now at about 50% for the 2-ish months I’ve been watching.) Since I have to catch an overnight train once I get to Kiev and it takes about 45 minutes to get from the airport to the train station — after, you know, getting through customs and all — most any arrival delay has the ability to through the schedule completely off. I really don’t want to do a Plan B.

The funny thing is that while that second flight to Kiev has been late A LOT, the big flight over to Amsterdam has been arriving early most of the time — 76% the last time I looked. Most days there’s been almost 90 minutes between arriving in Amsterdam and that first flight to Kiev. Odds-wise, it would have been better to go with the flight combination that didn’t work the last time I’d tried it. I did try to get it changed — still about 3½ weeks out from my travel dates — but it would have cost over $800 — almost 1/3 the cost of the original ticket. So keeping my fingers crossed that I luck into one of the 17% of flights that get there early. (With the latest numbers it’s still 50-50.)

And I won’t even get into the concerns about being in Ukraine itself, especially that part of Ukraine. I haven’t been posting news of late, because things don’t change that much. That’s what a frozen conflict is. But there have been some troubling reports — not all of them confirmed — that suggest things will be thawing in Eastern Ukraine, and not in a good way. Like with my flights, there’s nothing I can really do but make the best plans I can for the information that I’ve got.

By the by, today’s flight to Kiev is a half-hour late.

I didn’t watch the full interview that Putin gave to NBC recently, but certain snippets have been show on the news and online. When discussing (but not specifically denying) Russian hacking of the US election, Putin made the comment that, just maybe, patriotic Russians — totally not at the direction of the Kremlin or other leadership — decided to do coordinated hacking all by themselves.  Kind of like all those “volunteers” who woke up one morning and decided to invade Ukraine, right? You know those guys, the ones who weren’t acting on Kremlin or military authority to start a war with a neighboring country, and yet still had access to unlimited amounts of armaments, ammunition and resources? It was probably their 3-year old children doing the hacking.

We know that Putin has and continues to lie about the invasion of Ukraine. Remember, he lied about Crimea too, until he admitted doing all that stuff. Given such a track record, I’m comfortable saying he’s lying again.

As if there was any question about that.

Made it there, made it back. Probably the least enjoyable trip I’ve had, overall, in quite some time. There wasn’t anything that was truly awful, but lots of little things just made for a less than enjoyable time.

We did see and pass through some checkpoints coming and going from Mariupol. Despite V’s warnings and expectations, there were no challenges on the trains and no one ever asked to see my passport. Struggled a bit with the language, of course, but got through without too much trouble.

How disappointing a trip was it? Well, V’s not planning a return trip (at this point) until at least 2018. We were Skyping all the time she was in Ukraine, and after just a couple weeks, she was ready to come back the US.

People are still nice and friendly (as long as you don’t get into politics, I imagine), but everyone just seemed a bit depressed. The struggles of a country at war, while in the midst of trying to remake itself, makes life difficult for people, and I think it just wears a person down.

UPDATE (Feb 2017): I see that the link below isn’t working anymore. However, the port video can be found here: https://vimeo.com/85023942. Don’t know about the others; I’ll need to keep my eyes open.

Still in the process of getting things wrapped for my trip to Ukraine — V is already there — and came across this mini-site on the main news site of Mariupol. The company does drone (and other) photography and there’s a photo gallery and a couple sample videos on the page. (The video about the port is mostly advertising, but still kind of interesting.)

I’ve seen most of the places in the gallery and the first drone video. Mariupol really is a pretty city, especially by air, and I encourage people to check it out. The link is http://aerocam.0629.com.ua/.

I will be seeing a bit of Mariupol in this trip, which is kind of a change of plans from before. Initially, the plan was to visit a part of Ukraine I hadn’t seen before, staying at a spa/resort southwest of Kiev. Then things changed, and instead we’ll be going to Berdyansk, which is about 90 bus-minutes west of Mariupol. I think that V wanted us to be somewhere a little closer to family, making the possibilities of little get-togethers a bit easier.

In case you were wondering — especially since I haven’t been ranting about it recently — there is still fighting going on around and near Mariupol. One of the hotspots is only about 13 miles away from the city, and I occasionally read stories about Russian plans to seize Berdyansk and then put the squeeze on Mariupol. The overall plan for Russia is to create a land passage to the Crimean peninsula, which they militarily annexed in 2014; Mariupol is right in the middle of that land passage plan.

Whenever V is in Mariupol — where she’s now been for a month — I have been very nervous for her safety. While the city remains relatively safe, it is still right on the front lines of this war. I confess that I’m a bit nervous for my own travel there as well, but I’m hopeful that I can make it without incident, and I am definitely looking forward to seeing V again. I think it will make us both feel a little better, despite the situation in the region.

Wow, it’s nearing the end of May, and I haven’t posted anything for this year. While there are still things going on in Ukraine, I’m sorry to say that it’s a lot of repeats. Unfortunately, that means the world is paying less and less attention to the situation, because there just isn’t any “new news” there. So it would seem that Russia is winning the war of attrition when it comes to attention spans.

After a lot of discussion and planning, V and I will be going back for a visit. It still probably isn’t safe for an American to be going to Mariupol: the city itself is probably safe enough — as safe as a city can be, when there are enemy tanks 20km away — but being a “rich American” going through the numerous checkpoints is likely an invitation for some people to enrich themselves. We’ll plan to meet up with certain family members outside of Mariupol; it won’t be quite the same as my previous visits, but it will probably still be nice.

V will be going to Mariupol to get the rest of her things, which hopefully won’t result in bags and bags of luggage to fly home with. She says no, but she also talks about all the stuff that she still has and wants to bring back. I guess we’ll just see. She’s not expecting any trouble traveling to Mariupol, and I am praying that she’s right.

By way of contrast, here’s a first-person account of leaving Donetsk (the “capital city” of the region that includes Mariupol). I recall using some of the same descriptions of the bozos in power.
‘I Will Never Return To Donetsk’ — Conflict Reduces One Woman’s Life To Rubble

It’s been a while since I last wrote and I wanted to get something up before the year was over. Unfortunately it’s not a post about things getting back to normal in Ukraine. It did seem like things were improving, starting just after my previous post. In September, an agreement for a ceasefire and truce was reached and, unlike the previous ceasefires and truces that had been reached, actually seemed to be working, more or less.

That seems to be over now, with Russian attacks on the increase since late November. OSCE monitors have been repeatedly blocked when trying to verify troop and weapons withdrawls, their drones have been jammed and shot down over Russian-held territory, and on several occasions, OSCE personnel have even been threatened and shot at. Gosh, it’s almost like the Russians don’t want those international monitors seeing what they’re doing.

That’s because what they’re doing is in violation of the Minsk agreements that they say they support. However, actions speak far louder than words, and the recent takeover, mining and looting of a small village outside of Mariupol shows quite clearly that Minsk is only something they expect Ukraine to adhere to.

So, the year ends largely in the same state it started, and 2016 will probably be more of the same — and sadly, probably worse too.  It would be nice if V and I can get back there next year, but clearly there are a lot of things that we will need to consider when making our plans.

A couple one-offs that have been gathering dust:

• http://www.examiner.com/article/russian-media-admits-that-regular-russian-troops-took-debaltseve
• Similarly, Putin stated that there were troops in Ukraine during his December “state of the state” speech; it was later walked back to say that he meant those off-duty military “volunteers.” You know, the “volunteers” that show up with the tanks and rockets and stuff.  (By this point, Putin should either admit that he’s sending troops and weapons into Ukraine, or confess that he’s such a poor leader that the Russian military and/or individuals with access to military armaments just do whatever the hell they want.  Strong and criminal or feckless and incompetent — it’s one or the other.
• I’ve said time and again that nearly every culture on the planet has better claim to Crimea than the Russians do. Here’s a great illustration of that: https://dribbble.com/shots/2421607-Crimea-History
• It appears that there is factional fighting between the “warlords” in Luhansk, and the regime in Donetsk is better described as a criminal organization than a government. When the DNR gang took over, they closed just about all the groceries and markets, gave the goods and properties to their cronies, who re-opened things mere days later, often with the same staffs in place. Sounds pretty Mafia-like to me…

UPDATE 2 (08/18/2015): One of the wounded people has died, bringing the total killed in the attack to 3. And the latest report Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE has this statement: “In government-controlled Sartana (15km north-east of Mariupol), the SMM observed and carried out analysis on 11 craters, concluding that either 122 or 152mm artillery rounds – mostly fired from the east – had caused them.” That means that Russians, using weapons that were supposedly withdrawn, did the shelling.

UPDATE 1 (08/17/2015): The numbers for Sartana appear to be 2 killed, 6 wounded, and 46 (or 52) buildings damaged.

A few days ago, the Russian foreign ministry was mouthing off to anything that would listen about August being the time for American and/or NATO provocations against Russia. This, from the people who couldn’t figure out why the West would take the unprecendented move of imposing sanctions on them. Completely out of the blue! Totally unprovoked! What armed invasion of a sovereign country?

Unfortunately, the US/NATO/West/World wasn’t being provocative enough, so Russia has decided to launch multiple attacks along the contact line, including against villages in the Mariupol area. Tonight the Russians were pounding Sartana, a town about 20 km NE of Mariupol. There were civilian causalities and the cannonade was audible in Mariupol.

It is likely only a matter of time before Mariupol is under direct attack (again).

I think it’s time to stop thinking about sanctions and provocations, just deal with the problem. I noted a looooong time ago that I didn’t want to see Ukraine be the newest Afghanistan, but I think that might be unavoidable now.

A month or so ago, the Russians decided to pull their forces out of the occupied town of Shirokino, which is about 20 kilometers to the east of Mariupol. Of course they did this out of the goodness of their hearts (and not at all to consolidate the weapons and soldiers that were involved in daily attacks on the Ukrainian forces there) and called on Ukraine to do the same. After the Russians were gone, the Ukrainians pulled back too, and a little over a week ago, the OSCE essentially called Shirokino a demilitarized town. (They could have also called it a ghost town, because there was literally no one still residing there and most of the buildings had suffered some sort of damage.) The Ukrainian Army was getting ready to fully withdraw from the Shirokino area, but that didn’t sit well with the people of Mariupol. Last weekend, there was a substantial rally in Mariupol that called upon the Army to remain in Shirokino.

Today, new shelling from the area of Shirokino resumed, proving that the Russians hadn’t bothered to leave after all. Shelling was done via 122mm and 152mm guns, which had been banned from the contact line area (which includes Shirokino) by the Minsk 2 agreement.  (No point in calling it a “peace treaty” these days, now is there?) The explosions were close enough to Mariupol that they could be seen (the smoke from them) and/or heard in the center of the city.

My wife spoke with her mother today, and everyone remains fine, but they still aren’t safe. Russian is still committed to military-based instability in Ukraine, even if they don’t actually take Mariupol and create a land crossing to the floundering Crimean area they stole last year. Given that they destroyed a couple million tons of food that were sanctions-prohibited in Russia, rather than giving it to the people in Eastern Ukraine whom they have supposedly been helping with “humanitarian” assistance, kind of proves that they (a) really don’t care about the people there, other than as pawns of their games, and (b) have only military “solutions” in their playbook.

I am so thankful that my wife was able to get out of there before things started to slide off the cliff; she has just celebrated 5 months in the US.  I only wish her family, the people of Mariupol (and the rest of Ukraine) were able to live as safely in their own homes. But I doubt that will ever be the case so long as there is a Putin-dominated Russia on their doorstep.

Two things caught my eye over the past couple days.  First was the pronouncement from the Russian leadership in Ukraine that they were pulling their troops out of Shirokino and declaring the area a DMZ along the contact line.  A few hours after that statement, they started shelling Shirokino again.  Then today, I read another of Putin’s statements that there were “unequivocally” no Russian troops in Ukraine.  He was making the same “unequivocal” statements 15 months ago with regard to Crimea — just about a month before he “unequivocally” stated that there were Russian troops in Crimea.

I recall some commentator noting that Russia/Putin/the Kremlin (I don’t remember which term was used, but at this point they’re almost interchangeable) was behaving like a petulant child.  Given the above lies — saying one thing and doing another, or trying for a “fool me twice” scenario — I think the analogy is apt.