Family non-update

Ukraine 2022

As I’ve noted in a couple other places in the past, there really haven’t been any significant changes to the status of family and friends. I doubt there will be much changing until the war is largely over, especially in the places we’ve been watching the most — Mariupol, Volnovakha, Kherson and other areas with people we know or have visited. But there’s been little changes here and there, so I might as well get everyone caught up.

Katya 2 & Vanya – Well, unfortunately, these two aren’t really in our orbit anymore, owing to the fact that Katya and Zhenya have broken up. They’d actually broken up a little while before the invasion in February, but seemed to have a reconciliation just before everything started. However, it seems the changes brought about by the war just wasn’t conducive to keeping them together; I’m sure the distances and stresses of war played a big role. Although we had been helping Katya & Vanya with their application (and approval) for the Canadian Ukrainian refugee program, it seems Katya really came to like living in Vienna (or at least, hasn’t felt like leaving Europe). So it appears that she won’t be going to Canada (I think her approval may have expired at this point). Since one of Viktoria’s oldest friends lives in Vienna (and had been helping Katya and others when they arrived in the city), we might still get news about how they’re doing, but I think this might be the last update for a while.

Baba Katya & Rodion – Still in the same place outside Mariupol, and while things are difficult, they seem to be getting by. Katya works weekends in the local bazaar/flea market and gets a bit of money that way. Rodion is in school, which had been virtual for the first month or so, but I guess enough repairs have been done to the local school for kids to attend in-person. And that’s about it, which is perhaps the best that can be hoped for. We did find out that we can transfer money to Katya, so we can help them out for a while longer. (Who knows what the winter months will bring?)

Artem & Katya 1 – We haven’t really heard anything more from this branch of the family. Artem had a birthday recently and we were able to send him some money (via Baba Katya). When she went over to their house to deliver it, he wasn’t in. But according to his mother, he and they are doing OK. School, of course. Hopefully he’s keeping his head down; he’s 14 now and tall-ish, which might make him look older. With the war going badly for Russia and mobilization being forced on the occupied area (and basically everywhere in Russia that isn’t Moscow or St. Petersburg), it’s not hard to imagine Artem getting press-ganged. Rather than end of that sour note, I will mention that now that Baba Katya and Katya 1 have connected (really, they aren’t that far from one another), hopefully we’ll get better and more regular information about how things are going.

That’s all for the moment. Events in Ukraine have been changing at a furious pace — generally in Ukraine’s favor — and I’ve probably collected enough snippets for another “catching up” post, which I’ll try to get to soon.

Riiiiight…..

Ukraine 2022

To utterly no one’s surprise, Russia is claiming overwhelming support for the referendums they held in those parts of Ukraine occupied by their armed forces (Ukraine war: Russia claims win in occupied Ukraine ‘sham’ referendums – BBC). 97 and 98 percent support! Because that’s how popular the idea of subjugation by Russia really is.

Of course, saying that there were “irregularities” in the voting is the nicest way of putting it. Voting at gunpoint is decidedly more accurate (Ukraine ‘referendums’: Soldiers go door-to-door for votes in polls – BBC). Although people were theoretically free to vote however they felt like, the truth is that if someone comes pounding on your door, accompanied by armed soldiers (and, reportedly, threaten you with conscription if you don’t vote the “right” way), there’s absolutely no way it will be a honest depiction of a person’s or groups attitudes.

The actual numbers will never be known and are utterly meaningless anyway. Russia is just making up whatever numbers they want, because who is there to offer a contrary, factual counter? They’ve got all the ballots — who cares if they’re blank? You can always fill them in later.

There’s a saying (typically in business, in my experience) that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. It’s a way to justify action without the tedium of going through a committee, especially when action is needed quickly. That’s kind of what I see happening here. Though there was no “need” for Russia to invade Ukraine and loot everything, under the purported guise of “protecting” a Russian-speaking populace. Now they’re just trying to throw a veneer of legitimacy on their actions by “proving” that this is what the people wanted.

I find it beyond belief that the people of Mariupol would have provided any sort of “justification” for the Russian army destroying 90% of their city, driving off or killing 80% of the population, and failing for months to provide basic human needs. I’m sure that 98% of a subjugated population could be forced to “vote” against their best interests. But there’s nothing legitimate about it.

And now, because the outcomes were predetermined, it’s time to put all those willing/forced people to work supporting the very army that took everything from them. They voted to be part of Russia, right? This is what happens:

And just so they won’t have those images going international of thousands of people trying to flee Putin’s grand plan of “only” mobilizing 300,000 “reservists,” it’s best to just shut down the city.

If people from Mariupol do end up in the Russian Army, they can do what the “volunteer” prisoners from Russia are doing: surrender to the first Ukrainians they encounter, because the conditions in Ukraine — even as a POW — are better than in Russia. For the conscripted Mariupol citizens, it may be the way of escape from the hell of the past eight months.

Meanwhile, a reminder of what it means to “fight” in the Russian army:

A church school, an outbuilding and a shop were on fire. There were no military facilities there. Five people are hospitalized, – the deputy head of the President’s Office of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko reports.

A “mighty army,” so long as it doesn’t actually face any soldiers or real combat.

200 Days

Ukraine 2022

Actually, it’s been a little more than 200 days now, but still, 6 months of fighting (on top of the previous 8 years of a “frozen” conflict). Oddly, to my mind, “6 months” sounds longer than “200 days,” but it doesn’t matter. It’s still a long time, and there’s been a lot of suffering, damage and death during that time.

You’ve probably heard by now, though, that six months proved to be about as patient as Ukraine was going to be, and they started a so-far very successful counter-attack: President: AFU have liberated more than 1,000 sq km of Ukraine’s territory since beginning of September (ukrinform.net), Ukrainian forces have retaken more than 3,000 sq km since early Sep – army chief (ukrinform.net), Ukraine’s Armed Forces liberate over 300 settlements in Kharkiv region (ukrinform.net). Russian forces have more or less abandoned all the territory they’d been squatting on in the Kharkiv oblast (region or county), in the northeast corner of Ukraine.

They were able to get the upper hand because of some rather good strategy and planning. For weeks they’d be talking up a planned counter-offensive in the Kherson area (south-central Ukraine, just north of the Crimean peninsula), and using some highly accurate rocket attacks (HIMARS) to “prove” their intent. Because of this the Russians pulled forces out of the northeast area and sent them south in anticipation of a pending Ukrainian attack. But Kherson was mostly for show. I saw mostly because even though the big gains were up north, there were some advances and improvements in the Ukrainian position down south as well.

All in all, Ukraine has been doing a masterful job these past few weeks — which should have Russia really worried. And it does, apparently (Invaders urgently evacuating families from Crimea and southern Ukraine — intelligence (ukrinform.net)), but that’s not what I mean. Russia has over the past months (and years) done a lot of sabre-rattling about how, if they wanted, they could both take on and take down NATO. A lot of the propaganda surrounding the war on Russian media has stated that events in Ukraine are a proxy war of them against NATO (with Russia being superior and victorious in every way, of course). But Russia just got hammered by Ukrainian troops with less than six months of NATO-led training. These forces are essentially “NATO-Lite” and Russia had to back down and run away when they (the Ukrainians) took the field. If this is how they do against “NATO-Lite,” they would be utterly decimated in a full-blown NATO conflict.

(I’m not saying that could or should happen, of course. None of the past six months has been good for anyone. But it really seems like Russia wouldn’t stand a chance if they when up against “real” NATO forces, militaries that have spent years training together and aren’t having to rely on donor nations to give them some upgraded weaponry.)

One last comment about the rout from Kharkiv: on their way out of the region, Russia continued rocket attacks and shelling of assorted locations, and one such bombardment took out the electricity for the city of Kharkiv and much of the oblast (Kharkiv region left without electricity due to enemy shelling (ukrinform.net)). It seemed to be a fairly targeted strike on the power plant, which means that Russia has the coordinates of such critical infrastructure and the ability to accurately target those locations. Which puts something of a light on the places they’ve been hitting before now — schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and other civilian structures. While some such places could collateral damage during the confusion of war, it really looks more like those were the targets all along. Which pretty much makes everything that Russia has done this year a massive collection of war crimes.

(Oh, and speaking of which, as locations in the Kharkiv oblast get liberated, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Bucha, Irpin and other locations that were in the news because of the torturing, executions and mass graves done and found in those locations were not anomalies. They were part and parcel of Russian occupation practices. A massive collection of war crimes indeed.)

Catching up, part 2

Ukraine 2022

Continuing with the assorted postings I’ve collected over the past month-ish…

August 17 – I’d mentioned the program proposed by the occupiers to appropriate cars from people unless they [a] still happened to be in the city, and [b] were willing to jump through assorted hoops to try to keep their property. Said proposal is now the law, because you can’t have a functioning kleptocracy without the stealing. See post.

There are still about 100,000 people living in Mariupol, excluding Russian soldiers and other occupiers. These Ukrainians were either unable or unwilling to get out of the city during the seige, and now they are just trying to survive on the meager help and ineffective rebuilding from the Russians. As bad as things are now, it’s only going to get worse when the fall and winter weather starts to arrive. See post. Watch video. (To help visualize 100k citizens, that’s about the same population as Green Bay, WI; Erie, PA; South Bend, IN; or Burbank, CA, per 2020 estimates.)

It should be no news that Russia and its proxies have had significant troop loses, and it’s basically gotten to the point where any warm male body found on the street will be “volunteered” into serving. Here’s video of a father from the Luhansk (Ukraine) region being “drafted” when he went to pick up his kid from kindergarten. From other reading I’ve done, it appears that this sort of scene is not completely uncommon, especially in the occupied areas of Ukraine. See post. Watch video.

August 18 – After Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, I swore that I wouldn’t visit the area or buy Crimean products until it was back in Ukrainian hands. So the stories that had/have been coming out of the area are of some interest to me. Nice to know that Russia’s in a panic about the possibility of losing their illegal toy. See post.

August 20 – This one annoys me. The rampant stealing by the Russians is just utterly barbaric and backward, but I find looting a museum to be particularly galling. (I felt the same way about the looting of the Baghdad museum during the Gulf wars.) Of course, if part of the purpose of your war is to completely erase the culture of a people from history, getting rid of their museums is probably part of the plan. See post. Watch video.

August 21 – Apparently the Russians felt they were being way to generous with a pitiful humanitarian food box they were handing out (see my previous post). Now they’ll only be “helping” people that they can’t possibly squeeze anything from. See post.

August 25 – No one who isn’t under the sway of Russian propaganda believes that the “referenda” votes they hold have any legitimacy. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “In the temporarily occupied Mariupol, the majority of citizens are not going to participate in the so-called ‘referendum’ – GUR.
* Local collaborators are conducting a population census in all districts of occupied Mariupol to establish the real number of people who remained in the city.
* They admit that the majority of the surveyed population in Mariupol refuses to participate in a possible ‘referendum’ or does not directly answer the question. Only 5-7% of the respondents clearly expressed their willingness to come to the ‘polling stations’ and ‘vote.’ The people of Mariupol are bitter towards both the Russian Federation and representatives of the occupation administrations.
* The decision regarding the ‘referendum’ itself and the date of its holding in the Kremlin has not been finalized. It is unlikely that it will really take place, as announced, on September 11.“)

As noted with my other infrastructure comments, there’s just no water. Even if they had water, I suspect that the occupying forces wouldn’t be bothering too much about putting out fires in the city anyway. See post. Watch video.

August 27 – As I’ve noted multiple times, Mariupol looks destroyed and abandoned, but that’s not the case. Some buildings might be burned out or near collapse, but may still be homes for some of the citizens who remain. See post. Watch video. (The text from Google Translate: “Mariupol. And these houses are not abandoned, whole families live there. The were ‘liberated’ from civilization, comfort and basic things necessary for survival.“)

August 31 – The Mariupol theater (opera house) remains the most visible reminder of Russian war crimes and atrocities. I’ve noted elsewhere how they’re working hard paper over what happened. Or rather “concrete over,” it would seem. See post.

September 1 – I like this picture a lot, and I think I’m going to try to find or make a print of it. I’ve probably got a picture of the buildings somewhere (pre-war), but these were two iconic buildings (you couldn’t miss them because of the spires) that were across the street from the Mariupol theater. I walked by them many times during my visits there, and I would imagine that these buildings will probably get fully restored when Mariupol is rebuilt. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “‘Hometown is waiting for you.’ Mariupol houses with spires by the artist Volodymyr Sumarokov.“)

No surprise that the occupiers are finishing with knocking down buildings. First bombs, now backhoes. What makes this post particularly interesting is that it’s just down the road from the apartment Viktoria owned, back when she first moved out of the family house, got married and had her son. So, kind of sentimental (even if the place itself was less than idea). She sold it several years ago, but still considers the area “her” part of Mariupol. See post. Watch video.

Happy to say, that’s everything that I had saved up. And got it all up before the long weekend even really started. Fortunately, with no more travel for the foreseeable future and the weather starting to cool down a bit, I think I’ll probably be able to stay up on stuff. Fingers crossed.

Catching up

Ukraine 2022

Sorry for the lack of updates. After getting away for a few days (something that Viktoria really needed), we both had post-vacation summer colds. Despite all that, I was keeping track of things while we were away and/or sick, so I’m just going to dump a lot of those little notes here. Lots of these things are posts from the Viber channel I follow, so things aren’t really well-sourced. There probably are news posts at the regular places, but if I’m going to have any chance of getting caught up, I’m just going to have to forego that cross-matching. I’ll add comments and context, but you may need to take some of these with a grain on salt.

From mid-July, Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin made a statement that Russian troops had hit civilian targets in Ukraine 17,300 times, compared to only about 300 strikes on military targets. This largely comports with the apparent strategies the Russian have used in Ukraine, and previously in Chechnya and Syria. Basically, it seems that if Russia hits a military target, it’s more by accident than by design.

July 16 – At least 689 missiles had been fired from Belarus since the beginning of the invasion. They may not have sent their army into Ukraine, but they are definitely aiding Russia in its efforts. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “How are missile attacks on Ukraine from the territory of Belarus. At least 689 missiles have been fired from there since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is how Belarus silently fights against us, peaceful Ukrainians.”)

July 24 – The bombing of the Mariupol theater remains a sore point for Russian “we did it all to save the people” talking points. They’ve always — and I mean since 2014 always — done projection of their actions onto their enemy, and it looks like this event will be no different. Their own “investigative report” is going to show that the Ukrainian army did it all, even finding witnesses to say that uniformed men were moving boxes into the theater before it was destroyed (the implication being that the Ukrainian army planted explosives). See post.

July 25 – Book burning/banning/destruction is part of the Russian playbook. Since one of their stated goals for the war is, essentially, the removal of the entire concept of Ukraine, they’ve ordered one school district under their control to destroy any book — regardless of content — that was published in or by Ukraine since 1991. See post.

August 5 – I’ve posted before about the issues and ineptitude that the occupying forces have displayed in attempting to get Mariupol utilities operating again. Without the basics — like clean, running water — infectious disease can spread easily. That appears to be the case in Mariupol, where the death rate is running five times greater than pre-war numbers. See post. People gather what water they can, such as from puddles, but that’s unhealthy and unsustainable. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “Despite the statement of the occupiers, problems with water supply continue in Mariupol. The water supplied to the houses is regularly turned off. Residents of the city wrote to us about this.”) Some water gets trucked in, but it’s not nearly enough for the remaining population, and it goes quickly, if you’re lucky enough to get it after standing for hours in line. See post.

But, hey, at least the Russians can keep you entertained. If there’s no bread, there can at least be a circus. They have previously driven mobile video screens around town, so that people (who don’t have electricity) can want Russian TV news reports. (I’m sure it’s gratifying to them to see how much better their lives are now, according to the Kremlin.) This time, though, they brought in some band to play in front of the destroyed theater… because those optics are just great. See post.

August 6 – These sorts of before-and-after pictures really tell the story. A beautiful city remains a pile of rubble. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “The occupying authorities stated that Mariupol will be an exemplary project where the Russian authorities will clearly demonstrate to the former Ukrainians what a strong state that works effectively is. That feeling when Mariupol was one of the most developed cities in Ukraine before the war and the arrival of the invaders.“)

August 7 – A main feature of the occupation has been the Russians and their DPR cronies to remove (steal) anything of value. This has included those few buses and electric tolleys that somehow survived the bombardments. But since even battled-damaged buses from Mariupol are better than what’s been operating for the last 8 years in Donetsk, those get pilfered and Mariupol is left barely operational dregs. See post.

August 9 – More of what I was just saying. Husks of cars (see post, watch video), and even an irrigation system gets stolen (see post, watch video).

August 10 – Still no electricity for people. Since the beginning of March. Well, unless you’re one of the occupiers living or working there. Then it’s not an issue. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “The residents of Mariupol still do not receive electricity to the homes. Despite the loud statement of the occupiers that the city is illuminated, residents write that the occupiers provide electricity to the institutions, but no to residential buildings.“)

August 11 – A lot of stuff for this date; sometimes that’s just how the channels work. First up, a look at just how depraved the occupying forces are. Your city’s been destroyed, there are soldiers everywhere demeaning you and your family, there’s been no water or electricity for nearly six months, and if you decide to go have a sit-down in what’s left of a part on what’s left of a bench, you have to worry about it being rigged with a hand grenade that will go off when you sit down. Welcome to the Russian World! See post. (The text from Google Translate: “In Mariupol, the occupiers placed mines even on children’s playgrounds. Now residents are finding them. Until now, most of the city’s yards and houses have not been surveyed and demined. Therefore, we urge residents of Mariupol to carefully move around the city.“)

If you happen to need humanitarian aid because there’s also little or no food in the city, here’s what you can expect to live on for a month: a small loaf of bread, a liter of oil, some flour, some pasta, and a few cans of meat. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “Humanitarian aid in Mariupol per month consists of: Pasta – 4 packs; Oil – 1 piece; Canned food – 8 cans; Bread – 1 piece; Flour – 1 package; Condensed milk – 2 cans“)

Something I’ve been struck by is how “abandoned” much of Mariupol looks. There are, of course, inhabited parts of the city, but there are also places where vegetation has overgrown whatever is still standing, making it look like some place that been abandoned for decades. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “Mariupol. Once well-kept and orderly areas are turning into abandoned places. No one cleans up. Quarters are overgrown with weeds. Ragweed grows everywhere, which causes dangerous allergies. No one cares about the city or the health of Mariupol residents.“)

As with the bench, above, little deadly gifts from the Russians can be found throughout the city. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “Such ‘gifts’ are left by the occupiers to the people of Mariupol. A grenade is tied directly to the door. Residents of Mariupol continue to find explosive objects throughout the city. This is how the occupiers ‘responsibly’ treat demining. The lives of the people of Mariupol are worthless to them. We urge residents to be careful!“) An English version of the post appeared in a different channel.

And the Azov soldiers that defended Mariupol continue to be the bugaboos of Russian propaganda. The Russians need to make themselves feel better by making cosplay videos. See post.

The effectiveness of the Ukrainian forces and resistance is shown by the fact that Russia has resorted to using old USSR death certificates. Given that they obfuscate and deny the number of soldier deaths, I’m surprised they didn’t just wait until they could print up more of the current form. Apparently that wasn’t an option. See post.

And lastly, Russian corruption is top to bottom. There have been stories about that with regard to their military, but it affects their occupation efforts as well. “Skimming a little off the top” is just the standard way that things are done. See post.

August 12 – The Russians probably will not be able to (not that they really want to) restore basic utilities to Mariupol. I recognize the logic of targeting those infrastructure elements during their invasion, but they clearly had no plans for what comes after. Were they thinking they wouldn’t win, so they didn’t have to plan for occupation? I kind of doubt it. They took over Donetsk (the big city of the area) eight years ago, and much of the damage from that part of the conflict has still not been repaired. They utterly destroyed 50% of Mariupol, and yet all their propaganda was saying it would be built back better than before. Total BS; pablum for the Russian people. See post. (The text from Google Translate: “There will be no high-quality drinking water and full electricity supply in Mariupol. 90% of the infrastructure was destroyed by the occupiers. The Russians destroyed the key sources of water supply from Siverskyi Donets. It is impossible to restore it. They take water from the Old Crimea Reservoir. But there is technical water and its volume will be enough only for 9 months. Mayor Vadym Boychenko reports. The occupiers supply electricity (380V), instead of 220. The causes fire in the damaged houses.“)

And, of course, they’re cowards. The minute things start blowing up — whether from the army attacking or from partisan and/or covert groups operating in occupied areas — the “leadership” packs up and gets out. The only reason the so-called “mayor” appointed by the Russians is sticking around is because [a] he’s not “really” Russian since he’s only an ethnic Russian from Donetsk, and [b] they doubled his security force to give the illusion of safety. See post.

August 13 – I know there’s still some basic public transportation in Mariupol, but there’s not much — see the posts above. But people have to get around, if the can. This post just really struck me with how little of that public transit infrastructure is left. See post.

I’ve been working on this post for a bit, and I think I’ve just a little over half-way through all the content I’ve collected. I’ll put the rest into a second “catching up” post, which hopefully I can get finished before the long weekend is over. (But given how long this much has taken, I’m not completely hopeful at the moment…)

Family update & other

Ukraine 2022

I had been working on this earlier, but between the heat, bad news about Inna, and some upcoming travel, I’m not going to have time to get the rest of the content I’d wanted to include added anytime soon. I’ll just point out that Mariupol remains bad under the Russians; there’s still no running water — at least not in the remaining houses (plenty of running water down the streets when they try to turn things on); electricity is spotty at best; they are discontinuing free foot and water, and starting to require people to “earn” by clearing rubble and dead bodies; and there are long lines of people trying to get permits to leave the city. Can’t really blame them. And of course the theft of anything of value continues unabated — metal, wheat and agricultural products, really anything that’s even slightly better than what people in Donetsk have subsisted on for the past 8 years. Also, there may not be a “Mariupol” for much longer, because the Russians want to rename the city to Zhdanov, the name it had when Ukraine was part of the USSR. Because everything was better in Soviet times…

An example of what I mean: Ruins, bonfires in streets, unsanitary conditions: How Mariupol struggling to live under occupation (ukrinform.net)

Anyway, here’s what I had gotten written. I’ll have an another update once I’m able to sit at my computer for a couple uninterrupted hours.

While I care about what’s happening in Ukraine as a whole, most of my posts are about Mariupol and the people we know there. This is part of the reason why there hasn’t been a lot to post of late. It’s not that things aren’t happening there, it’s just that things have found a measure of stability. Not good stability, just stability. And things will likely remain that way until the Ukrainian army retakes the city.

Family/friends updates: There really aren’t any.

  • Katya 2 and Vanya are cleared to go to Canada, but they might be choosing to stay in Vienna. They’ve been there for over three months, know people and have kind of been settling in, so the prospect of uprooting themselves again and going where they have none of that might not be all that appealing at the moment. Ball’s in their court.
  • Baba Katya and Rodion remain just outside of Mariupol and it sounds like they’re doing OK. Rodion had a birthday recently and thanks to the daughter of the friend they’re staying with, we were able to send some money for his birthday. (And some cash to help them start stockpiling for the winter.) While there isn’t phone service where they are, they do have internet service, and that lets V and Katya talk on a semi-regular basis.
  • Still no direct communication with Artem or his family. However, V hopes that Baba Katya will be able to locate them and establish some type of regular contact. At last report, they’re still in the northern part of Mariupol, but that’s definitely stale information.
  • (Note: I did have a paragraph here about how we still had no information about Inna. I’ve removed it in light of what we learned earlier this week.)

Bad news

Ukraine 2022

I had been working on a different post, but now that will have to wait a bit, and unfortunately, some of the information in it has now changed. Sadly, we got word today that V’s sister Inna was killed during the shelling of Mariupol. Apparently, this happened at the end of March, but given the “fog of war,” the information wasn’t known until recently.

No good reason

Ukraine 2022

I don’t claim to be a particularly religious person, but I try to have a healthy respect for any religious institutions or people that truly seem to serve a greater good. That’s part of the reason that I’ve found the shelling of religious buildings during the war particularly egregious. The multiple rocket GRAD (“Hail”) systems are wildly imprecise, so using them in populated areas is a war crime; by their nature, they’ll hit far too many non-military targets.

What if a place, the size of a small town, whose sole purpose was a religious institution got shelled? Not a military target, no military equipment in or around it, ever. That’s what happened more than once to the Lavra at Svyatogorsk, a monastery complex in the Donbas region. It’s a vacation/pilgrimage spot that Viktoria’s been to, and somewhere she wanted us to go during one of our future visits to Ukraine. By all accounts and pictures, a beautiful place devoted to peace.

The Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Lavra, a major Orthodox Christian monastery near the town of Svyatogorsk in Donetsk in December.Credit…Andriy Andriyenko/Associated Press

Bombed, shelled, set on fire. More than once. The brothers and sisters who lived and worked there, injured and thankfully evacuated. Here’s what it looks like now:

Another example of Russia “saving” Ukraine.

Looting Mariupol

Ukraine 2022

One of the features of this war from the beginning has been the looting. I suppose that happens in all wars — the “sacking of Rome” and whatnot — but to see it in near real-time and while fighting is still going on has been particularly galling. When Russian soldiers retreated from the northern parts of Ukraine, they took whatever they could carry — jewelry, food, household goods and appliances — even toilets and women’s clothing. Shortly thereafter, images and videos began appearing of Russians sending their loot back home via courier services in Belarus and elsewhere: New footage shows Russian troops sending stolen Ukrainian items home through Belarus – Meduza, and Russian Soldiers Send Home 58 Tons of Looted Items from Ukraine — Investigation – The Moscow Times.

Although the Russians essentially reduced Mariupol to rubble before they took command of what was left, they’ve managed to add insult to injury by continuing to steal whatever was still of some value and wasn’t nailed down — although they’ve even “un-nailed” some stuff.

(In one of my previous trips to Mariupol, I’d noted and taken pictures of some of the neat pavers that were everywhere in the city. It was just how the sidewalks were made in some places. Here’s a sample from before the war, and even before the big city renaissance of the previous two years. That’s what the Russians are stealing.)

Stone 1
Just walking around the city, you’ll often find yourself on some nice stone sidewalks. And we’re talking some nice stonework (which is a nice break from the far more common asphalt). I had noticed this last year and started to take some photos of the different stone patters, and it had been my plan to continue it this year, but I often forgot. Still, I did get a few shots, such as this rather intricate, two-tone pattern that features signs of the zodiac.

And what do the Russians give the people of Mariupol for all the stuff that’s been stolen…? Russian “humanitarian aid” to Mariupol: moldy stale bread, shovels – Ukrinform

A sign?

Ukraine 2022

Regardless of where they are, most people in Viktoria’s life have been accounted for. The one glaring exception is her sister Inna. She has been MIA for quite a while. She wasn’t in any one place during the siege, and in the immediate aftermath, there wasn’t any information or leads on where she might have been and what might have happened. Apart from a single entry in a DPR humanitarian aid system (which, as I noted at the time, wasn’t necessarily a reliable or accurate source of information), there had been nothing.

Now, well, maybe there’s something. Inna’s cell phone has been off the grid for a while, but late last week, her account showed as online in the Viber messaging app. For this to happen, it would mean that the cell phone had been charged and was working, and that it was in a place with either wi-fi or a cell tower. (The latter would also require a SIM card for the telecom network in operation in the area.)

What does this signal about Inna? We don’t know. Although the cell phone is working — technically the Viber on the cell phone — and sent the ping, there’s been no follow up. Messages and attempts to call have not produced any results. It could have a been a brief, one-time thing. The phone might have had wi-fi for a moment, but has since been in a place with only cell service and a non-functional SIM card. (People in Mariupol previously had three or four cell networks to choose from. Those all stopped working during the siege, and the occupying forces set up a different, incompatible cell network when they arrived.)

I keep say “the cell phone” because that’s really all we know. Without any messages or phone calls being answered, we don’t know that Inna still has the phone, or if someone else found and accessed it. There’s still no information one way or another about Inna’s situation. There’s been a sign, but we don’t know what that means. The wait continues.