That’s not something I read; that’s what Viktoria said to me this morning. The situation in Mariupol is taking a terrible toll on her, and clearly she fears for the worst. I can’t say that I blame her or necessarily disagree. I am really concerned for her, should her fears be realized. That would definitely be hard to handle.

This should be a simple matter to address, but unfortunately there needs to be two reliable parties to any cease-fire and humanitarian corridors agreement, and it seems there’s only one such party in Mariupol. The Russians don’t appear to even be trying at this point. Today, they made the ridiculous offer of safe passage to Russia. While this might have been acceptable to a handful of people in Mariupol (there’s always a minority for any position), the proposed route was a non-starter, not in a small part because it went through “hot” parts of the conflict zone. (CNN) [Edit – Sorry, I want to point out that it’s not completely clear that a Mariupol evacuation would have been to Russia.]

Additionally, ICRC members leaving Mariupol yesterday on the previously agreed upon humanitarian corridor — the one that couldn’t be used for a second day because of Russian shelling after agreeing to a cease-fire — discovered that the route was mined. It staggers the mind that people could be this duplicitous and evil.

I know that it’s very common to cast an enemy as non-human; if something is not “one of us,” it’s emotionally easier to destroy. I’m seeing this more and more in the news articles and opinion pieces on the Mariupol city website. I’m not in favor of such dehumanizing language because it’s a slippery slope. But how do you reason with the unreasonable? How can you appeal to a person’s morality when they appear to have none?

It’s easy to understand where Viktoria is coming from, and I don’t expect that I’ll every fully buy into her Slavic fatalism. But it would seem that the odds are against the people of Mariupol.