Wednesday, April 06, 2022

Today's News: Preparing for the next battle

In some photos from Vice, I was particularly struck by this one, where a religious icon has been set up next to a Molotov cocktail, at a checkpoint near Kyiv.
Now that Russia has withdrawn from northern Ukraine, I think troops on both sides are feverishly moving to the east and to the south. These transfers may take days or weeks -- tweets I read today talked about distances of hundreds of miles, which are lengthy journeys for armoured equipment and tanks. 



But Putin badly needs a victory somewhere, so the impression I got from reading tweets and news stories today was that he might be throwing everything at Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region now - in particular, trying to capture the cities of Izium and Sloviansk, according to the New York Times.

In other news: Mark Sumner's Daily Kos story here discusses this possible development: Meanwhile, in Kherson... And more news here: Some interesting "long form" journalism today that is worth reading: 
First, here's an amazing video article by the Washington Post shows photos of what Ukrainian cities looked like before the war started, and what they look like now. Its stunning, and sickening. 
 And here's The Line writing about the war crimes being committed in Ukraine now and whether anything can be done to stop them: 
...How many "Never Agains" must we all endure before it becomes blindingly, incontrovertibly obvious that of course, of course, these were just words? 
How many genocides and civil wars and refugee crises and ethnic cleansings must we write about before we come to terms with the fact that the "responsibility to protect" doctrine lies in ashes in the dirt of our shared values? 
The West will choose to intervene — or not — based on its real or perceived interests. The rest is public relations. 
Right now, the West's interest in avoiding a nuclear exchange far outweighs whatever values it claimed to possess in the wake of the Holocaust. To quote journalist Neil Hauer: "the West will fight Russia. To the last drop of Ukrainian blood." 
 We don't like it. But nor will we pretend to be surprised by it.
Now that's a cheery observation, isn't it?
And Mark Milley is predicting a long war: Finally, it is Ramadan and I thought this was moving, and beautiful: Such joy here: This thread is beautiful:
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