Treba

I do like this deer. I saw her yesterday too. She's distinguishable because she has big white circles around both eyes. 

I had fun talking about Iceland and the aurora borealis again today including when it was visible to the naked eye, green and purple. He asked if you could see it move to the naked eye and the answer is yes. Karen said I need to stop talking about Iceland or it will be too crowded and too expensive the next time I go. 

There have been some huge fires in Moscow. There is a square with three train stations. A fire broke out in a warehouse in the square. Supposedly an explosion caused the fire. 

The next advance Ukraine makes may be difficult but they may take the same tactic they did with Kherson - a war of attrition where they cut off supply lines. Being in Kherson allows them to target Russian supply lines to Crimea. The damage to the Kerch Bridge was a good start. Now supplies must be delivered slowly by ship or a single rail line and that rail line is possibly in range of Kyiv's military. They retook Kherson after besieging it for two months with precision artillery. Intelligence and social media reports have Russian troops still disorganized and demoralized. It also, of course, allowed them to save the people that Russia was abusing. 

In Russia, commentators are confused and can't figure out why Ukrainians aren't revolting against Zelensky. Instead, this guy in a t-shirt is doing really well in the polls. 

An economist, Timothy Ash, said that if the war in Ukraine reduces Russia's threat to the US, then we are getting massive value for money. "The assistance represents 5.6 percent of total US defense spending. But Russia is a primary adversary of the US, a top tier rival ...In cold, geopolitical terms, this war provides a prime opportunity for the US to erode and degrade Russia's conventional defense capability, with no boots on the ground and little risk to US lives." (I never thought of it in this way, only in the sense that if Russia won then no country was safe again.)

Ash also says that it will bankrupt Russia and will be a bargain if it ultimately brings positive regime change in Russia. 

In Ukraine parents who cannot physically or financially care for their children can temporarily turn them over to the the state. There was a story of teachers saving kids from being kidnapped by Russians. Treba means, "you must do it." A headmaster and a teacher at an orphanage arranged to get as many kids with relatives as they could and then had three kids left. The teacher decided to hide them in her house in Kherson city. Her apartment was across the street from a building where Russians lived so they could never mention the orphanage, had to try not to talk to strangers, and if asked, say she was their aunt. 

When the Russians invaded, they brought a group of other children from Mykolaiv as well as their headmistress and her husband. They told them they were bringing them away from the front line. When they retreated from Kherson they took this group with them, but the group found a way to escape to Georgia. 

The first Ukrainian passenger train has come to Kherson in over eight months. Passengers were greeted with flowers and flags. The train was brightly painted by various artists. The departure included a performance by a rock singer with passengers, including soldiers, singing along. Tickets to Kherson went on sale weeks before Kherson was liberated as part of a fundraising initiative. Mariupol, still held by Russians, is another destination.