Update

I felt better today.
Karen tested negative again today. Five days from our driving together, both wearing masks in the car, I think she’s in the clear. 
I learned today that I gave her mom Covid and her mom is not ok. I stayed alone in one room when I was there after coming back from South Africa. Covid can hang in the air for hours. My best guess is that after I left she went in the room to tidy/clean. 

Last winter Ukraine withstood the attacks on its electrical infrastructure really well. Now Russia has been bombarding more severely and the damage has been severe. Ukraine is negotiating with the EU to maximize electricity imports to compensate. 

I don’t know how I missed this but in addition to the scandal in Russia about naked parties in December, there was another one in late Feb. The Central Military District Officers' House in Yekaterinburg hosts funerals and apparently BDSM parties. It is standard for them to videotape and post them on private social media channels. The deputy head of the House of Officers had to resign.


The Wall Street Journal has an article on Ukrainian children getting back to Ukraine. Valaria is 17 years old and she walked herself across the border. This was very confusing to the border guards. She said her grandmother was ill in Ukraine and she was going to get her and bring her back to Russia. She had removed everything incriminating from her cell phone and the guards didn’t do a deep scan. Valaria was 13 when her mom died. Her grandparents sent her to a camp and then the Russians invaded. Now she is in medical school. 


Rostyslav Lavrov is also 17. His mom was put in a hospital for mental illness and his grandmother died. He was also in a camp when Russia invaded. His best friend’s mom came for his best friend and tried to get him too but Russia refused to let him go because she wasn’t his mother. This was a big problem because he was approaching the age where Russia could conscript him and send him to the front. He received a message on his cellphone from a Save Ukraine representative with a date. "On this beautiful day, you will run away," the message read. He did. He took a cab, he met someone who gave him a new birth certificate and helped him get out of Russia. 

Ukraine says that Russia lost 42 artillery systems, 27 armored personnel vehicles, and 13 tanks in the past day.