Day 35, Phase 2

Status Quo Dum Milito (contd)

Photo c/o ДвiЩ by David Guttenfelder

The loud explosion you heard yesterday evening was a cruise missile crashing into a 25-storey residential building in the center of Kyiv.

Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak, said on Twitter that the missile landed about just kilometers away from where Ze minutes earlier chatted up U.N. Secretary General António Guterres.

“Why does Russia have a seat on the U.N. Security Council?” he asked.

Most responses were as idiotic as Podoliak’s rhetorical question. In fact, the missle struck 4.7 kilometers from the President’s Office.

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Anderson Cooper wandering around Kyiv

I liked Anderson’s slice-of-kyiv-bomb-shelter-life piece :-)

I’ve been in a couple of basement bomb shelters, but I haven’t slept in one yet. That’s because the steel door of my apartment protects me from the kill zone. I started avoiding doorways¹ after CIA Director William Burns personally briefed Ze in Kyiv about Putin’s plans to invade from Belarus and capture Kyiv.

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A boo at Fred’s Critical Threats whatever shows Russian troops making nil invasion progress in eastern Ukraine. Deepstate UA’s map looks almost the same as it did yesterday and the day before yesterday.

Reminds me of Status Quo Dum Milito².

Map c/o Deepstate UA

I listened to the beginning of London-based practicing philosopher Vladimir Pastukhov’s hour-long chat and wondered if he is still in Italy.

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Military expert Oleh Zhdadov assesses yesterday’s cruise missile attacks on Kyiv and cities in central Ukraine, sez it marks “a new stage” of Russia’s offensive military operation in Ukraine. In other words, the beginning of the end of Phase 2. Phase 3 (counter-offensive) is scheduled to start on May 10³.

1. In other news, WAPO columnist David Ignatius informs us that U.S. and allied non-permissive environment specialists have already landed in Kyiv and are scheming with indigenous commandos at Tootsie’s Club to liberate possible future oppressed residents of the capital. Stay Out of Doorways. Tactical Athletics at Tootsie’s (January 12, 2022)

2. I find myself veering away from the usual disjointed diplomatic bushwa about the coup d’etat announced by President Volodymyr Zelensky last week and concentrating on the increasingly probable all-out Russian invasion heralded by the masters of military boosterism. Status Quo Dum Milito (December 3, 2021)

3. Russia’s defeat on the battlefield will become increasingly apparent over the next couple of weeks, leaving most of the summer for Phase 3 (mop-up military ops, de-occupation and the return of millions of refugees). Day 28, Phase 2. Buried by the Times (April 22, 2022)