Day 41, Phase 2

ATN's Smart Optics Arrive , Ruska Lozova Op Begins

Don’t Fight in Another Country’s War. By Graeme Wood for The Atlantic. (April 26, 2022)

I read though Graeme’s article quickly. Yes, volunteer fighters here are loud and annoying and, at times, unhelpful and rude, but, overall, they are good eggs. I haven’t chatted up Malcom yet (I think he’s memorizing the cyrilic alphabet and doing undercover stuff in Lviv), but I’ve bumped into several un-kitted up legionnaires and offered tips on everything from procuring night vision goggles, to tipping etiquette at Tootsie’s, running routes, jujitsu holds and local ibogaine treatment centers. Graeme’s expertise on anything Ukraine is obvi not ideal, but it would be churlish for me to hold that against him. If we can forgive Sabrina and Keith, we can forgive Graeme, too¹.

The same goes for Katie, who, along with dozens of foreign journalists, filed profoundly confusing and kooky reports from Donetsk basements when Russia-occupation forces invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. Her article in appeari…