David answers your questions about Ukraine amid all this death and sadness, though there’s no need for you to bother reading the replies (if you do go there, carry with you the image two teenage orphans rescued from Nova Kakhovka who just want to play ping pong1).
David:
Roger Cohen of NYT had a very good piece over the weekend about how Moscow continues to be the capital of conspicuous consumption, with fleets of luxury cars and a dizzying array of high-end restauarants — seemingly unaffected. But my gut says there's more effect deep down.
Roger? Conspicuous consumption? Gut?
There is no good reason for someone to take the train from Ulan Ude to Belogorod. Ever. I remember doing an Anadyr, Sakha, Magadan, Vladivostok, Sakhalin, Khabarovsk trip in 1993. Lots of fun.
It’s too bad Roger didn’t make it to Chita and cities in the Far East and northern parts of Siberia. A visit to Syktyvkar in Komi or Murmansk would have been nice, maybe a two-hour helicopter ride to Chara to see the old prisoner barracks.
But back to David, fresh from the beach with a wine stain on his khaki shorts, slapping his forehead about one of Ukraine’s big problems2.
Why ask Ukraine’s military to do something Team USA wouldn’t?
Rather as one keeps tonguing a sore tooth to see if it still hurts, let’s take a boo at how the dingbats at the Kyiv Post are fellating their seven paying subscribers in this time of sorrow.
Dead white male David Debatto, a retired US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and Iraq war veteran, expresses his frustration for bleeding defence dry, but then tells us there’s no recourse except bending over to take it up the ass. Former welfare recipient Diane Francis concludes that the defeat of Russia and regime change is the final solution3. Sigh.
And on a street corner in suburban Washington, D.C. Mike Flynn is accosting passersby, pleading for someone, anyone, to listen.
David Ignatius answers your questions. (The Washington Post, August 7, 2023)
Days of Dog Star. The sky of goddess Nut (August 7, 2023)
Russia’s World War III. (Kyiv Post, August 7, 2023)