Year 49
This weekend I went to a barbecue out of town and bumped into two girls, one wearing pink pajamas. They were celebrating the 49th birthday of Oleksiy, who was home on leave from the front for the first time in a year.
Oleksiy and I go back decades, at least to the throwing-fences stage of Ukraine’s post-Independence statehood. We attended the same riot in March 2001.
But that’s another story.
Non-stop partying has not kept me from glancing at news reports, which portray Ukraine’s counteroffensive frequently as a turning point in the nine-year war.
I’m not sure of the trying to show part. Ukraine is not trying to do anything. Liberating Russia-occupied areas — period. No one knows how long it will take. Maybe years, decades. This work is unpleasant, dangerous and dirty.
I focus on this part of the front, because I have friends fighting there. Probably 90% of the Ukrainians also have family or friends fighting somewhere along the 700-kilometer long front line.