Leaks and official communiques are appearing this morning reporting that progress has been made at the latest peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Who knows?
Aside from the demolition of cities and the targeting of hospitals and schools by Russian artillery and missiles, reports of more intimate atrocities are coming out – a video that may show Ukrainian troops shooting Russian POW’s, personal testimonies of rape by Russian troops. Individuals are disappearing from Ukrainian cities and may have been kidnapped into Russia.
The longer the war goes on, the more atrocities we will see. The beasts are out.
The reporting of journalists from within Ukraine continues to be superb, the analysis of most pundits and talking heads –former generals, former diplomats, op-ed writers – less so, more pontificating than clarification, more wish fulfillments than prudent judgments.
The pictures tell stories – refugees laden with bundles, pets, children; mass graves, smashed homes, whole cities reduced to hollowed out apartment blocks, splintered trees, bodies reduced to charcoal, charred tanks.
The word of the moment is ‘grind’, as in the war appears to be evolving into a ‘grinding affair’, aka – a war of attrition, Russia seeking to grind Ukraine into submission.
The word is all hard edges and locked teeth. To grind into dust, to grind into paste, to grind one’s boot into … a face, a nation?
My eloquent friend, speaking of Putin (and others), said, “He is a man who has got to get got.” How can one disagree? A bullet in the brainpan for Vlad. Let Stalin’s axiom be applied: “Death is the solution to all problems. No man – no problem.”
The beasts are out. In me too.
