Caught in the crossfire
Thinking of all those whose fates are now being determined by a dictator at play
I took this photo in early February in a pop-up mall next to a Metro station at the end of the line in Kyiv. The ladies had made and decorated these cookies themselves. I bought a few for my daughters. I told them to keep the change, it was less than €1, but they were insistent on giving me another cookie instead. I thought of all the people all over Ukraine just trying to get by, to survive from one day to the next. I didn’t ask the ladies their stories. I would be a terrible journalist. I never feel comfortable asking personal questions unless I know people really want to talk.
This morning I’m reading the news (a lot happened this weekend — I wrote about it all yesterday here), and thinking about all those people whose lives have been turned upside down because of geopolitics playing out in fancy meeting rooms nowhere the DNR, LNR, eastern Ukraine, southern Russia.
First there was talk of a summit in Helsinki on Friday between Biden and Putin “only if Moscow doesn’t invade Ukraine”. Quite the caveat. Then, the Kremlin said it wasn’t the right time yet. Now, Putin called an extraordinary meeting of his Security Council. Also this morning, the FSB reported (note the source) a Ukrainian projectile hit a border post in Rostov, Russia. There was a horrible staged scene involving a body part in Donestk. The barrage of fake news and propaganda continues, and ordinary people whose lives were already difficult are paying the price. There is talk Putin may go visit the “refugees” in southern Russia. I’m sure they will be thrilled (sarcasm).
From inside DNR/LNR, people sound increasingly more worried but are trying to remain calm. The kids have no school, a lot of people aren’t going to work, the men are being drafted, the women have to decide if they will stay or go.
On both sides of the front, even elderly men are signing up to fight, while what I’ve seen on TikTok is pure dark humor about how to avoid getting drafted.
The scenes on the other side of the border from DNR/LNR, in Russia, are not exactly uplifting. Two journalists reported that police are trying to stop journalists from interviewing the evacuees. Many reported long waits over the weekend, stuck on buses, without access to toilets or food. Local government-adjacent employees were told to get to work at the last minute to help organize the welcome in southern Russian cities like Taganrog. Hundreds of people are living in a gym.
And now this.
And I’ve got well-meaning Russian speakers in my mentions who days ago were commenting on my train journey in 2019 across Russia trying to tell me there is a genocide in eastern Ukraine. Putin’s propaganda works on large swaths of the Russian population both in the country and abroad. I don’t have the energy to say open social media in DNR/LNR and see for yourself how Russians are living there.
In all of this the US isn’t innocent. The New York Times ran a very strange opinion piece attacking Zelensky as “mediocre”, today of all days! After his incredible speech on Saturday in Munich. The author, a leading Ukrainian journalist, said she was asked to write the piece earlier and it should be clear it was edited before Saturday. That is not clear to anyone, imho. DC and Moscow would both like to have a Ukrainian president beholden to them, but for Ukraine’s sake, it is of critical importance the country has its own president.
I’m sure by the time I hit “Publish” this will already be stale. In the meantime, some other news and podcast recommendations.
Austria’s foreign minister Schallenberg embarrassed himself on national TV last night when he said Austria too knows what it feels like to be left alone, referring to 1938, in the context of the current crisis around Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine:
Reader, Hitler was welcomed in Austria in 1938 with open arms, insane amounts of flag waving, and general love and admiration from most of the population:
A big drop of data and investigation by a huge team of journalists from a variety of publications into Credit Suisse’s banking clients. Suisse Secrets. My personal favourite: Serbian drug lord Misha Banana. Can you imagine, Compliance sitting in Zurich, types his real name into Google, gets back “Misha Banana”, says he is good to go to hold millions of Euros with Credit Suisse? I just can’t. This also means cocaine bananas were not invented in Montenegro!
The bank’s response via its PR team is even more entertaining. Apparently bank account data can be taken out of context (lol) and people come to Switzerland for the…low fees? Seriously, if it wasn’t for secrecy, why would anyone come to Switzerland, one of the most expensive places on earth?
A few podcast recommendations for you, too.
This Pod Save the World interview with Buzzfeed’s Christopher Miller who has been reporting from Ukraine since 2010 is great. You will learn a lot.
This discussion with Masha Gessen on the NATO 1999 moment and it’s impact on the Kremlin and also the development of Ukrainian national identity in recent years is also very good, even though it was recorded on Thursday, which in the context of how fast things are moving does feel like a lifetime ago:
Finally, this interesting group discussion on the transition of power from father to son next month in secretive Turkmenistan:
Wishing you all a smooth Monday. I am trying to sort through fact from fiction, stay grounded, and report only what real people are saying, because at this point a lot of people and interests have stories to spin. I am of course not on the ground but a certain amount can be gaged via social media. That being said, you can also tell who is being paid to post what so…it’s complicated. The truth always is. At the moment, this is what also worries me most. I don’t think there will be a Helsinki summit on Friday. I think things will heat up before then with more fake pretexts for a Russian intervention. On what scale, I don’t know.