Happy meals
A little treat for 20 Ukrainian kids, plus the bigger picture: is Putin or anyone actually in charge?, Lukashenko's nuclear ramblings, Russian tank production. Micro update on Austrian stuff.
Opening the mail at my apartment does often feel like Christmas in June. Yesterday, it was 20 McDonalds €10 gifts cards, from a frequent donor who has already been so incredibly generous with supermarket gift cards and stamps. We have never met in real life. I am still amazed to be entrusted with delivery of such generous aid, and I take that role very seriously. I don’t like to see cards sitting on my desk. I work as fast as I can (keeping in mind I have a life and four kids to care for at the moment) to make sure help gets to those who need it as fast as I can make it happen. So I asked my Telegram group for parents to request cards for their kids, first only asking hotel residents, and then everyone else. In the end, 20 cards went to Sofia, Kyrylo, Viktor, Polina…all across Austria. In addition, a Ukrainian woman from my group asked if she could add 2 more cards, so you see, giving is contagious. She saw someone doing a good deed and offered to spend €20 of her own money to brighten the day of two Ukrainian kids she also doesn’t know personally. I thanked her and immediately sent her two addresses and room numbers. I always add the room numbers so there is no chance a lazy staff member says “but it says Irina instead of Iryna” or some other excuse not to hand the mail to the right person. So far, fingers crossed, all deliveries have been working extremely smoothly.
I continue to send out Hofer and Spar cards, thanks to two very generous donors. I love how much care some of the Ukrainian recipients put into their grocery photos, and joked yesterday that Spar could hire them for photo staging. This, in my humble opinion, looks a hundred times better than the average Spar billboard:
I heard a rumor today the hotel will close in October. I wonder, what then? Other Ukrainians currently in the arrival center are being sent to a shelter which functions as a shelter for Viennese homeless in winter months, and it only operates in the summer months for Ukrainians. I know this from last summer. Residents of this shelter were in fact transferred to the hotel last fall. So what happens when both close, is the base case scenario being used by the Vienna authorities that the war will be over by October 2023 and all the Ukrainians will go home? Really?
I cannot comment on the Ukrainian “offensive” because I am of the mind that less is more in terms of commentary, and frankly, I have not been able to follow that news closely. There are many highly intelligent observers who do nothing more than follow this intensely, and I would recommend you to their Substacks to learn more. I enjoy reading Phillip’s Newsletter,
and also really like the reporting by the Economist in Ukraine, and of course, the Kyiv Independent, with a whole team of world-class journalists working on the ground.
What did catch my attention yesterday were a series of, frankly, unhinged clips shared from Putin’s staged meeting with military bloggers. I don’t know what I found more astonishing: Putin’s incoherent dribble (I exaggerate but not really) or the looks on the faces of everyone else sitting around that table. Have a look for yourself here. As I noted yesterday, it all made me wonder: “I feel like Russia could unravel much faster than anyone thinks if the right match were to be lit”.
Today’s news only confirms what I can only say is a gut feeling at this point. I don’t have any hard evidence to point you to.
Lukashenko went on a nuclear ramble. The whole thread here. You all probably remember about a week or so ago Putin asked Lukashenko to store some Russian nukes in Belarus, and Lukashenko agreed with the casualness of agreeing to store a few tractors in a barn for later use.
Then today it emerged that one of Kadyrov’s best buddies is missing in Ukraine, supposedly (but not confirmed to be) wounded, and the finger pointing between Kadyrov and Wagner has reached a new height. One thing both have in common: they both appear to be spending more time talking with the Ukrainians than with the Kremlin. Makes you wonder who is actually in charge. For real.
Kadyrov blamed Wagner for supposedly telling the Ukrainians where the Kadyrov troops, including his best buddy, were. And then Kadyrov supposedly asked the Ukrainians for help to find his friend. I just can’t.
Add in the image from a few days ago of Putin literally turning his back on Shoigu at some ceremony.
If you understand Russian, you will hear Putin say all kinds of unhinged things, from rambling about mobilisation numbers and keeping everyone on their toes if they will need more men or not, then half jokingly asking if they need to take Kyiv again (or not), then saying to the general (who looked petrified) don’t worry that is a decision only I alone can make.
So if the whole country is unravelling in real time, very slowly, the way so many things in life unravel step by step that you don’t even see it until the process is complete, what does that mean? I mean, I think it makes sense to at least ask the question. I am so tired of this talk about Russia as this huge united front because it is anything but. The socialites in Moscow would not know there was a change of government in the Kremlin until their Visa cards stopped working. They are still traveling to Europe and holidaying in Italy (ironically, it would seem Putin will not be able to attend his former buddy Berlusconi’s funeral, or if he does, Italy will make sure the world does not see it), and generally talking about their love for Russia while in the same phrase mentioning the desire for “peace for everyone”. In other words, they want their lives to stay as they are, and they want the pesky war to be out of their iPhone screens. They would like not to have to fly to Rome via Istanbul or Belgrade. In a perfect world. They are not actually losing sleep over Ukrainians being killed in their beds, as so many young people lost their lives in Zelensky’s hometown this week.
If you are up for a niche, but very interesting read, I really recommend this
in-depth look at Russia’s domestic production of tanks, and the economic and industrial compromises it must make now and in the future, by my former professor while I was at Georgetown. Back then, Prof. Gustafson was focused on Russia’s oil and gas industry.
I just saw this and if this doesn’t scream “end of a failed empire, like, any damn minute now”, I don’t know what does.
Meanwhile, I felt compelled to make this comment earlier this week after a right-wing leaning but still collecting state funding Austrian tabloid published a Russian propaganda interview with Russia’s ambassador to Austria this week.
If I were, hypothetically speaking, an investigate journalist (I am not), I would start digging into those directly involved in conducting and publishing such “interviews” (you see what I did there without naming names) lifestyle purchases over the next few months: housing, cars, holidays. Cash in hand burns. It is usually spent quickly, especially if it cannot be deposited onto an account for obvious reasons. You would, in theory, also keep an eye on what close family members (wives, mothers, mothers-in-law, girlfriends if it is a truly Russian lifestyle) purchase over the coming months. Such articles are vital for official Russia at the moment because they give them a split second of perceived legitimacy, something they so desperately crave while hating the collective west, at least publicly, with all of their might. You would have to be a complete moron to publish them for free.
That’s probably enough for today. Totally unrelated but also interesting — this Profil look at China and Austria, asking a very timely question, could this be Russian influence 2.0? For years, I regularly drove by a Chinese “compound” for lack of a better term being built in the open in the middle of Vienna’s 19th district. A huge stately building with a giant Chinese flag now flying in front, and next door, a luxury condo development. Also all Chinese residents. The entire project was built with, to the layman’s eye driving by a million times, Chinese labor who worked whenever and however. You would see builders on Sundays, in the evenings, and it was a strictly do not enter zone. Reminds me a bit of those now infamous spy houses Russia still operates in parts of Vienna, with a huge number of antennas bursting from their roofs (not exactly top secret operations). What surprised me is I didn’t see a single local journalist even asking the question, why this, why now, why in what is otherwise a fairly upscale sleepy residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of Vienna?
Thanks so much for your continued support with the supermarket gift cards. I have a few left, and then I will start begging again. But for now, simply, thank you. I received this photo last night, also from the former hotel in downtown Vienna, and it made me sad, to see these kids, so young, their whole lives uprooted. I know they are safe and now they have some groceries, but it is just a fleeting moment, and I cannot imagine what it is like for the millions of Ukrainian moms trying to raise their kids under these unbelievably challenging circumstances.
I guess you just take one day at a time. It’s all any of us can do.