John Brown's Notes and Essays

Ryan Lucas, NPR , May 28, 2022 [original article contains additional illustrations of devastation]] image (not from article) from EASTERN UKRAINE — As soon as the battered bus groaned to a halt outside the military hospital in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, its doors opened and wounded Ukrainian soldiers began slowly hobbling off. These were the walking wounded — more than 40 of them in all — with bloodied bandages and exhausted faces. Nurses rushed out with wheelchairs. One soldier struggling to walk limped over to a tree and threw up. This was a rare first-hand view into the daily toll of the fierce fighting now raging in eastern Ukraine as Russia pushes its offensive here. And while many Ukrainians are still basking in the successful defense of Kyiv, the battle in the Donbas is a punishing grind that poses different challenges. Here in the vast rolling farmland of the east, Russia's superior firepower gives its military a distinct edge, and its forces are inching forward d...

By Adam Roberts; email from The Economist, May 20 2022 image (not from entry) from Hello from London, I’m not alone in having become a keen reader, in recent months, of various biographies of Vladimir Putin. One point I take from these, which all show how the man has ruthlessly, progressively, tightened his grip on power over 22 years, is that he knows how to play the long game. Perhaps that’s relevant for Ukraine as the war passes the  100-day mark this week . For despite the mostly rotten showing of Russia’s armed forces, so far, he may judge that as the war drags on his country’s advantages could grow. One reason for that is food. As wheat exports from Ukraine are blocked by Russia, and as the price of energy soars, hunger will spread in countries all over the world this year. Though Russia is to blame for this, some big importers—for example in Asia—may instead condemn America for daring to support Ukraine in its defence against the invader. Within Europe, too, some countries ...

image from article, with caption:  Deana Martorella Orellana stands before the Memorial Honor Wall in Charleroi, Pa., where her grandfather's name is engraved. She killed herself in 2016, joining him on the wall. (Martorella family) Perspective by Petula Dvorak . Columnist, The Washington Post , May 30, 2022 at 12:30 p.m. EDT Excerpt: Suicide has been the main killer of U.S. personnel since the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 30,000 of them have died by their own hands since, during a period that saw about 7,000 service members die in combat or training exercises, according to a project from Brown University. Suicide in the military community is at its highest rate since 1938, according to a Department of Defense report released last month. Increasingly, those killed are women. In 2020, they accounted for 7 percent of military suicides — up from 4 percent a decade earlier, according to Department of Defense numbers. About 1 in 6 servicemembers is female.  The reports break down t...

Anna Ivanova has emerged as a symbol for Russian propaganda, inspiring monuments across the country, but her tale is one of grief and poverty in the post-Soviet world Anna Ivanova holds the flag she used to welcome Ukrainian soldiers, mistaking them for Russians.  MANU BRABO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL  By Yaroslav Trofimov , The Wall Street Journal , May 29, 2022 5:30 am ET; see also, which contains the below uncaptioned photograph: VELYKA DANYLIVKA, Ukraine—In the ruins of Mariupol, on a central square that Russian occupation authorities have renamed after Lenin’s Young Communist League, a senior Kremlin official earlier this month unveiled the statue of an old woman waving a red Soviet flag. The image, replicated in similar statues, frescoes and billboards across Russia and occupied Ukraine, celebrates Anna Ivanova, the resident of this village on the outskirts of Kharkiv, as the symbol of Russia’s just cause in the war . In a video filmed by a Ukrainian soldier that went ...

With Kherson -- under Putin attack in Ukraine -- in the news/under siege , the below may be of interest: From Wikipedia : Ivan Abramovich Gannibal   ( Russian :   Иван Абрамович Ганнибал ; June 5, 1735 – October 12, 1801) was an eminent Russian military leader. He was the son of military commander, general and engineer   Abram Petrovich Gannibal , as well as the great-uncle of Russia's most famous poet,   Alexander Pushkin . Gannibal led a detachment of the Imperial  Black Sea Fleet , which besieged and captured the  Turkish  fortress of  Navarin  during the  Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) , and took part in the founding of the city of  Kherson   [jb - again, much in the news today].   Gannibal's ultimate military rank was  Général en Chef . *** See also a video on Gannibal, and a Ukraine map pointing out Kherson. On Gannibal's father, see .

Many Ukraine citizens speak Russian as their first language. Volunteer organizations are helping them improve their Ukrainian and abandon “the occupiers’ language.” Image:  A bookshop in Lviv, Ukraine. In the wake of Russia’s invasion in February, language clubs have been popping up in Ukraine’s west. Credit...  Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times By Erika Solomon , The New York Times , May 29, 2022 Updated 10:23 a.m. ET; see also LVIV, Ukraine — The teacher sounded her words slowly, careful to show which syllable to stress: Eyebrow. Cheekbones. Hair. The students, arranged in a semicircle around her, parroted them back. But they were not there to learn a foreign tongue: Aged 11 to 70, they were Ukrainians, in Ukraine, trying to master the official language of their own country.  Since Russia’s invasion, a number of language clubs have opened in cities in western Ukraine. Teachers and volunteers are reaching out to millions of displaced people who have fled to th...