First Snow

Can't say I really looked forward to winter.  The first snow is always nice but after that it is a slushy mess.  The city once again overdid the sidewalks with rock salt.  I thought we got past that but apparently not.  I keep the dog in the yard because I don't feel like washing his paws each time we go out for a walk.  I covered the roots of the rose bushes and magnolia with peat to get them through winter.  Loki anxious to dig up my work.  

Good thing our son changed the tires on the car.  He said there was a long waiting list at the shops, but he managed to find a friend to mount new winter tires on the rims and put them on the car himself.  Still need to do wheel alignments but will wait till the rush is over.  Same thing every year.

One of the charity drives this winter is for metal cans to make little fuel cannisters, or trench candles, for Ukrainians.  There was a short segment on LRT news with two women collecting pet food cans.  They cut out strips of carboard, wind them into a spiral, set them inside the cans with a little cardboard wick and fill them with hot wax.  They said any wax would suffice.  The trench candles last for an hour or more and can boil water in a matter of minutes.  Made us feel a little guilty turning on the heat.

Over half of Ukraine is without electricity and many people are without gas as well.  Ukrainians are paying a hefty price for freedom.  This is something only Eastern Europeans can appreciate as they went through this with the fall of the Soviet Union 30+ years ago.  EU countries are beefing up humanitarian efforts though.  Meanwhile, Moscow cynically talks about negotiations.

Given the power outages come from missile strikes, I don't understand why the West doesn't do more to create a missile shield around Ukraine.  Setting up a no-fly zone around Ukraine should have been the first order of business back in Spring, but here we are in November and Ukraine is still trying to fend off Russian missiles with the meager defense system that they have.

Israel has been no help at all, refusing to sell Ukraine its "iron dome" system.  Zelenskyy was irate when his latest request was rebuffed.  In his mind this put Israel in bed with Iran, which has been selling drones and missiles to Russia, with many of them falling on Ukrainian cities.  Seems Israel values its access to Syria over the defense of its Jewish community in Ukraine.  So now the US is considering pulling its Hawk missile defense system out of storage.  Why it hasn't done so sooner I have no idea?

The Russian strategy is to ride out the current Western resistance figuring it will wane over the next two years and it can once again launch a widescale invasion into Ukraine.  The Kremlin has no intention of letting Ukraine go short of unravelling itself.  Putin and his cronies seem to have weathered the harsh criticism from the fall of Kherson.  He appears to be putting more stock in his staunchest allies, Prigozhin and Kadyrov.  It's not like their mercenaries are really able to fight a conventional war, but their "take no prisoners" approach promises very ugly times ahead.  Kadyrovites are tasked primarily at shooting Russian soldiers fleeing from the front line during Ukrainian advances.  I'm not sure how Putin plans to overcome this chaos.  Most of these soldiers are poorly equipped for the winter ahead.

As a result, Ukraine has no intention of taking the pressure off the front line.  Their soldiers are battle hardened, reasonably well equipped and determined to take back more of their territory.   Even when they give Russian forces some leeway to evacuate Kherson peacefully, the Russian soldiers raid the city in the process, stealing fire trucks, ambulances, buses and other vital modes of transportation.  There was virtually no infrastructure left in tact, with Ukraine scrambling to provide emergency connections before winter set in.  They also find themselves having to demine the city after all the booby traps Russian forces left behind.

It would seem that European countries are finally waking up to the fact this will be a long war.  The feeling was that at some point Russia would participate in meaningful negotiations but it is clear that is no longer the case.  The Kremlin basically uses "negotiations" as a means to stall Western arms shipments.  There is no good faith on the Russian side.

Of course, Eastern European countries long knew that you can't trust Moscow.  They had been warning their Western allies for years, but Germany, France and Italy worked out their gas, oil and coal deals with Russia just the same, believing that if you created an interconnected economy their would be no cause for war.  

This has long been a Western liberal ideal.  I remember hearing it when I was in college in the 80s.  We lulled ourselves into thinking that a liberal free market would create a friendly global economy, especially as tensions reduced with the fall of the Soviet Union.  Bill Clinton was offering "peace dividends" with a reduction in military spending to augment domestic programs in the mid 1990s.  European countries did the same thing when the Cold War ended.

There was a brief moment when it seemed Russia might do the same.  However, all that changed with the ascension of Putin in 2000.  He restarted the war in Chechnya and regained control of the breakaway Republic, installing Akhmad Kadyrov as leader. When Akhmad was assassinated in 2004, his son Ramzan took over and has been ruling the Russian oblast with an iron hand ever since.  This is what Russia would like to do in Ukraine.  For the time being it settles for its territorial gains in the Donbas, installing similar thugs in power.

All the while, Moscow talks of a greater Russia that unites these Slavic states in peace.  To create this image the Kremlin flew Russians to Kherson, after it had liberated the city last Spring, in an effort to make it appear it was now a part of Russia.  The images were one of peace and unity with local residents pushed to the sidelines.  This is why Russians don't understand what is going on now.

I'm not sure which side a long war would favor?  If history is any guide, certainly not Russia.  The Soviet Union essentially broke apart after its failed effort in Afghanistan in the 1980s.  The war depleted its resources and fueled unrest in the Soviet republics that eventually led to its dissolution in 1991.  However, Putin is no Gorbachev.  He's not one to back down at any price, especially since he feels he has a divine right to Ukraine.  He knows he can't let Ukraine go out of fear Russia would crumble as did the Soviet Union.

Putin's effort to "freeze" Europe hasn't materialized.  While energy prices have grown, they aren't crippling, and petrol prices remain about the same they did during the summer.  If anything we are experiencing some relief with the onset of a recession.  I see sale prices on most goods as there is no longer such a strong demand.  We use the current lull to stock up on goods in the basement, as you can never be sure which way the vicissitudes of war will turn.