Dnipro, Monday morning, 3 March

Yippppeeee, winter is over, and spring has begun. After a couple of very cold weeks, with the river frozen over finally, and lots of ice fishermen out and about, the weather has broken, and we are back to daytime temps above zero. I have never understood ice fishing. It makes no sense in this modern era when you can go to one of the great seafood wholesalers and buy whatever you want. I enjoy sitting upstairs at our river house in t-shirt and jocks, basking in 22 degrees, with a nice cup of coffee or a bottle of wine and watching out over the river whilst the avid fishermen brave the elements, risking their lives on ice to catch very mediocre river fish... Yuk, when you know what goes into the river, eating river fish is gross. Some brave souls even drive their cars out onto the ice which has led to three cars sinking around Dnipro beneath the waters when the ice cracked this past fortnight. The river couldn't have frozen too deep this year, temps weren't low enough. Gave everyone a good laugh except the drivers. No one died thankfully, but I am guessing there's some pretty pissed off wives around.

Anyhow, with the above zero temperatures the ground has turned to mud, which is causing issues already for evacuations and resupply near front lines. I am guessing some of the gusto even amongst the neo nazi's has been eroded watching the coke head in Washington, and the overwhelming opinion in Ukraine amongst the real people is one of horror and disgust. Everyone I know could not believe how rude Zelenksy was, and I pointed out that for Zelenksy that's the norm. They don't see it here as the news like this is rarely reported. This time it was everywhere. That in itself says something I think. Slavic people don't use profanity in conversations to any where near the extent we do in the west, or at least we do in Australia. Amongst friends, over a beer, without women or others around maybe, but never in public. For 11 years I have tried to introduce road rage as a thing here and it really isn't taking on because people are too restrained.

Resupply trucks are few and far between. I drove to Sumy last week to help out a bit and then bring a family to Dnipro, and I was surprised that I saw very little military transport.

Ambulance traffic has ticked up massively, I often don't think it could get more intense, and then it does. It would be anyone's guess how many actual ambulances are in Ukraine atm, but the number must be massive. Many from Europe, it's common to see Polish, German, Hungarian or other EU states number plates and writing on the side, even some Spanish too.

Support for zelensky is non existent, Zalushny would be beaten by a driver's dog, and no one can see a political change happening anyhow. Putin would be the preferred president right now if an anonymous poll was taken. Maybe after the Trump debacle the usa will wake up, turn off starlink, stop all military and financial aid and bring this train wreck to a stop. One can only hope.

I laugh when people talk about the eu promising 3-6-20 billion dollars in aid. In 36 months Ukraine has received over 400 billion in aid, which is 11 billion per month, and it's still completely fucked way worse than it was 3 years ago. I have oft repeated the fact that Ukraine needs 8-12 billion usd a month to survive, many people mocked it, but the numbers tell the story. The eu has not a single chance of making any difference here at all. Everyone in Ukraine knows it. It's not uncommon now to see protesters on street corners carrying signs to stop the killing, and stop the war.

Not sure how much longer this can continue, but I think that's up to Trump. Pull all support, walk away, it's over in a month top's. Tell the eu they either play ball, or if they wish to continue funding and equipping Ukraine, they clearly don't need usa support so withdraw all usa forces from Europe. The world will be a much safer place for it, and perhaps it could avert world war. Europe still hasn't got the message, 100,000 troops flying home from Europe would drive the message home even to the current crop off dumbarses in power in Europe.

I am sure most saw the attached tweet from Musk, but it says it all. I am not a Musk fan, he's a deeply compromised and in my mind bigger conman than Zelenksy. But he has the power over starlink. Stop the funds, stop the war, stop the genocide