Dnipro, 1 Sept, morning
Much has changed in the past month, Ukraine is now most definately a country under seige. Constant air raids shuting down fuel stations, shops, warehouses and shopping malls now, as increasingly these are targeted. This makes even the simplest thing like fueling your car complex, as air raids can last 30 minutes, or 3 hours. Even when they stop they often restart in just 5-10 minutes.
Shops are starting to run low on some supplies, and logistics chains are broken for good.
I drove west last week for an evac trip and the number of military convoys was mind blowing. With rail now dismantled for much of this transport, and the southern corridor and ports obliterated, convoys from Poland are about the only alternative. I wonder how long until Russia shuts those crossings down as they have the southern crossings from Romania and Moldova.
There is no economy to speak of in Ukraine now, if it wasn't for the ever increasing level of corruption I imagine even luxury car sales would decline.....
People are a mix of angry, worried, frustrated and resigned. So much food is grown locally no one seriously worries about going hungry, and as a society the country has low debt, and it appears to me most people are just reducing their outlays, at least the honest one are.
We are all now preparing for autumn and winter, summer now officially over, and everyone understands it will be a winter without power. Friends from kiev and kharkov are heading to their summer houses, some from kharkov will come and stay at our compound where we are mostly self sufficient. This won't work for all however, so i do expect a significant exodus to the west, and to Russia via the west. Likely on a similar scale to the beginning of the SMO in 2022,another 6-8 million.
One gets the feeling Zelenksy is in serious trouble, but like many countries in the west, he is being assisted by a complete lack of a credible alternative. None of the western proposed replacements, Zalushny, Federov, Buderov or Klitschko have any appeal to Ukrainians. Perhaps Bilteksy and Azov will mount a coup, but they have no wider support, although that didn't stop the Bolsheviks.
I had lunch with a middle ranking Azov commander on the weekend, he is off duty at moment after an injury, and I asked about Biletskiy and Propochenko being sent to defend Slavyansk and Krematorsk, and expressed a view that it is a trap to eradicate them, and embarrass them when the agglomerations fall. He said everyone at Azov recognised the same, and they would not be trapped, indicating to me that they have no intention of falling for a last man stand in the area, more likely they will act as anti retreat brigades as usual, but it's too late for that from what I hear from people who are leaving Krematorsk.
On a drive to Poltava on Sunday I drove past a couple of burned out semi trailers used as drone launchers, which had obviously been located and destroyed just outside Krasnagrad. When I first drove past you could see the launch frames etc inside, but as I returned soldiers were wrapping black plastic around everything inside. I have to say I was impressed with the design and ingenuity. I won't post pictures from my dashcam for obvious reasons, but it is amazing how far drone tech is coming in this conflict.
Imagine if we had just accepted Yanukovixh decision, the right one, to suspend the signing of the EU association agreement in favour of the far superior deal offered by Russia, and waited for the next elections to remain a democratic and functioning country growing on the back of Brics.
The duplicitous and corrupt leaders of the west must pay for what they have done to Ukraine, hey just be bought up in the same charges Poroshenko, zelenksy and their respective cabals must inevitably face, and their fate must be the same.
The ghosts of millions of slavs demands it, a number of them were my friends
