Please don’t, some of us live here. It’s mostly nice, no need to destroy it all just because of one meglomaniac.
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As a person of Czech decent, good to see they are supporting Ukraine.
Some of them might still be sore about the whole Soviet invasion thing…
He has a point everyone is susceptible to media manipulation… but a very weak one to assert something to the contrary with out evidence. This isn’t something you can even begin to give Russia the “benefit of the doubt”.
Wow - how are they going to get any of their shit they can still get in, in?
“Yes, hello this is Marsk. Yes, we every bit as good as Maersk. Yes, no problem, we ship what ever you want, no questions asked. We only accept money in manila envelopes and bricks of cocaine”
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I am having fun finding memes on this.
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(source: NYT)
Today we’re turning The Morning over to Amanda Taub, the author of The Times’s Interpreter newsletter, which explains international news. Amanda wrote this dispatch from Poland.
By Amanda Taub
Good morning. The war in Ukraine has led to familiar, but heightened, problems for women.
Lubomira Pancuk, center, with her daughter and son.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
A crisis for mothers
If there’s one thing to understand about the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland, it’s this: Approximately 90 percent of the refugees are women and children.
Because of military conscription, Ukraine has barred most men between 18 and 60 from leaving. So although millions of people have fled the Russian invasion, the ones who cross the border are women, children, and some older men.
That has meant devastating separations for the families involved. But it also means that this crisis of forced migration is foremost a crisis for women — particularly for mothers.
A world of women
To understand how that crisis is playing out, I went to Zabki, a small suburb outside Warsaw, which exemplifies the promise and challenges of Poland’s effort to welcome Ukrainian refugees.
The first refugees arrived within days of the Russian invasion, said Malgorzata Zysk, the town’s mayor. Officially, more than 1,500 Ukrainian refugees now live in Zabki, with about 100 registering each day. But Zysk estimated that the real numbers are about twice as high.
In a small apartment lent to her by Zabki’s government, Lubomira Pancuk showed me photographs of her family gathered in January for Orthodox Christmas. In the pictures, she is pregnant, next to her husband and three daughters, all smiling for the camera. “We were all together, happy, waiting for the baby,” she said.
Less than two months later, the war forced her to flee to Poland with her children, including her three-week-old son, who was born prematurely and has jaundice. Her husband is still in Ukraine.
Pancuk’s eyes filled with tears as she described the generosity of Zabki’s government and residents.
But the family lives precariously, reliant on a small allowance from the Polish government and the generosity of their Polish neighbors. It is impossible for Pancuk to work because she must care for her baby.
“I don’t know what my plans will be,” she said. “I am just living day to day.”
It’s a story that I heard over and over from women refugees in Poland. They told me that their priorities were simple: a safe place to live with their children, far from the bombs and battles.
But security and stability often cost more than the small allowance the Polish government offers to Ukrainian families. Though thousands of Polish citizens have lent refugees rooms or apartments, soon many refugee mothers will have to work to pay the rent.
That means Ukrainian mothers must solve a higher-stakes version of the problem that working mothers face all over the world: how to find both affordable child care and employers willing to accommodate their needs as parents.
A family at a refugee center in Zabki, Poland.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
A system under strain
Family-friendly policies, such as flexible working hours, are relatively rare in Polish workplaces — the legacy of years of high unemployment.
Care for children under 3 is often so expensive that many women find it cheaper to stay home until their children are old enough for preschool. And although the government has expanded state-funded preschools for 3- to 6-year-olds as part of its nationalist campaign to convince Polish women to have more children, spaces were already in short supply in many parts of the country before the war began.
Grazyna Swiezak, the director of a preschool in Zabki, said that she and her staffers were happy for the opportunity to help Ukrainian children.
The school anticipates that some refugee children will need emotional support, and Swiezak said she hoped to find Ukrainian- or Russian-speaking psychotherapists to help them. But on my recent visit there, the scene seemed idyllic. In a row of sunlit classrooms, Ukrainian children played with new friends.
But good will cannot necessarily overcome institutional limitations. The caps on preschool class sizes, for instance, were intended to ensure that children had adequate supervision. Expanding them further could jeopardize children’s education, and perhaps their safety.
And the new spots created for Ukrainian children are filling up. More than half of the new spaces at the preschool are already taken, Swiezak said. New families arrive in town every day.
If the government expands support for Ukrainian mothers without making similar efforts to meet Polish women’s unmet needs, there is a risk of political backlash.
“Some people will have understanding for the fact that these people have suffered so much, and want to help them get safe footing in the Polish territory,” Iga Magda, a labor economist at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, said. “But others will not care as much.”
“The last thing we need is a conflict here,” Magda told me. “This is what Putin wants the most, right?”
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For your possible interest:
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I heard yesterday from one of the first folks who were waiting at the Tijuana/San Ysidro border, a young Russian husband seeking political asylum. For the last month or so he’s been at a facility in Mississippi, and texted me to say he’s returning to San Diego to join his wife.
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Damaged Russian warship Moskva has sunk - Russian ministry
Russia’s defence ministry has put out a statement to say its Moskva missile cruise ship has sunk in the Black Sea off southern Ukraine.
It’s still unclear whether it was hit by Ukrainian weaponry.
The ship is believed to have experienced significant damage and was thought to be heading to Sevastopol, Crimea, before it succumbed.
Russia earlier claimed it had experienced damage as a result of an ammunition fire on board. Crew were evacuated.
Russia only has three of this flagship class of warship, which uses a crew of almost 500 sailors.
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Hahha That’s great.
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Absolutely. I’d read a few different analysis saying that the Moskva was key to their seaborne invasion plans. Without it they’d lack the protection to get the troops ashore safely, and probably would abandon the plans.
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Beau confronting a rumor, which if true, is delicious.
Even if not true… their Fifth Service is in shambles.
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Update
Russia’s Moskva missile cruiser sank in a “stormy sea” while being towed, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
“The cruiser ship Moskva lost its stability when it was towed to the port because of the damage to the ship’s hull that it received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition. In stormy sea conditions, the ship sank”
Russia and Ukraine have conflicting accounts of what happened to the cruiser, with Ukraine claiming it began to sink after it was hit by Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles, and Russia saying a fire on board caused munitions to explode.
and
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the way the Moskva saga “has unfolded is a big blow to Russia”.
US officials have said it is still unclear what caused a blast onboard. But Sullivan said it has forced Moscow to choose between two stories. “One story is that it was just incompetence, and the other is that they came under attack. And neither is a particularly good outcome for them,” Sullivan said at the Economic Club of Washington, DC.
“Only the loss of a ballistic missile submarine or the Kutznetsov [Russia’s lone aircraft carrier] would inflict a more serious blow to Russian morale and the navy’s reputation with the Russian public,” said Carl Schuster, the former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.
ETA BBC Newsnight has an exclusive interview with Zelensky, airing right now. Find it if you can.
FETA here it is, but it is missing the informal preamble chat between Clive Myrie and Zelensky that was shown on Newsnight - and was also revealing. I guess you’d have to find a replay of Newsnight on iPlayer for that. Haven’t had chance to see how else it differs.
OK - had a quick run through and there a some bits the same but this is just an excerpt, and the Newsnight version was a different but partly overlapping excerpt. Still looking for full version.
AHA - here we go: At the foot of the page on the link above it says…
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This says that with enough anti-ship missiles Ukraine can take the Russian navy out of the war.
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