Weekend self-care open thread: Songs of peace

As this goes to press, we have entered Day 3 of the Russo-Ukraine War.

Ukrainians, defending their homes, are fighting like lions, holding off the Russian bear. Vladimir Putin's hopes of a quick, relatively bloodless victory are in tatters. As the liveblog on the Financial Times stated:

A slipping military timetable and stronger resistance than Russia expected may lead Moscow to unleash indiscriminate force in Ukraine, western officials and analysts have warned, including the use of thermobaric bombs that were used to devastating effect in Syria and Chechnya. 

Fierce fighting around Kyiv and contested ownership of its airport have stalled Russia’s encirclement of the capital, while to the east Russian forces have been held up by resistance around Kharkiv. 

“In our assessment, Russian objectives were largely not met during day one, and my fear in that is if that continues . . . Russia may use indiscriminate fire including the use of thermobaric weapons,” a senior western official said. 

Reports of low morale among Russian troops fighting in the Donbas have similarly led analysts to speculate that Russia may resort to heavier use of missile strikes. 

“Morale of Russian troops is uneven, especially in Donbas. But Russia can address that by escalating with stand-off weapons and missile strikes,” Jack Watling, research fellow at Royal United Services Institute, said. 

According to the Pentagon, Russia has so far launched 200 ballistic and cruise missiles during the invasion this week. 

“There is a challenge here,” the western official said. “The conflict began as a choice made by Putin, and the problem is that now having committed himself it has become a war of necessity. So Putin needs to win and in order to win Russia may turn to indiscriminate force . . . and I will be very concerned about what they do.” Russia used thermobaric bombs in Chechnya and Syria against insurgents and insurgent-held civilian areas.

Putin has shown himself to be a madman, invading Ukraine on the flimsiest of pretexts. Ukraine is made of sterner stuff than Putin thought it was. Even if he enters Kyiv, Ukrainians will continue to fight, slaughtering Russian conscripts, holding down the Russian army while being resupplied by the West. This attack makes no logical sense; but you have to dispense with logic. Putin sees this as his last chance to mark himself as a famous warlord, along the lines of Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, and Genghis Khan. It will make for a sad epitaph, as his memory is damned by history.

So for this weekend's self-care: Songs of peace.

Pray for the brave people of Ukraine. Pray that their oppressors are sent back to their own borders. And pray that we consign war to history's dustbin.

As always, be ever kind to yourselves and those around you.