Maria, age 69, and her two kittens sit on a bus waiting to leave the city she has lived and worked in for 30 years, because the shelling and bombing and missile strikes are now too close for comfort. Her city — Pokrovsk, Ukraine — had a population of 48,000 people just two months ago; today, half of them have already left. [Abdujalil Abdurasulov, BBC News, September 9, 2024.]

Relatively few people in other parts of the world have heard of Pokrovsk. But to Ukraine, it is a key transportation hub that is depended upon as one of the main supply routes in the area. If Pokrovsk were to fall to the Russians, it would effectively mean the loss of nearly the entire Donetsk region — which has been a key goal of the Kremlin from day one of the February 24, 2022, invasion.

This is what President Volodymyr Zelensky and his troops hoped to prevent when they launched an offensive into the Kursk region of Russia. Their intent was to force the Russian military to divert offensive troops to the defense of Kursk in sufficient numbers for Ukraine to be better able to defend its remaining territory in the Donbas region.

But one thing Russia has in seemingly endless numbers is people — human bodies to throw into the front lines, wave after wave of them, conscripted from Chechnya, from friendly foreign countries, from mercenary groups like Wagner (now called the Africa Corps), and even from their own Russian prisons. Human cannon fodder. According to Pokrovsk’s military administration, the ratio of fighting forces in that area is ten-to-one in Russia’s favor. [Id.]

And they have the equipment and the weaponry, much of it also supplied by friendly countries including China and Iran . . . while they continue to protest Ukraine’s use of American and other Western armaments.

On Sunday, Russia claimed to have taken control of the village of Novohrodivka, just 10 kilometers (about 6.2 miles) from Pokrovsk. One unconfirmed report says that Ukrainian forces have retreated from there. [Id.]

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And so, Maria sits on the bus with her two precious kittens, waiting to be taken to the next phase of her life . . . wherever and whatever that may be. Hopefully, she will be safer there.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/10/24