Greetings on my first day of posting from Virginia. For my readers from outside the U.S., that is about halfway up the Atlantic coast between Florida and Maine, but only a few degrees cooler than where I just came from in Georgia. It’s a hot summer everywhere.

But not nearly as hot as those war zones around the globe: most notably, of course, Israel vs. Gaza and Russia vs. Ukraine. Yet, at this week’s NATO meeting in Türkiye, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky found an opportunity to dig deep into his past life as a humorist, taking a jab at Vladimir Putin’s stubborn insistence that any meeting between them should take place in Moscow.

When Donald Trump — trying once again to placate Putin and nudge Zelensky toward making further concessions — asked Zelensky if he might consider going to Moscow, the heroic president of Ukraine wryly replied:

“It’s difficult. There are a lot of Ukrainian drones there.”

And indeed there are. Here is Ukraine’s latest strike on a Russian oil refinery, this one reaching all the way to Omsk, in Western Siberia:

Thanks, President Zelensky, for the smile . . . and for the reminder of who is really turning the tide of this war.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
7/8/26