Those who still keep track of the invasion onto the territory of Poland’s eastern neighbour might realise today is the 228th day of the war. Most people are sick of it, or indifferent to it. The cruelty of the invaders is no lesser than in the first weeks, but humans sadly have got accustomed to it.
The good news is that the Ukrainian army, aided by the civilised world, is successful in its counteroffensive in the occupied territories, running rings around the feckless Russian regiments. The news are reassuring, yet the better the Ukrainians fare, the more wrathful the unpredictable tyrant is. I feared the date of his 70th birthday (the day before yesterday), as Putin could have wanted to displayed his might (or actually weakness) to the world. Fortunately, he did not, but the threat of using nuclear weapons, or resorting to some form of targeted nuclear incident still looms imaginable.
Looking back at the history, both Napoleon and Hitler were defeated by Russians during harsh winters. I believe the cold season will be used by the Russian dictator this year as well, not just to blackmail western Europe, still partly dependent on supplies of natural gas, but also to provoke a humanitarian disaster in Ukraine. If large swathes of the country are deprived of energy inputs, Poland will be facing another wave of refugees, even bigger than the one witnessed in the early phase of the warfare.
I keep my fingers crossed for free Ukraine in a pre-2014 territorial shape and hope the price to pay for Ukrainians victory will not be steep.
Off to my girlfriend’s second home in Wisła for two weekends and a working week, so I will catch up with photos of the autumnal mountain areas during the last weekend of October.
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