Red Baron's Blog: Ukraine Splinters

At the age of seven, Red Baron survived the bombing of Essen, horrified by the burning houses around. Aged nine, low-flying Mustangs strafed him, but they missed.

The Kiyv Post: On March 9, the Russian occupants launched an airstrike
against a maternity hospital in Mariupol, where there were
pregnant women and medical staff at that moment (©dpa).

I am appalled by destroyed houses, people on the run, and the genocide in Ukraine. "Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days (Matthew 24:19)."

Freiburg

Ukrainian colors at Freiburg's townhall (©BZ)

On Sunday, February 26, with other Freiburgers, Red Baron protested against Putin's war at the Square of the Old Synagogue.

Putin doesn't just want Ukraine. He wants to kill democracy.

Freiburg's mayor for social and cultural affairs,
Ulrich von Kirchbach, at the rostrum.

F**k you, Putin and Putin murderer

In the first move on March 3, Freiburg welcomed children evacuated from an orphanage near Kyiv. In the meantime, more families separated from their husbands arrived in the city's refugee center. The situation is entirely different from 2015 when young men from Syria made up the bulk of the refugees.

The Ukrainians are welcome; the readiness to help is enormous in the bordering countries of the war-stricken country but also all over Germany. The job market is wide open for those who fled the war and speak modest English. Gastronomy and nursing are desperately looking for workers, although the wish of those arriving is to return home as quickly as possible, again different from Syrian males.

Special Military Operation or War?

Western experts estimate that 95% of the Russian forces are operating in Ukraine, losing equipment and "bleeding out" as time goes by. With his war objectives lacking behind, will Putin ultimately fall back to nuclear weapons locally and globally?

A Russian military expert should have said, "The situation is like Germany in 1943/44. Except that this is the starting point for us. One had prepared for a 100-meter race - and finds oneself running a marathon in rough terrain."

Losers And Winners

The bull at the Frankfurt stock market looks weak. The Russian bear has taken over.

The Rubel is in free fall.

There is a winner of the war:
Rheinmetall, the maker of gun barrels for German Leopard tanks

Russian Bashing, Cancel Culture

Besides Putin's tanks, there is another Russia,
and we extend a hand of friendship to this other Russia.

Everybody knows it is Putin's war, not that of the Russian people. Still, Russian citizens living in countries of the Alliance are discriminated against. Vodka vendors pour the liquid into the gutter, and borsht-serving restaurants are boycotted.

Cancel Putin and his faithful, not Russian culture and its citizens.

The text reads: I can't believe it, but it's a fact! Just now, in Milan, at Universita di Bicocca, they canceled Dostoevsky's course! And this is just the beginning of the abolition of Russian culture! So it becomes just a war against everything Russian!

хуй

In 1944 Red Baron lived in a Westphalian village where Russian POWs were building accommodations for us bombed-out townfolks. We children playing around the building site liked those gentle and kind men, and they were child-friendly. While working, they often said хуй that we boys eventually interpreted as a dick.

Now 77 years later, I learned a more direct meaning from a road sign in Odessa greeting incoming Russians:

Straight on: fuck off
Left: fuck off again
Right: fuck off to Russia

Stephen Colbert

On his Late Show, Stephen Colbert commented on the above press release, "Take that, Putin. We are not going to buy our oil from a war criminal. We are buying it from the good guys -- Saudi Arabia."

The laugh got stuck in my throat.

Show Your Colors

A lady in the Moscow Metro wears Ukrainian colors.

This is not new. 150 years ago, three bold ladies promenaded the French colors, blue-blanc-rouge, in occupied Alsace in front of a smoking Prussian constable. Olala!