Continue to pray for friends in Odesa and places peppered with reminders that everything is being attempted even if nothing ultimately succeeds.

 Over the last few days there has been a significant increase in activity around the coastal region of Odesa. Rockets and drones of course are sadly not unusual. What seems more brazen is the constant efforts to target civilian targets as a gesture of street bullying by military means. 

The post service office was just one of many targets, which cannot be defined in any way as of military significance. From the beginning of this full scale invasion the objective has been to terrify, kill, torture and intimidate, not so much a milirary exercise as a terrorist plan of chaos and destruction. 

Of a similar ilk were the attacks on Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia. Three civilians killed and  six wounded. In addition, residential buildings and civilian infrastructure facilities have been damaged. In the city of Nikopol, (Dnipropetrovsk Oblast), a Russian FPV drone killed a 70-year-old woman. Another local resident, aged 47, suffered shrapnel injuries and is receiving outpatient care. The strike also set a house on fire.

Such attacks only achieve present misery and judgement to come. The rumours of troop buildups and attacks from Russia taking over Moldova, the protracted confusion about what on earth Russia is doing in Belarus, display that this is a time of panic for those who intended it all to be over in 2-3 days. This is being made up as we go, no cohesive master plan. 

Whilst the world focusses on the daily roadshow that is the American president, the daily reality for those who are talked about, those who are actually living amidst and enduring this nightmare, is much less promoted or attended to. No-one wants to look at more destruction and pain, it has been relegated in international news because there are more curious and entertaining stories of why Mr Trump had to walk up stairs (escalator broke in UN), and why his teleprompter didnt work. Although he blamed both on the UN, both were mistakes by his own aides. However, mistakes come in different sizes, and some result in greater pain for millions in our world not just a bruised ego. The lack of activity to defend Ukraine from others in 2014 is just that, and flip flop support every since has prolonged things thus far. 

The very recent increased Nato activity however and moves to defend Moldova comes as 74 are arrested there (aged 19-45)  with ties to the SVR the Russian security services. All this in 24 hours suggests another rubicon has been breached. It would appear to the outsider that although the initial full scale invasion was an overoptimistic stretch by the Kremlin, the scattergun approach of the last few days to take a wider scope is even moreso. Poland, Baltics, Eastonia, South coast Ukraine, Moldova... this has strechted out to test the resolve of Ukrainian neighbours. 

There is a lack of strategy, intelligence,  coordination and consistency in these things. Spreading yourself too thin to take europe is an elementary lesson learned by children playing the board game "risk", yet Moscow still sees this as a viable tactic when it is already stretched to take borders it cannot hold on to in Ukraine. It remains confident that brute force and confidence will be enough, but in reality this is not truth palying out. It will take more than house fires to break the spirit of the Ukrainian nation. It will take more than an arial prod to catch out European or Nato intellegence and military collaboration. 

The delusional grandeaur of a Russian superstate, is being pragmatically outplayed within the reality of  a sperated and disperate resource in segregated locations. A basic timeless military principle is that "together we stand..." Connection of resources and solidarity to make a chain of command, geographical support for supplies, is what wins historic and pivotal situations like this. It seems that delusion has overlooked this basic practical principle. There is a lack of reality getting Moscow into deeper waters. Troops cannot fight well when they are psychotic withoit medication, hungry, unstable convicts who carry shovels. Pain is the very present reality for so many in Ukraine, the fatigue very justified by having to needlessly suffer the aggressor, but the truth and reality is that Ukriane is standing strong and with Europe displaying such support to see this to a successful conclusion for the wellbeing of Ukrainian friends, iwe have never witnessed a bond so string "together". Self motivated in part the Euopean and Nato alliance may be,  but more effective than it has been in the last 1000 days and more signficant than ever before in this conflict it certainly is. 

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/14/russias-spy-agency-accuses-nato-of-dragging-moldova-into-conflict-a89803

https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2023-09-25/moldova-enhancing-military-cooperation-west