one week

One week. 

One. 

I'm working the avocado toast again so I'm ready when we get there. Yesterday's was completely edible. Today I rubbed garlic on the toast and had some butter on it and it was soooo much better. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine will get two IRIS-T air defense systems from Germany this year and two next year. 

Four days ago Russia was using helicopters to try to capture their deserters. Thursday Russian troops in Moldova were deserting en masse. A Russian brigade has stopped paying wounded troops. 

It seems that a top Russian commander, Lieutenant General Andrei Sychevoi, was captured. It hasn't been confirmed but he sure looks like him.

Jubilant residents are thrilled Ukraine controls their villages again. Some residents who were detained by Russians broke free. It took months of grinding combat for Moscow to gain this territory and they lost more than 3,500 miles in days. 

This turnabout is also a warning to Ukrainians who helped Russia, either because they were convinced Russia would win or because they truly wanted them to. Collaborators are now lying low or running. Even if Russia regains some territory, it will cause would-be collaborators to think harder about it. 

Where Russians painted their tricolor signs, locals have painted blue and yellow. One of the Russian signs on a billboard, "We are one with Russia," was torn down and verses from a Ukrainian poet were underneath. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainians in Kherson (south) are trying to resist. In March after the Russians invaded residents filled the streets toprotest. The Russians couldn't believe it was spontaneous and kept looking for organizers. 

Resistance movements in Russia itself have become emboldened. A few fires become many. By May, Russian military bases, conscription centers, transportation centers, and factories aiding the war effort were on fire or exploding almost daily with different groups taking credit. One of these is called the National Republican Army, an anti-war, anti_Kremlin group. The group, "Stop the Trains" sabotages transportation of military vehicles. 

Finally, Vice reports that there are UFOs over Kyiv. There is supposedly, according to a paper by Kyiv's Main Astronomical Observatory, an inordinate number of UFOs. They are so fast it is hard to take pictures of them. They are completely black. 

One week from now I will, fingers crossed, be on an airplane. Kate will be on a different airplane. We will be winging across the world to the land of fire and ice. 

Any little tricks you like on your avocado toast? 
One week.