So did the world on February 24, 2022, especially people in Ukraine. An old school military invasion. Tanks, planes, ships; missiles, heavy artillery, armed men. Depending on the next few days, weeks, months, this date may yet grow in significance.
Big war, it’s called in Russian, when physical military aggression is taken. Большая война. The warmonger in charge got his war. His hot war to trample Ukraine. His pretext to provoke the world and realign its order on a Russian and Soviet imperial scale. He is writing himself into history in the only way he can conjure. By spilling blood.
I want to call the violent incursion unbelievable, but sigh deeply at an escalating suspicion that Putin would do it. Delusion and desperation know no bounds for this autocratic killer with broad power and a loose grasp on reality. Big war suits his training and his style. The generational grudges Putin carried into power have been fermenting and he’s decided it’s time to uncork the fetid brew. He senses inevitable change looming, a chaos that he didn’t create and can’t forestall. He is lashing out while he can and means to carve a mark.
I’m partial. Part Odessa-born, late Cold War era migrant to the United States, with close relatives in both Ukraine and Russia; part historian of US immigration, social movements, and 20th century foreign policy; part citizen of the world, enraged and bereft. I have much to report and reflect about all of this.
One dispatch at a time.
To be continued. The war has just begun.
SeeknSea 
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