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Another image in my sunflower series in support of Ukraine, this is from a “chocolate” cultivar with completely brown petals. The pollen still glows brightly like most sunflowers, but interestingly there is no visible “bullseye” pattern in the ultraviolet spectrum that pollinators can see. I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise with human-influenced cultivars; we didn’t selectively breed these sunflowers for the insects, we created them for their beauty in the visible spectrum.

Unlike a straight-on view, the sharp difference between the petals and the pollen in the center deserved to be framed in a different way. At this angle, the petals interact more with the center, almost like they are staying warm around a fiery heat of a campfire. I can imagine many soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine doing just that in the weeks and months ahead as winter approaches.

There has been a lot of news since my last post, including the announcement today that Putin has begin a “partial” mobilization of its citizens – in other words, forced conscription. But before we get to that, I was worried that when investigations began in newly-liberated territory in Ukraine, the world would discover atrocities like those discovered in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Sadly, this is true. I hate to write about the details, but I feel the world needs to know some of these stories.

I’ll try not to be too graphic, but at least one mass grave of 450 individuals has been discovered in Izyum. The bodies are being exhumed, inspected for war crimes and cause of death, and hopefully identified. Some had nooses around their necks. One man was found with his hands tied behind his back, obvious signs of torture (crushed testicles, among other things), and many others with overt signs of distress or torture before their murder. There are also occurrences of sexual assault of children. You can imagine that these are not isolated incidents, and the monsters that committed these crimes are likely still at large, in the reconstituted front lines.

The retreat from places like Izyum were so chaotic that the Russian forces dropped whatever they were doing and fled. They left a lot behind, including a number of tanks, armoured personnel vehicles and support equipment effectively amount to a complete battalion. In full working order. This includes some of their latest equipment such as a T-90M tank which only entered into service in 2019. Russia inadvertently is becoming one of the biggest weapons suppliers to Ukraine, when other nations (Germany is a great example) have been setting up roadblocks for the delivery of modern tanks. In sure that more “gifts” from Russia will be discovered and put to use in the >6000 square kilometers that the Ukrainian forces have liberated since the beginning of the month.

The Ukrainian forces are better equipped, better trained, and far more motivated than Russia. And still, they persist. The next goal for Russia appears to be sham referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (provinces) to claim that those areas are now a part of Russia. This would allow Putin to falsely claim that the Ukrainian forces have invaded “Russian soil” which could trigger a more wide-spread mobilization effort. However, there is no infrastructure to support this. Things are a lot different than during the Soviet era.

(side note: Soviets / Russians are no stranger to forcing referendums at gun-point. Bulgaria is a great example. Hitler assassinated the King of Bulgaria, Boris III, via slow-acting poison after he refused to transport Jews to Poland and refused to declare war on closer enemies. His son, then six years old, assumed the thrown as Simeon II. Three years later in 1946, the Soviets [who had occupied Bulgaria back in September 1944] held a referendum to abolish the monarchy. The population voted roughly 96% in favour of it. Soviet troops were withdrawn in 1947. Interesting related fact: the city of Varna [which we live just outside of] was renamed to “Stalin” from December 20, 1949 to October 20, 1956.)

See, mass mobilization efforts require a support network: equipment, food, training personnel, higher-ranking officers to oversee the new recruits, barracks, communication, etc. During the height of the Soviet era, there were entire battalions with almost no soldiers. They maintained a skeleton crew to support the influx of conscripts in the event of general mobilization, and such preparedness efforts were extremely costly. The kleptocratic ethos of modern-day Russia has not allowed for any of that.

And winter is coming. Countries aligned with Ukraine have been supplying winter equipment to the Ukrainian forces. I still remember at the beginning of this conflict when the Ukrainian forces discovered a dead Russian soldier with an RPG launcher in his hands. He was chained to a post so that he would not desert his position, and died from exposure. And that was from an era when Russia still had the illusion of intelligence. This poses a problem regarding Russia’s disregard for civilian lives. What would stop the Russians from occupying the homes of Ukrainians during the upcoming months? No need to stockpile anything, just shoot the inhabitants and live in their homes.

New Russian conscripts are going to receive TWO WEEKS of basic training before being sent to the front lines. Train columns of T62-M tanks have been spotted heading towards the Donbas region. Russia is throwing everything they have at this senseless conflict, bit doing so in the ineptest way possible. Barges and pontoon bridges continuously get destroyed by the Ukrainian forces, so much so that Russia is using helicopters to resupply troops. Nazi Germany tried this as a last resort in the Battle of Stalingrad. It did not go well.