[FRIAM] what's the view from Europe?

[Steve Smith]

On 3/4/22 8:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1499440540290584583
>
I started watching this guy (Beau of the Fifth Column) semi-regularly 
months ago even though his affect triggers a lot of my attempts to 
ignore my own redneck roots.   I don't think I've mentioned him 
before... I half expect Glen is already clued in to him.  It is hard to 
see/hear him without expecting to hear the Trump Train tooting in the 
background, but he's quite the opposite.  Scary relevant/clued in/clear IMO.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPzQ1DyGZHs

This "episode" felt like a powerful smack-down of those 
(politicians/pundits?) who are rattling "no fly" sabers.   To summarize, 
my takeaway was "if you think you can establish a no-fly zone in 
Ukraine, it would be yonks better to keep your powder dry and do a first 
strike because a no-fly *will* be Putin's pretext, even though he'll 
likely find another anyway".

In personal anecdote space, Mary's nephew  in Madison WI hosted a young 
woman from Ukraine as an exchange student a few years ago. They did a 
GoFundme to raise the cash to do everything they could to get her out.  
She was hunkered down 80 miles East of Kyiv  on a farm she was interning 
(organic farming) on... all the women and children evacuated  fairly 
early on but they didn't have room for all so she and another young 
woman stayed behind.    In the last two days, she worked her way from 
there to Lviv (<50 miles from Poland) and hopes to make it to the border 
where the current time just standing in line to be processed is order 20 
hours (according to her) though Poland has no document requirements...   
if you show up at the border and you are not a military age (16-60?) age 
male they take your name and try to help you figure out what to do next 
I guess.    The nephew and wife who are expecting their second child any 
day now are trying to get her here to their rural homestead to live 
indefinitely.   Otherwise (imminent birth) her nephew would be in Poland 
to meet her.

My Ukrainian colleagues are still incommunicado with me, but our mutual 
colleagues who have remained engaged (Matt and Janire of 4Pi 
Productions, some of you met/knew through SFx... English/Spanish) speak 
with the non-Russian of the duo (Yuri) every day or two.   They are 
hyper-focused capable 40-somethings and at least Yuri will be one of the 
guys figuring out how to pry the tracks off of tanks with prosumer 
drones or something.

I have one other Ukranian (Karkeiv) contact that I have only had one 
brief contact with a couple of days ago.  She is a lot less resourceful 
and in spite of having power, water, even internet (intermittently) 
doesn't know what to do beyond hiding in her basement (apartment 
building) everytime there is a air raid warning.   She wasn't able to 
give me enough info in our brief exchange to know how to even begin to 
help her personally. Right now financial aid in general (as per Glen's 
ideations against over-focusing on only helping people you know) seems 
like the "most/least" we can do.

My former NREL colleague (now IOHK/Global ala Cardano/Ada) has 12 
colleagues in Ukraine, he only knew of 2 a week ago and a similar or 
larger number in Russia) and expects to get more "insider stories" from 
both quarters "soon".

This feels much bigger in my lifetime than 9/11, Iraq/Afghanistan, 
COVID, even Trump....   maybe it is the proximity in time, or a lifetime 
of cold-war spectre.



>
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