‘Double Taps’ and Other Evils

Here is some news from today, via the Associated Press:

A Russian ballistic missile attack blasted homes in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Friday, followed by a second missile that targeted first responders who arrived at the scene, officials said. At least 16 people were killed.

(For that report in full, go here.)

This is what is known as a “double tap.” Russian forces have done this in Syria for years. You strike and kill a lot of people and injure a lot of others, trapping them in rubble. Then, when rescuers come, you strike again — killing or injuring them, too.

An old story, one that Syrians, and now Ukrainians, are all too acquainted with. Part of the evil of an evil and adventurous regime, namely Putin’s.

• About Putin and many of the officials beneath him, we can say this: They are often very candid. Far more candid than their apologists, “explainers,” and perfumers in the Free World.

• An article from The Economist is headed “A grinding, difficult war on Ukraine’s southern front.” Its subheading reads, “The Russians want to take Robotyne. But while the ammo lasts, Ukraine can hold them off.”

• Again, Russian officials are often very candid. But lots of people — I know a fair number of them — don’t want to listen. Because of what the candor reveals.

• Here is a report from the CBC — very hard to read, but very important: “Ukrainian survivors of sexual violence, torture say country will have to share burden of their trauma.” Will the perpetrators ever be brought to some kind of justice? One can only hope.

• Ukrainians are doing all they can to resist occupation or subjugation. They know what it means. They have had experience, for generations. Consider this:

Again: They know what occupation means. Is it any wonder that they are fighting as they are?

• Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal. I have pasted a couple of tweets from him, above. (Christopher Miller is a correspondent for the Financial Times.) Let me quote a bit from my piece about Trofimov:

In the West, including the United States, a variety of myths about Ukraine are believed. One of them is that Russian-speakers in the east of the country want to be ruled by Moscow.

Yes.

Here is a subsequent paragraph:

Trofimov recalls the words of the mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov. The two of them were speaking in a bunker as the city was being shelled. “He told me that the most ferocious enemies of Russia are the Russian-speakers in the east, because they are the ones who find themselves on the wrong end of Russian guns, they are the ones whose cities are being destroyed, whereas people in western Ukraine mostly watch the war on TV.”

Anyway, this belief about Ukraine and Russian-speakers is deeply entrenched in the West. It is deeply entrenched on the populist right. And, as David French says, Elon Musk is “the second most important person in MAGA.” (Musk has 177 million Twitter, or X, followers.)

• Rosa María Payá is the daughter of Oswaldo Payá, the martyred Cuban democrat and hero. A few weeks ago, she took note of something:

They have been partners for a long time: the Kremlin and the Cuban dictatorship. Putin has many allies: China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela . . . Dictatorships are pretty good at allying with one another; the democracies should be half as good.