I didn’t intend this site to be political or historical, but the challenges of our time demand that we do both. As we follow the war maps and reports from eastern Ukraine, it’s almost unbelievable how quickly the Ukrainian army has seized the initiative and recovered territory that was lost in Russia’s grinding summer offensive. Some commentators are already claiming that they told us so, that they somehow foresaw the Ukrainian strategy, and that may be so, but I confess: I didn’t see this coming. I was, of course, cautiously excited by the Ukrainian offensive around Kherson. I say cautiously, because it seemed almost too good to be true that Ukraine was corralling a Russian force of more than twenty thousand troops and cutting them off from their supply lines to Crimea. I did fantasize that now might be a good time for the Ukrainians to try a feint in the Kharkiv area, a surprise attack that might throw the Russians off their guard and distract them from the main battle in Kherson, but that was only a fantasy. Little did I know that the Ukrainian Army had the wherewithal to mount a real offensive in the northeast, or that the Russians were so ill-prepared there that their defense would collapse. I think it’s still important to be cautious. It seems almost impossible that the Russian commanders could really be as incompetent as they’ve shown themselves to be, so some small part of me fears this could be a trap. So far, though, that’s a very small part. The rest of me is cheering on the Ukrainians as they reclaim their stolen land.

Oh, and here’s one more piece of personal satisfaction: it’s reported that Denis Pushilin, the craven opportunist and traitor who acted as Russia’s puppet in Donetsk, has fled the city. Pushilin was a small-time grifter who became a Russian mouthpiece after the Russians fomented a fake “insurgency” in the province. As a correspondent in the years immediately following the Russian takeover in Donetsk, I had to cover so-called press conferences in which Pushilin and his cronies claimed to leaders of a separatist insurgency. If the reports are true, I’ll be glad that Pushilin followed the example of his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovich, and high-tailed it out of town when the going got tough.