Is The Mood Darkening In Ukraine?

Washington Post: Slow counteroffensive darkens mood in Ukraine 

KYIV, Ukraine — This nation is worn out. 

For nearly 18 months, Ukraine has stood against its Russian invaders — rallying support for its troops by embracing last year’s battlefield victories in the Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson regions. 

Those wins carried beleaguered Ukrainians through a winter of airstrikes on civilian infrastructure and a brutal and symbolic battle for Bakhmut, the eastern city that fell to the Russians in May. 

Throughout, Ukrainian officials and their western partners hyped up a coming counteroffensive — one that, buoyed by a flood of new weapons and training, they hoped would turn the tide of the war. 

But two months after Ukraine went on the attack, with little visible progress on the front and a relentless, bloody summer across the country, the narrative of unity and endless perseverance has begun to fray. 

The number of dead — untold thousands — increases daily. Millions are displaced and see no chance of returning home. In every corner of the country, civilians are exhausted from a spate of recent Russian attacks — including strikes on a historic cathedral in Odessa, a residential building in Kryvyi Rih and a blood transfusion center in the Kharkiv region. 

This week, two Russian missiles hit a single block in the eastern town of Pokrovsk — where an evacuation train regularly picks up people fleeing front-line areas nearby — killing civilians and emergency workers who rushed there to save them. Ukrainians, much in need of good news, are simply not getting any. 

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Update: Ukrainians Begin To Despair As Bloody Counteroffensive Yields Small Gains (Kyle Anzalone, Libertarian Institute)  

WNU Editor: Last Christmas I mentioned to my family members and friends in Ukraine that my analysis of the conflict told me the war was going to go into 2024 and Kyiv will capitulate to Moscow's demands. 

Everyone disagreed with me. They were all horrified with the though that the war would not end in 2023, and not on Ukraine's terms. 

In the past week I have changed my prediction of the war ending to 2025 and beyond, and on even harsher Moscow terms. No one is disagreeing with me. 

A good portion of the people that I know in Ukraine are now looking for a way to get out, and the rest are asking for my help to continue delivering money and goods to them so that they can weather the war for the next three to four years. 

Everyone also knows someone who has been killed or crippled in this conflict. The casualty numbers are mind numbing, and those who have been reported missing even more shocking. In my own case I know of two who have been killed, one has been missing since April, and three wounded. 

I have also noticed that no one I know in Ukraine is believing what their media is saying about the war, nor what their leaders and officials are announcing. 

The mood is definitely darkening. 

On a personal note. My mood is also darkening. The Ukraine that I know will never be the same when this war is over.

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