LIFE AND NEWS NOTES FROM A CHILDLESS OLD LADY WORKING AWAY IN ONE OF THE SUB-BASEMENTS OF THE MINISTRY OF SNARK

Saturday 4 July 2026

There was a fairly good turn out at the anti-Trump rally in downtown today. We had a lot of horn blowing, but also some bird throwing and cursing. What a nice group of people, but it was scorchingly hot. We stand at a popular intersection and protest twice a week. Most of the participants are over 60 at least.

NEWS NOTES

Russia: Assassination of high-profile opponents of Ukraine.

Article: Nechepurenko, Ivan (7/10/26) Senior Russian military official is killed… New York Times

· “The episode appeared to be the latest targeted assassination of high-profile opponents of Ukraine in Russia’s heartland. It came as Kiev had successfully thwarted Moscow’s attempt to launch a summer offensive and as the Ukrainian military has been bringing the war home to Russia, including through long range strikes on Moscow and on oil assets across the country.”

· Russian media outlets said that the man who died was DAMIR. R DAVYDOV. Davydov was said to be an officer in the supply department for the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian military responsible for getting supplies to Ukraine. (Note: This fits in completely with Ukraine’s practice of targeting sites and people directly involved in the war, not civilians as does Russia.)

· The explosion occurred in the same neighborhood where an attack took place in April of 2025. In that strike, Major General Yaroslav. Moscovici, deputy head of the main operational department of the General Staff, was killed by a car bomb.

· These attacks embarrass the Kremlin’s security services.

· At the end of December. Lieutenant General FANIL. SARVAROV. Head of the General Staff’s Army Operational Training Directorate died in the car bombing the year before.

· In December of 2024. EGOR. KIR. ILLOV. A general in charge of the Russian military’s nuclear and chemical weapons protection forces died after an explosive device planted in a scooter detonated near the entrance to a residential building.

· (Note: A number of other sudden deaths have befallen corporate executives, regional officials and public figures. For example, (10/2025) The U. S. Sun. Putin’s politician’s body found hanging from tree with hands bound while ex-transport boss discovered dead at Moscow hotel.”)

Article: Shuster, Simon (7/1/26) Putin is slipping into delusion. The Atlantic.

· When things seem rough, Putin frequently disappears. On Monday, he did a carefully scripted interview on state TV. He “looked bored…” “He spent most of the 19-minute conversation with the Russian news anchor dissecting the minutiae of the fighting, even naming a particular St. in one small town in the region of Donetsk where, according to Putin, his forces had managed to gain a bit of ground. The performance seemed designed to suggest that away from the cameras, the Russian leader spends his time hunched over maps in the battlefield.”

· In a recent survey, it was found that 81 percent of Russians want the war to end. Given long lines at gas stations and social media postings lamenting the hardships of life in Russia, it is not surprising that the war, finally affecting the population, has become more than just a temporary “military operation.”

· If past meetings are any indications, Putin is reportedly bored with anything except war and the details of his current car. Putin (as Trump) was reported to have appeared to have been making up facts as he went along including making up rivers nobody had ever heard of. “The Russian president’s obsession with the details of the fighting appears to have crossed the line into delusion.”

· Unfortunately, that mania for war doesn’t make him any more likely to cut his losses and accept a negotiated peace.”

· The Russians struggle to make up the estimated 30,000 troop loss a month, even while offering recruitment bonuses of up to $80,000. For those sent to the front the life expectancy stands at two to three weeks.

· A third draft would “devastate the Russian economy and risk a surge of popular unrest.” Many, however, argue he has little choice.

· (Book by Shuster: “The Showman.” About the Russian invasion of Ukraine.)

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES

Sunday 5 July 2026

Article: Davis, Julia (7/2/26) Putin is in so much trouble he’s lost his no. 1 propaganda star. Daily Beast.

· Putin has had a falling out with his number 1 decorated state TV host, Vladimir Solovyov. He is also losing credibility with the Russian public.

· This war has “destroyed the Russian economy, cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and cratered Putin’s reputation at home.”

· After (supposedly) reporting from the front to lionize the military in Ukraine, this year Solovyov has been snubbed. He was not invited to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) he says because he might ask awkward questions about “the four horsemen of the economic apocalypse: high interest rates, a growing tax burden, a strong ruble, and problems associated with administrative barriers.”

· Solovyov, according to the reporter, “overpromised and underdelivered” just like Putin. His shows feature a “panicked host urging his viewers not to panic.” He “complains about Russia’s inability to protect its infrastructure from Ukrainian drones, bemoans fuel shortages, highlights…failure to manufacture its own drones in the necessary quantities, and underscores an ongoing need for more recruits.”

· New soldiers have an estimated 20 to 35minutes of life expectancy in combat in Ukraine.

· He constantly urges his viewers to enlist.

· The mood in Russia is “rapidly shifting, now that Ukraine has brought this war to Russian soil.” An “absolute Majority of Russians. Dash 81%. Would support ending the war tomorrow.”

· He characterizes his viewers as complaining: “You are depriving us and our children of a future.”

· Solovyov. Usually ends. His program by threatening that the whole world will cease to exist if Russia loses in Ukraine. But during his June 28th. Program. He ended. By predicting that Russia, and not the entire planet, will perish if it doesn’t win.