May 17, 2025 Today I went to Izium. Izium is not some backwater Soviet industrial village. The area has been inhabited since at least the neolithic 3rd century BC; the city was founded in the 17th century and achieved its municipal title in the 18th. Much of the architecture dates back to the 18th and…

Alarm after alarm buzzes around 8am as Putin flexes ahead of meetings in Turkey. They pose no danger to me, but I dare not restrict my notice settings any further. It’s a beautiful day in Kharkiv. I have no meetings until the afternoon and the blood donation center is closed today, so I set off…

My phone screams at me. It’s around 3am and I’m getting a perfectly timed reminder that I need to tune my air raid warning system correctly. I grumble about it into my pillow for about two hours before I pass out again. Tuning assistance in the morning comes with a reminder to be glad this…

Regards from Kharkiv. I actually arrived yesterday, but after a journey spanning 4,900 miles (over 850 overland) and 60 hours spent between two cars, two planes, and three trains I needed to call an early night. Putin’s invasion has rendered passenger air travel nonviable, and so the most practical method for non-official persons to traverse…