[Huntingwhale]

Just had a long talk with my wife. She is close to Kharkov, bunkered down with her family in their village. Kharkov was hit hard last night. For 2 days she saw a steady stream of tanking heading there. Around 10pm CET hellfire was raining down on the city until about 6am CET. However now seems some Russian hardware is in the city.

As mentioned by various reports, the Russian army is very disorganized in many areas. She said that most of the soldiers that come through her village are 19-25 years old. Many of them ask for food and have no kind of phone or GPS signal with them. They don't know if they are in Russia or Ukraine when they end up in the village. Most of them trek it on foot towards Kharkov, or follow the highway there once they see it.

She said that many of them are also just hiding in the forested areas and have no desire to fight. That's why they go around asking households for food. She's finally been able to get some food in her stomach, take a shower, general hygiene. But it's tough. It's hard for me to even eat these days but I can't imagine what it's like for her and her family. Confirmed with her and her family that the geolocations are all turned off on their phones. Reduced their social media presence just in case someone is 'watching'.

Thankfully her family has turned off all the Russian news since obviously it's all lies. Get's a lot of her information from UA news sources, telegram, and myself. She even cracked a smile on her face today when I told her that steady stream of tanks she saw heading to Kharkov, many lay in ruins or are abandoned on the way. Still, trying to lift her spirits a bit with how hard her country is fighting is hard. I can trot out all the "good news" I want, but fact remains she sees, hears and feels tanks and explosions most of the day. Can tell her about sanctions all I want, but it means nothing to a family currently bunkered down. Hard to feel optimism of any kind when that is what you experience all day.

Also heard a very sad story that her 10 year old cousin was killed by an explosion while he was outside in his village. Poor boy. Nobody deserves that fate. Putin has officially committed a war crime on her personal family. Disgusting POS and not a second of each day goes by where I'm not waiting for his death, someway somehow.

Passed on some messages of love and support from my friends and family. Also told her that the silly hockey site I'm always on (aka CP) has some messages of support and she got a good chuckle out of that. She still has no idea why I spend so much time here...but we had a good laugh about that. So thank you all for the PMs and messages here.

Today is another day of survival for them. What she is worried about now is that Putin will escalate the orders in order to achieve some kind of victory on his end. She's worried that although all the soldiers tell them they only want to go to Kharkov to hit military targets, that those orders change to be a bit more hostile in order to reduce Ukrainian morale. Hoping it doesn't come to that point and praying that a miracle happens and the combination of sanctions and UA resistance will force some kind of ceasefire sooner than later.