Array
After a night of Russian missile strikes on Kyiv apartment buildings killed three people, you’d expect the mood Saturday to be somber.
The air-raid alerts started more than two hours before the Ukrainian capital’s midnight curfew Friday and continued with cellphones blasting sirens at nearly 6 a.m.
But something much more important had happened in Russia itself: Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose mercenary Wagner Group just days ago was killing Ukrainians, captured military supply-hub Rostov and began a march to Moscow, the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule since he took power in 2000.
When I arrived in nearby Irpin, hit hard when invaded Feb. 24, 2022, I shook hands with former Mayor Volodymyr Karpliuk and remarked, “Good news from Russia.”
“Da,” he agreed, a huge smile lighting up his face.
“Maybe it will stop the war in our territory. He must take his soldiers to Russia,” mused the translator, Olha Hushchyna, 37.
Her husband has been a prisoner of war in Russia for eight years — their daughter just 2 when he was taken.
