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The Times has this harrowing, disturbing report from Trostyanets. It’s a good, reported, observational piece on what happened. One key takeaway is that civilians describe the initial Russian occupying force as professional and agreeable enough. Eyewitnesses describe many of them as disoriented, not even quite sure why they were there. (Remember, the Russian soldiers apparently had very little advance warning they were actually going to war.) But as time went on they got antsy and started running low on supplies. That led to a cycle of looting and the tensions that follow from it. But things really went bad when this initial force was cycled out and replaced with Chechen separatist paramilitaries.

As I’ve mentioned to you before, I continue to find Michael Kofman, who works at CNA, the big Navy think tank, the most measured and informative analyst for information on the war in Ukraine. Today he posted a Twitter thread which has as many questions as answers. But there’s a key dynamic I want to highlight. We tend to make fun of the Russian insistence on calling the Ukraine war a “special military operation.” But this turns out to have important real world implications.