With over 80% of the residences damaged or destroyed

My Sunday movie was the musical Tick, Tick ... Boom! It stars Andrew Garfield, who learned to sing and play the piano to take on the role. It’s directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The story was written by Jonathan Larson who is also the main character. He’s the guy who wrote Rent and died at age 35 just before that show premiered. At the beginning of this movie we hear “Everything you are about to see is true... except for the parts Jonathan made up.” This show is a musical about writing a musical, originally conceived as a one-man show. The year is 1990, Larson is about to turn 30, and is feeling he hasn’t accomplished anything yet. He is getting tired of living in poverty and working at a diner, but thinks creating art is much better than writing advertising copy, which his friend Michael is doing after giving up a career as an actor. Michael is gay, Larson isn’t, and it is good to see a robust friendship between the two. We see an intermix of scenes of Larson writing his musical Superbia (I think it’s that and not Suburbia because it doesn’t take place in the suburbs), rehearsing it, arranging a workshop of the show in hopes of attracting producers, living his life, and then telling an audience about all that (the eventual Tick, Tick ... Boom! show). Some songs, all written by Larson, are from the inner show, some from the outer, and some from living life, much of it autobiographical). There is a big production number at the diner where Larson works, all about the rush during Sunday brunch after one of his fellow waiters lands in the hospital with AIDS. The scene was populated by actual Broadway legends with Miranda as cook. I suspected something like that was up when I spotted Bernadette Peters. Garfield gave a fine performance, including his singing, as did everyone else. This is a movie I recommend. Three months ago and noting I’ve been streaming a movie once a week, Niece said I could use her Netflix password. She then sent it to me. I didn’t use it before now because I didn’t want to make things difficult between her and Netflix. Then last week I read a news article saying Netflix encourages password sharing, though most of the article was about Netflix starting to end that perk. Yes, a great deal of customer complaint over that move. So I tried it last night. And I was glad I could watch Larson’s story. I’ve got a few more Netflix shows on my to-see list. I will write about Ukraine updates when I see they have something interesting or important to say. Given that the war is mostly at a standstill that will likely be less frequently. Even so, here are a couple important things. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote a post just before noon on Saturday. What caught my eye is the start of the second paragraph.

Mariupol has been surrounded since shortly after the invasion began. Russian forces have purposely destroyed the area’s access to water, gas, and electricity. They’ve blocked humanitarian convoys attempting to bring in food and medical supplies. And they’ve kept over 300,000 people bottled up even as Russia continues to blast away. Now, with over 80% of Mariupol’s residences damaged or destroyed, and with emergency workers still trying to extract those trapped beneath the rubble of the theater that Russia purposely bombed on Thursday, Russian forces have finally broken through Mariupol’s outer defenses and fighting has moved into the streets. Ukrainian defenders—despite a shortage of both food and ammunition—managed to take out a trio of Russian tanks on Saturday, but with the fighting near the center of the city (and interfering with efforts to save those still under the theater), the mayor of Mariupol has warned that the city’s remaining defenses may soon collapse. If that happens, resistance is sure to continue in the debris-choked streets, but Russia will be at least able to claim that it controls the entire coast of the Sea of Azov, with areas in Donbas connected by a corridor to Crimea. Even so, the stability of that corridor is definitely in doubt. As Kos has repeatedly pointed out, in most areas what Russia actually controls is a very narrow zone around the highways.

Kos of Kos titled this morning’s post “Good news, Russia can't win! Bad news, neither can Ukraine.” Kos and Sumner have documented (and I’ve repeated) why Russia can’t win – they’re stretched too thin and can’t do logistics well, while the country’s economic situation is collapsing. Russia seems to be adjusting to that reality and might be satisfied with the land between Donbas and Crimea (where Mariupol is holding out). Russia is not going to give up that territory. If Ukraine wants that land it must be taken by force. Ukraine has lots of military equipment, thanks to NATO, but it is all defensive. Which is the only thing NATO will give.

Looking through Ukraine’s arsenal, there is plenty to bleed Russia dry, but little to dislodge them from the pre-war boundaries, where the populace is less likely to welcome a return to Ukrainian control. There is no Air Force, and Ukraine won’t indiscriminately level cities to force surrender. (And that strategy hasn’t even worked well for Russia, despite its massive advantages.) Ukraine’s armor is old, and best used in defensive entrenchments. It won’t fare well exposed to Russian missiles, air power, and artillery. And so we’re stuck. There is no realistic scenario in which Ukraine manages to reunify the country by force. It just doesn’t have the offensive combat capability to do so. So the most likely scenario is a return to the pre-war borders, Ukrainian “neutrality” of some sort (it’ll still get its security guarantees though other treaties that aren’t NATO), and a war criminal mass murderer sitting in the Kremlin, with zero accountability for his crimes. Perhaps the only consolation will be that Ukraine can’t negotiate away Russia’s brutal economic sanctions. And while the broader sanctions regime will crumble as countries like Italy demand to sell Gucci to Russian oligarchs, the United States doesn’t have to follow along, crippling Russia’s economy indefinitely. Europe will continue moving away from Russian fossil fuels, putting Russia’s economy in China’s hands, which China will exploit to its advantage. ... Ukraine would have to decide whether it was worth thousands more dead, billions more in infrastructure damage, and continued economic damage and food insecurity (both domestically and globally), all for pieces of land that aren’t required for its own successful statehood. Heck, pull a West Germany—build such a successful economy, that Donbas would want reunification. Aligning with the Russian wasteland won’t bring prosperity to the region. If the past eight years are any indication, quite the opposite will continue to happen.