“Right now, I’m thinking more about how to save my people,” says Mykhailo Temper. “It’s quite hard to imagine we will be able to move the enemy back to the borders of 1991,” he adds, referring to his country’s aim of restoring its full territorial integrity.
Once buoyed by hopes of liberating their lands, even soldiers at the front now voice a desire for negotiations with Russia to end the war. Yuriy, another commander on the eastern front who gave only his first name, says he fears the prospect of a “forever war”.
“I am for negotiations now,” he adds, expressing his concern that his son — also a soldier — could spend much of his life fighting and that his grandson might one day inherit an endless conflict.
“If the US turns off the spigot, we’re finished,” says another officer, a member of the 72nd Mechanised Brigade, in nearby Kurakhove.
Ukraine is heading into what may be its darkest moment of the war so far. It is losing on the battlefield in the east of the country, with Russian forces advancing relentlessly — albeit at immense cost in men and equipment.
The thing about taxes is it only works when you're a big fish in a small pond. Amazon Fulfillment Center doesn't have to pay taxes to the small Arkansas municipal government they functionally own. But you can be fucking sure that the extremely white sheriff and his Good'ole'Boy deputies won't tolerate a tax payment showing up late when it's the low-income black neighborhood Amazon Fulfillment Center workers who are on the hook.
That is, after all, the agreement between the city and the business. The city budget doesn't come from the company coffers, it comes from the salaries of the employees' paychecks. Rents are for Little People.