Notices by Tim Mak (timkmak@journa.host), page 19

So today, in lieu of news, we will be posting excerpts of her writing.

“Air-raid sirens across the country
It feels like everyone is brought out
For execution
But only one person gets targeted
Usually the one at the edge

This time not you; all clear”

http://www.verseville.org/poems-by-victoria-amelina.html

"I believed in this Russian world, can you imagine? All my life I believed we were brothers!’ the poor man exclaimed, surrounded by the ruins of his beloved city.

It must be way more painful to realize where your true home is in such a cruel way...”

http://www.iwpcollections.org/victoria-amelina

We will continue to highlight marginalized communities and the people you don’t hear about in other outlets. 

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Counteroffensive.news

For a publication that is just two months old, it was devastating. We work seven days a week to grow our audience.

However, we believe that subscriber numbers don’t mean anything if we don’t hold true to our values.

Good morning, readers: Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands. But, last night the city endured its first air raid in 12 days. As Ukrainians deal with the 493rd day of war, some turn to escapism in the form of tabletop role-playing games. http://counteroffensive.news

Tasha Dashkyevich could be forgiven for engaging in a little daydreaming and escapism. Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games are often considered the pastime of nerdy basement-dwellers in suburban homes, not by displaced people seeking a respite from war.

But Dashkyevich says that her community has thrived since the Russian invasion began — a small interlude from the trauma and realities of the war.

Ukrainian gamers are harnessing the power of these games to heal scars of trauma, build fortitude, foster communities, and preserve their unique cultural identity.
http://counteroffensive.news

Dashkyevich is 37, and from Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea. She started playing sometime in 2008 after moving to Kyiv, she said, with a “crazy homebrew” hodgepodge of paper and imagination.

Official Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks and figurines are expensive in Ukraine, thanks to regional licenses that tend to lump all post-Soviet countries into a single, Russian-dominated region.

“We were not aware that there are [formal] books, there was one guy who traveled to Kyiv and bought the original dice set, but we were only allowed to look at it, not actually roll it because it was super expensive,” Tasha said.

Today, she is an accomplished Game Master with her own YouTube channel, Idearoll, started in 2019. Her favorite game is Call of Cthulhu, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s dark tales of cosmic horror. https://youtube.com/@idearoll

Read more about Tasha and how TTRPG's are helping out on the homefront at: http://counteroffensive.news

Around 2:30 am, Shahed drones and Kalibr missiles attacked the capital while air defense responded. The Counteroffensive’s writers were also awakened by another air raid siren around 7:20 am. It was an eventful night and morning.
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-reports-taking-down-all-8-drones-3-missiles-fired-overnight/

It’s been one week since the attempted Wagner coup, and their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has not been heard from in several days. A camp is being built in Belarus and Russian state media is rewriting the history of the Wagner group in front of Russia's eyes. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war.html

President Zelenskyy said the Russians had mined the plant, and Ukrainian intel officials say that Russian troops are leaving the area and telling Ukrainian civilian workers to clear out by July 5.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/01/zelenskiy-warns-russia-could-be-ready-to-provoke-nuclear-plant-explosion

"There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to provoke a local explosion at the station, which could lead to a (radiation) release," Zelenskyy said on Saturday at a news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-serious-threat-remains-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-2023-07-01/

Five of the ZNPP’s six reactors were put into so-called “cold shutdown” in September last year, while the sixth was left in “hot shutdown” to supply power to the plant itself. Cold shutdown is normally used for maintenance purposes. http://counteroffensive.news

However, Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said the Russians had prevented the No. 5 reactor from being put in cold shutdown mode.

There’s no doubt that an explosion, one powerful enough to breach the almost 4-foot (1.2 meters) thick containment walls, would be damaging to the immediate environment around the plant. But how bad would it actually be?