Ukraine continues to blast on top of the news cycle here about mid-day Tuesday in California’s Central Valley — and like the long- hot summer seemingly straight ahead, shitty war news is most-likely to just get worse.

Russkies this morning (CNN): ‘“In order to suppress information attacks against Russia, the technological facilities of the SBU and the 72nd main PSO center in Kyiv will be hit with high-precision weapons,” the statement said, according to TASS. “We call on Ukrainian citizens attracted by Ukrainian nationalists to carry out provocations against Russia, as well as residents of Kyiv living near relay nodes leave their homes.”‘

As this scene in Kyiv, an incident that reportedly killed five Ukrainians:

In further reports of dumb-ass, inept Russian military, a note just a few minutes ago on military crazy from what’s becoming a most-excellent source of Ukrainian war coverage with Mark Sumner’s update-posts at Daily Kos — maybe a deadly combat amateur hour: ‘In one of the most bizarre instances in this already bizarre war, Russian forces appear to be communicating on ordinary civilian radios — walkie talkies ala Radio Shack. This means their communications are not encrypted or secure, but being broadcast en clair to anyone listening.
The inability to secure their own communications may say more than anything else we’ve seen about the sorry state of the Russian military.‘
Witness:

More and more evidence is emerging that the Russian forces rely on civilian radios and mobile phones for their communications. Our source in one invading unit confirms this.

This photograph is said to show a civilian radio captured by Ukrainians.https://t.co/ppwYktFsaD

— CIT (en) (@CITeam_en) February 28, 2022

Couple that shit with killing — incompetent slaughter is still slaughter. An update about noon Left Coast time from The Washington Post live blog:

A 40-mile-long Russian convoy approaching Kyiv had “stalled,” perhaps to regroup, a senior U.S. defense official said, but other forces gathered menacing strength on Tuesday, six days into the invasion of Ukraine.
A projectile appeared to hit near Kharkiv’s administration building, and a missile strike that appeared to target Kyiv’s TV Tower also hit the nearby Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial and killed five people.

In the southern part of the country, Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting in the city of Kherson, and Russia has occupied Berdyansk and taken possession of Melitopol, a city of about 150,000.
Russian forces remain outside the major southern city of Mariupol but are now close enough to attack it with artillery and other long-range weapons, the senior defense official said.

Kharkiv remains under Ukrainian control but is “surrounded” by Russian troops, Mayor Ihor Terekhov told The Washington Post. In Kyiv, residents are bracing for an all-out assault as the Russian force, under the command of a president whose country has quickly become an international political and economic pariah, is apparently preparing to encircle the capital.
A senior U.S. defense official said the Kremlin seems ready to adopt the same siege tactics that are beginning to strangle Kharkiv.

There, thousands are without power and heat in freezing temperatures, local officials said, and residents braced for more shelling Tuesday.
Suspected cluster munitions struck residential parts of Kharkiv on Monday, raising fears that Russia could use tactics similar to those employed in Chechnya and Syria, where it has been accused of war crimes.

Playing us out until a post maybe later this afternoon:

Kharkiv tonight. Looks like heavy MLRS fire possibly with cluster munitions. https://t.co/RUWw2R3Ndc pic.twitter.com/WEKDsCzV7U

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 1, 2022

If the situation remains.

Yet once again, here we are…

(Illustration out front: Edvard Munch‘s ‘The Scream,’ lithograph version, found here)