Kharkiv

At the pizzeria on the 27th of March of 2015, Yaroslav the Ukrainian and I discuss many things. He says that his town in Ukraine is Kharkov (in Russian) or Kharkiv (in Ukrainian). We talk about the palatial subway or train stations in Russia, Uzbekistan, France, etc. Yaroslav's white Canadian neighbour in Vancouver is always drunk, he says, and may have a bit of Native Indian ancestry. We talk about how English slang is not a good habit. Many immigrants here in Canada do not speak slang. Yaroslav still likes learning English. I tell him that when I came to Canada at age 10, I could read English, but I did not speak well. It took me about a year to get accustomed to speaking English.

Tom is interested in the history of Kharkiv.

I'm calling my friend from Kharkiv.

As a schoolboy in the Soviet Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv, (it was then spelled Kharkov in line with the all-permeating ‘Russification’), I was a railway buff.

But Ukraine claimed its forces had shot down one of these drones for the first time last month near the city of Kupyansk in Kharkiv.

The Russian military command likely chose the seizure of Vovchansk as one of the key tactical objectives of the first phase of the offensive operation in northern Kharkiv Oblast, since Vovchansk is the largest settlement immediately on the border that would provide Russian forces a staging ground close to the Russian rear to prepare for and launch the second phase of the Russian offensive operation.

We switch to the developments along the front line and, uh, the Ukrainians are reporting that the Russians do reconnaissance forces… send reconnaissance forces over the border in Chernihiv, in Sumy, as well as in Kharkiv, so basically along the whole northern border.