Whistle on the Mountain
Blazing a trail to Neverland
Trail to Peace, ©2025 William L. Brown
A fellow-teacher suggested I ask my students to translate the idiom "Коли рак на горі свисне.” This friend jokingly calls me “bother-in-English,” a phrase used in pep-talks delivered by the boss of a small English-teaching agency in Ukraine. Like many of these agencies it paid cash under the table, over-worked us, and promised native-speakers visas and housing which never materialized. So, we address one another as “bother-in-English” with an eye-roll. We both moved on to better agencies, and we still teach remotely from the US.
Коли рак на горі свисне, my students told me this morning, means “when the crayfish whistles on the mountain.” It is the equivalent of “when pigs fly,” said one, “in other words, ‘never.’”
Another idiom for “never,” could be “when Trump strong-arms Putin into a peace deal.”
This week President Trump undermined a plan to pressure Russia into a 30-day ceasefire. Europe’s sanctions hammer was due to drop Monday, May 12 if Russia did not sign-on to the ceasefire Ukraine agreed to in March. Ironically, the 30-day ceasefire was proposed by the Trump administration.
European nations, including the UK, Germany, France and Poland devised the plan with Ukraine to pressure Russia with sanctions. Trump supported it, but over the weekend prior to the Monday deadline, Russian dictator Putin, ignoring the deadline and ceasefire proposal, called for talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, Türkiye May 15th.
President Trump immediately followed Putin’s lead, demanding via social-media text that Ukraine President Zelensky meet with Putin. The 30-day ceasefire, which was originally a Trump administration demand, vanished in a cloud of electronic text.
Zelenski dutifully traveled to Istanbul as directed, vowing to only meet face-to-tace with Putin, no intermediaries. Putin, of course, did not show up. Instead, he sent low-level intermediaries — an insult. Furthermore, the negotiating team is led by the same Russians who led the abandoned talks in 2022 immediately following the full-scale invasion.
As reported today on the Ukraine: The Latest podcast, the Russians are also presenting the same terms, which would leave Ukraine a disarmed, vassal state with no western alliances. Their demands include Ukraine surrendering regions not currently occupied by Russia. Andre Yermach, the head of Presidents Zelensky’s office, dismissed Russia’s stance, saying "The only thing that connects today's negotiations to 2022 is the city of Istanbul, nothing more. All attempts by Russia to link the current moment to 2022 will fail."
Meanwhile, the European sanctions ultimatum is on hold, and once again Trump’s slogan “peace through strength,” manifests as strong-arming the victim Ukraine rather than the aggressor Russia.
Human Safari, ©2025 William L. Brown
Russian drone operators play a deadly game Ukrainians denounce as a “human safari” in the front-line city of Kherson. The Russians occupy the riverbank opposite the city, close enough to deploy battle-field drones. They use their attack drones’ cameras and explosive devices to track and attack random Ukrainian civilians in the street, parks, playgrounds, bus-stops, busses, cars, ambulances, and so forth. The Russians often post videos of these attacks on social media, sometimes as part of fund-raising appeals for their drone-units.
