Exasperated: a rant.

 It must be very annoying for Vladimir Putin to find that the arms of the people of Ukraine have not in fact been open to welcome the invading Russian forces, but rather pointed firmly in their direction.

It's also the case that war is a muddled affair, largely consisting of groups of people wondering where they are, and what they're supposed to be doing - and why - and lobbing off lethal fire in the vague direction of another group of equally bewildered and unhappy people.

This is summed up nicely in this report by Robert Clark in the Telegraph newspaper, which says:

It’s important to note too that Russia has never even exercised this many troops before under a unified command; further logistical and command problems already exposed will be further exasperated.

All the same, though, I think that last word should have been exacerbated.

Word To Use Today: exacerbate. This word came to English in the 1600s from the Latin word exacerbāre, to irritate, from acerbus, butter. The word exasperate also arrived in the 1600s from Latin - from exasperāre, to roughen, from asper, rough.