My longtime Ukrainian friend tells me of her family in the old country:

“I talk to them every day. They live on the east side of Ukraine. So far telephone service has not been cut off. What they say is, the entire world has abandoned them. People commiserate, journalists talk, but nobody really cares about them. They don’t see the entire world responding.

“They ask, ‘Why doesn’t NATO send a jet and blow up these soldiers who are killing us? Why didn’t the United States stop this three weeks ago? Washington knew this was coming. If our White House really cared, you think that nothing man in there should’ve picked right now — the very day tanks and soldiers marched in to shoot us — to present a new Supreme Court Justice? Just to appease people who don’t favor him? How about his timing? Has he no respect?’

“There’s blood everywhere. My mom’s family is there. My father’s family is there. They’re going to try to get to western Ukraine. They can’t believe they’re living through this.

“My parents worked in a Nazi war camp. They say, ‘We are not giving up. It’s Germany all over again.’ They’re hunkering down. Mobilizing. But there is no support. People have been shot down. Many Ukrainians have already been killed. But the word is ‘we are not giving up.’

“There are now portable mortuaries. Soldiers kill off a hundred people and what’s done is the dead bodies get quickly dispensed with. Obliterated. Thrown into these portable mortuaries so nobody can see or report it.”

I am also told Kyiv mothers have been instructed to sew small pieces of cloth on their children’s clothes listing the kids’ names, date of birth and blood type.

I am also told Putin clearly sees the weakness and incompetence of America’s administration.

And we have long been told Russia exists as our existential enemy. Even Lincoln despised that bigoted regime. And Reagan called it the “Evil Empire.

GRIFFIN Dunne, Gina Gershon, Emily Mortimer, Rosie Perez did Sunday’s screening of “With/In.” Short home-made shoots from types like Bart Freundlich, Talia Balsam and Chris Cooper. Producers, Celine Rattray and Trudie Styler.

Using an iPhone or whatever’s around, it was quarantine quickies of life 2020. Results were a grieving widow, a man locked in a john after a one-nighter with a temp girlfriend, a tense thriller about a writer held hostage, some dark comedy about sourdough baking, another of equipment disappearing while in transit, an interracial marriage, a therapist dealing with her own OCD, etc.

Beats anything on Netflix.

BACKSTAGE at MSG, inside his silver bedazzled jacket, Elton John said, “I came to America 1970. Growing up, all the good music I ever heard was from America. I love New York.” . . . ANYBODY know Andrew Cuomo’s lawyer Rita Glavin also reps Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg? . . . ABC March 20 “Step Into . . . the Movies With Derek & Julianne Hough” airs a week before we ignore the Oscars. They’re re-creating “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Saturday Night Fever,” “La La Land” film dances. 

BELATED commendation to CNN. Many nixed it when it bent so left that Bernie blubbery Sanders seemed moderate. Now in the Ukraine its reporters on the ground and their reports have been masterful. Even my television set is grateful. 

IT’S coming up to awards time. Soon we can ignore the Oscars. And, listen, don’t worry if you tune in late — better you should miss it from the beginning.

Only in New York and everywhere, kids — only in New York and anywhere.