Entering the gates of hell, #Debaltseve. No water, no food, no electricity and death on every street corner. #Ukraine: image via Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker, 3 February 2015
Evacuation of civilians from #Debaltseve to the #Ukraine-controlled territory @olarhat: image via EuroMaidan @EuromaidanPR, 6 February 2015
One more picture from #Debaltseve "@AFP: A bus carries civilians to safety from the Ukrainian town of Debaltseve”: image via Volodymyr Shuvayev @shuvayev, 6 February 2015
Heartbreaking MT@france7776 Elderly woman says goodbye to family before evacuation fr #Debaltseve Pic RFE/RL #Ukraine: image via The Power Of One @france7776, 6 February 2015
People line up outside Debaltseve municipal building for food handouts: image via Peter Leonard @pete_leonard, 6 February 2015
Inside #Debaltseve: image via Will Vernon @BBCWillVernon, 6 February 2015
Morale of #Ukraine troops high at #Debaltseve. "I´m afraid, but will never stop fighting for our nation", said Vasya: image via Oystein Bogen @oysteinbogen, 5 February 2015
Russian tank column reportedly destroyed near #Debaltseve. Information Resistance reports. Media are asked not to spread routes info: image via UKRAINE TODAY @uatodaytv, 4 February 2015
RU forces purposefully shelling buses w/people evacuating from #Debaltseve: image via Ukraine Reporter @StateOfUkraine, 4 February 2015
Civilians evacuating #Debaltseve. "The whole town is destroyed." #Ukraine: image via joanne mariner @jgmariner, 3 February 2015
The town of Debaltseve in
eastern Ukraine was once home to 25,000 people. Now it is a Ukrainian
army stronghold that has sustained heavy shelling from pro-Russian
separatist positions over the past week. Amnesty International estimates
that 2,000 residents have been evacuated since 28 January, and 7,000
remain: photo by Petr Shelomovskiy/Demotix/Corbis via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
A woman wipes tears from her face while waiting on a bus to leave Debaltseve when the road out of town is deemed to be safe enough: photo by Petr David Josek/AP via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
An elderly woman in Debaltseve collects water from a puddle. The thousands of residents who remain lack running water, food, electricity and basic medical supplies, according to Amnesty: photo by Reuters via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
A woman cooks on a fire
outside her house in Debaltseve. The current fighting in eastern Ukraine is the most
intense since a fragile ceasefire was signed in Minsk five months ago: photo by Reuters via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
Ukrainian soldiers guard a check point near Debaltseve, which is home to a strategic railway junction that lies between the separatist-held cities of Luhansk and Donetsk: photo by Petr David Josek/AP via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
A woman carries her belongings to a building used as an evacuation centre in Debaltseve: photo by Petr David Josek/AP via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
Debaltseve residents sit on a bus waiting to be evacuated: photo by Manu Brabo/AFP via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
"The past 2 weeks have been terrifying" - the people fleeing Ukraine town of #Debaltseve: image via BBC News (World) @BBCWorld, 5 February 2015
"The past 2 weeks have been terrifying" - the people fleeing Ukraine town of #Debaltseve: image via BBC News (World) @BBCWorld, 5 February 2015
A boy looks through a bus window, waiting for departure. The UN estimates that the conflict in eastern Ukraine has left more than 5,100 people dead and displaced more than 900,000 since April 2014. Five Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 27 wounded in fighting with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions in the past 24 hours, Kiev military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on Tuesday: photo by Reuters via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
A Ukrainian soldier stands watch on the road between Debaltseve and the Ukrainian-controlled town of Artemivsk, also in the Donetsk region. On Monday, pro-Russian separatists vowed to mobilise up to 100,000 fighters for their latest east Ukraine offensive: photo by Manu Brabo/AFP via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
A house catches fire after shelling. Mobile phone networks are down, so it''s not possible to call the fire brigade: photo by Petr Shelomovskiy/Demotix/Corbis via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
A Ukrainian tank stands at a military checkpoint in the town: photo by Petr Shelomovskiy/Demotix/Corbis via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
Ukrainian soldiers assist another soldier who was wounded during clashes with pro-Russian separatists near Debaltseve: photo by Manu Brabo/AFP via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
Ukrainian soldiers try to push-start an armoured personnel carrier at a military checkpoint in Debaltseve: photo by Petr Shelomovskiy/Demotix/Corbis via the Guardian, 3 February 2015
#Debaltseve: They've packed what they can carry and await evacuation. Need to run an artillery gauntlet out. #Ukraine: image via Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker, 30 January 2015
A man glances back from breadline, #Debaltseve, as rockets impact 500m away. Rest don't flinch, used to it. #Ukraine: image via Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker, 30 January 2015
#Debaltseve's remaining residents charge phones using a generator. The town has had no elec for over a week. #Ukraine: image via Maxim Tucker @MaxRTucker, 30 January 2015
#Ucrania Decenas de Soldados rusos muertos cerca de #Debaltseve
@conucrania via @AMykhailova: image via Jon zapedzki @Jonzapedzki, 30
January 2015
#Ucrania Decenas de Soldados rusos muertos cerca de #Debaltseve
@conucrania via @AMykhailova: image via Jon zapedzki @Jonzapedzki, 30
January 2015
#Ucrania Decenas de Soldados rusos muertos cerca de #Debaltseve
@conucrania via @AMykhailova: image via Jon zapedzki @Jonzapedzki, 30
January 2015
#Ucrania Decenas de Soldados rusos muertos cerca de #Debaltseve
@conucrania via @AMykhailova: image via Jon zapedzki @Jonzapedzki, 30
January 2015
Timur Kovalskiy, mercenary from Almaty (Kazakhstan). Attacks #Debaltseve 4 Russia via @RUopo14enec @en_informnapalm: image via nline-Smi@evro_maidan, 6 February 2015
Ukraine goes to #EU @photosandbacon #EuroMaidan #EU: image via EuroMaidan @InfoEuromaidan, 4 February 2015
President Vladimir Putin with Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande in Moscow for an urgent meeting over Ukraine: photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP via The Guardian, 6 February 2015
US Senators threaten legislation requiring #Washington to arm #Ukraine: image via UKRAINE TODAY @uatodaytv, 7 February 2015
Guardian: #Putin and #Ukraine leader to hold phone talks after inconclusive end to summit: image via UKRAINE TODAY @uatodaytv, 7 February 2015
Every tenth Russian thinks full scale war with #Ukraine already underway - poll: image via RT @RT, 2 February 2015
German soldiers killed at Stalingrad: photo by USSR Ministry of Information, February 1943 (via Contemporary Military Historian)
German soldiers killed at Stalingrad: photo by USSR Ministry of Information, February 1943 (via Contemporary Military Historian)
Scrolling down through the first pictures, the thought came immediately to mind: “Here’s the war in Europe . . . again.” Then come the historical pictures, a brilliant bookend, about the previous carnage three-quarters of a century ago, fought on the same real estate about the same nothing. How right you are, Tom. We might as well throw ourselves headlong against a wall for the amusement of others, over and over—maybe make a few bucks in the offing. Pobre Debaltseve. Pobre nosotros.
ReplyDeleteHazen,
ReplyDeleteFrosty sighs all round. Yes, I guess one has to be "of a certain age" to see the return of the past in all this... and certainly many of the most vulnerable displaced persons whose deprivation and suffering we observe in this grim landscape of death and sorrow are of that age, and must remember.
Caught in the tight passages of history, now -- so many who are in the way, who therefore must be moved out of the way, one way or the other.
There is nothing to love and everything to fear from Putin, but when you see that mumpy Yank politician from yesteryear banging the tin war drum this hard, again, over on this side of the Liars' See-Through Curtain, you realise there is much to fear from all sides.
Laying grand tonnage in weaponry upon the Ukrainians so that they may be enabled to conduct in "our" calculated strategic interest a proxy war which they would inevitably pay a terrific price in losing (and they could surely be counted on to lose, notwithstanding their commitment) -- that seems to be the Republican plan for A Better Tomorrow.
Seeing pictures of the bigwig euro stooges lined up before Vladi to be treated as exactly what they are -- utterly powerless puffs of selfimportant nonentity -- should make it plain what the world's in for, here... and maybe then too, over there... and before too much longer, everywhere (the way the arms manufacturers and defense lobbies would like to have things all the time, anyway).
And yes, though there may remain those whose memory of the stiffening dead littering those same frozen fields lives on, in a situation like this, a long memory and a long history of enmity add up to pretty much the same thing, deep mindless visceral hatred of a kind which only humans seem able to nurture, and for which there can never be a cure -- as it's of the nature of the beast, after all.
A never-ending line of tragedies culminating in displacements--only death remains at home.
ReplyDeleteGosh, this is the first thing I saw on a Sunday morning. And I thought *I* was the black sun! :-)
ReplyDeleteReminded me of images from Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood.
b.