Ukraine War: Zelensky Says 31,000 Troops Killed Since Russia's Full-Scale Invasion
Avdiivka, February 2024.
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All cities are made of the same material, but after enough time, each have their own way of falling apart.
Listen to me - why should I know? Because I have been in Avdiivka for ninety-two days. As I write this, I am the only surviving member of my regiment, and I am not sure how many more pages I will have the opportunity to fill. Thousands have died, making it impossible for me to write as myself, as Pylyp Kovalenko. It would be impossible, too, to have any meaningful conversation with the dead - although they have seen what I see, they are no longer here, and I would not dream of adding to their story. What I will tell instead is not of numbers, not of people, and not of this-nation, or that-nation, or rhetoric. Those… ideas… are much too far above the ground, and I can think of nothing more essential to war than the ground itself.
Thirty-one thousand men have now fallen onto it and been unable to get back up. It is not a question of willpower, either. It is simply a question of, at the very end, inability… to stand up again. This is what I think has been missed about the war, that most young men are afraid of. The world does not continue as part of some game - for the thirty-one-thousand, it simply ends. Nothing won, nothing felt. Their hopes simply end, with the neck of a bullet, and this is what I think most men miss. There is a fight from which you cannot get back up.
Each of these men leaves behind several pairs of military overalls, an AKS-74 assault rifle, and an empty chair at some far away, holiday dinner table. Even the table may have disappeared, under some pile or another. I can say, with some certainty, that for those who have not seen it before, this is the most shocking sign: when suddenly nowhere is safe, when a home is thrown out to the rain. It is something the world is about to forget: war becomes real when kitchen tables make up its rubble.
I had seen my fair share of these homes before. After enough time spent in nowhere, you become part of its environment, you begin to understand the nakedness of its rulebook. There is nothing to do here - there is land to be protected and a vehicle to refuel. Walls are not walls, they are strategic landmarks. Roads are not roads, they are just empty space. What is scariest is the quiet sound of the city, ruptured by gunfire, but when the barrels are down it becomes like a false silence; bubbles beneath the surface of the lake, yet to reach the surface. The land loses its nowhere feel, you are shaken loose from the conflict, and for a moment, your feet float almost peacefully above the ground. And yet it returns very suddenly. I have heard the story too many times, about the sudden flattening of Earth, about the unsuspecting soldiers who stood on it. The most quiet of squares becomes a graveyard within seconds of an artillery strike.
And so it continues - the war that has flattened one city, and another, and another. We are now preparing to withdraw from Avdiivka; we will fight them in another nowhere, in another quadrant, in another basin. This will be my last time writing with a view of these ruined buildings - of a city littered with rust and stray teddy-bears, of a city I have fought for, of a city I have survived. So far, I am able to get up. I am able to imagine the places I have been, and sometimes, I think even of the places I would still like to go. Even now, I am looking at the sky, a dull grey cotton-ball, and I wonder to myself: what could be beneath its edges?
And, of course it is then that I remember the thirty-one-thousand, what I am doing here, and what I am fighting for. In a simple way, I am reminded.
The only thing that lies beneath this sky is the ground.
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Read the original article (Kathryn Armstrong - BBC News):
Ukraine war: Zelensky says 31,000 troops killed since Russia's full-scale invasion - BBC News
disclaimer:
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
Zelensky has been on the front line every day ducking bombs and bullets!? I THINK NOT. Leaders/royals/politicians etc start the conflicts and make money whilst the people pay with blood and death!?-------How many died between 2014 and 2021!?!?--
----------Giulietto Chiesa, an Italian journalist since 2014 too, was talking about West intervention and the coup probably organised by the US. He also added that Ukraine is where War World Three could start (or started).
Bill Blum----So why are you and others like you in mainstream media creating the same mentality that started the First World War (and the Cold War)?…….That is, demonizing Putin and Russia instead of showing the history and motivation of Western invasion and interference in Ukraine. Then ask why NATO even exists in a post Cold War world.------------------Late Bill Blum wrote a book called the ROGUE STATE. He had worked for USA government but left and became a writer etc!?!?
Let's hope the US republicans unblock that aid. They want to spend money on building 'a wall'. Europe also needs to re-arm so it can defend itself without the US.