Freed By Fire: In Donbas, Putin’s “Liberated” People Are Dying — Drinking Water From Puddles
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Kramatorsk — They wanted to believe it. While new Russian and North Korean soldiers paraded through Moscow, decked out with hammer-and-sickle symbols and “Z”s made of St. George’s ribbon, the civilians of Donbas, whom Vladimir Putin claims he wants to “liberate”, actually tried to escape.
From the Russians.
Rivers of cars and buses moved from the areas of Donetsk Oblast’ hardest hit by the occupiers’ fury toward the anti-drone corridors, attempting to take on board as many civilians as possible. The Russian drone pilots selectively targeted them, even though they saw that they were not military personnel. Acts of barbarity and cynicism, marked by a complete disregard for life, have occurred not only here in Donbas but also in all the regions directly affected by the war.
Suffice it to say that in Komyshany, in Kherson, a 62-year-old woman forced to leave her home bled to death after stopping to place a wreath next to a monument, which then exploded, tearing her apart. Here in Donetsk, on May 8, two people died on their doorsteps in Dobropillia while waiting for a car that might have taken them to safety; one died in Kramatorsk while receiving supplies from volunteers; another was wounded in Lyman; and another in Maiachka. In this last village, at the edge of the Donbas defensive belt, we recorded a clip (available on “La Ragione’s” YouTube channel) to show the conditions of the back roads where several evacuees ended up getting stuck, only to be torn to pieces by vectors of death that seemed to call to each other like birds of prey over their prey.
On May 9, the Russian air force dropped its deadly payloads on eight inhabited settlements in Donbas, including Sviatohirsk, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Privillia, Druzhkivka, and others in the Siversk community.
The following day, it was impossible to approach any of them because the barrage of Russian bombs and drones resumed as soon as civilians attempted to evacuate. Areas such as Oleksandrivka, Kostiantynivka, and Katerynivka are now so razed that their former urban character can only be discerned by examining the structure of the rubble from above.
On Sunday evening, a Russian incendiary drone struck a civilian couple who were trying to escape the hellish situation in Druzhkivka in their car. The images of three other civilians dying beside a burning vehicle on the stretch from Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka toward the anti-drone corridor, from which we captured the other footage in that area, cannot be published.
In total, 382 people were targeted by Russia during those evacuations, including 40 children on Friday, 603 minors and 100 minors on Saturday, and 421 minors and 74 minors on Sunday.
In some areas, people were forced to drink water from puddles and defecate in plastic bags because the looming Russian world had deprived them of water and sewerage systems months earlier, carpet-bombing every visible human structure. It’s necessary to explain this, since certain sordid characters are still being invited on TV to claim that the Russian world would come to their rescue.
As we described in Kherson, even here in Donetsk, ambulances can no longer safely reach residential areas because Russian drones are blocking doctors’ access. Elderly people in wheelchairs, bedridden patients, pregnant women, and newborns born in basements shaken by the russkij mir were targeted as they cleared out places incompatible with life, where, however, no Russian soldier will ever set foot.
The situation on the battlefield shows Ukrainian soldiers advancing and Russian soldiers retreating, even in areas where — at a very high human cost — they had managed to establish themselves.
The strategic initiative is increasingly in Kyiv’s hands, and with its unmanned units, it is exerting unsustainable pressure on Russian infantry, increasingly enticed by the promise of compensation that, as we have already explained, perhaps even their families will never receive.
This trend is now consolidated even in the northern regions, where the Russian army is losing troops and ground every day.
Breaking through the enemy defensive line toward Vovchansk, soldiers of the 23rd Ukrainian Assault Regiment cleared the Russian front lines, expanding Kyiv’s control zone into Kharkiv Oblast’. Further north, beyond the Sumy sector, Ukrainian partisans from Atesh carried out operations worthy of the army’s best special forces, destroying an electric locomotive and damaging a railway line in Russia’s Lipetsk region.
Clearly, no matter how much terror it unleashes against the civilians it claims to protect in Donbas, Putin’s regime is nearing decline. So much so that, beyond the approved plans, it is already deploying four additional regiments — 24 divisions and 162 batteries — to defend Krasnodar Krai and Moscow.
In 1.539 days of war, we recorded over 250 videos from ground zero and wrote more than 1,500 articles.
We are doing our best to provide genuine, first-hand reports from zones where almost no press dares to go. This means living in a kill zone constantly. We take the risk, but without your invaluable support, our voices would remain unheard and silent. Without brave people sharing our articles from afar, they would remain unread. Our reports would go unseen, and our efforts would be lost. There’s still a lot of work to do here, as the people around us are also in no better situation.
We’re renewing our fundraising campaign and thanking everyone who joins us in helping to restore what Russia is destroying. Moving forward with only a small reimbursement for each article from a brave newspaper that believes in us is extremely challenging. That’s why we are grateful to all the kind people who support us and trust in our mission.
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We’ll keep you updated on developments.
Thank you all, dear friends
浴火解放：在頓巴斯，被普京“解放”的民眾正在死去——被迫喝水積水為生
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻譯：旺財球球
烏克蘭前線報道
克拉馬托爾斯克 ——他們曾想要相信這一切。當新的俄羅斯與朝鮮士兵在莫斯科遊行，身披鐮刀錘子符號和以聖喬治絲帶拚成的“Z”字時，弗拉基米爾·普京聲稱想要“解放”的頓巴斯平民，實際上在試圖逃離。
逃離俄羅斯人。
（圖：Alla與我在本文所述最激烈的殺傷區之一、一處平民基礎設施廢墟前報道——版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
車流和巴士像河流般從頓涅茨克州受侵略者怒火重創的地區湧向反無人機通道，試圖盡可能多地搭載平民撤離。盡管俄方無人機飛手能看清這些人並非軍人，他們仍選擇性地攻擊平民。這種對生命的野蠻與極端冷酷、徹底漠視的俄軍行為，不僅發生在頓巴斯，也出現在所有直接受戰爭影響的地區。
僅舉幾例：在赫爾鬆的科米沙尼，一名逃離家園途中的一位62歲婦女在停下來在一座紀念碑旁放置花圈時中彈流血致死，紀念碑隨後爆炸將她撕裂。在頓涅茨克，5月8日，在多布羅皮利亞，有兩人在家門口等車希望獲救時喪生；在克拉馬托爾斯克，一人在接受誌願者物資時死亡；另有一人在利曼受傷；還有人在馬亞奇卡受傷。在頓巴斯防禦帶邊緣的馬亞奇卡村莊，我們拍攝了一段視頻（可在“La Ragione”的YouTube頻道查看），記錄了幾條道路惡劣的狀況，多名撤離者在那裏被困，最終被死亡載體撕成碎片，那些無人機像猛禽圍獵獵物般相互呼應，鎖定目標。
（視頻：我在烏克蘭頓涅茨克馬亞奇卡錄製的影像 ——版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
5月9日，俄空軍向頓巴斯八個有人居住的定居點投下致命炸彈，包括斯維亞托希爾斯克、克拉馬托爾斯克、斯洛維揚斯克、普裏維利亞、德魯日基夫卡，以及西韋爾斯克社區的其他地點。
次日，當平民嚐試撤離時，俄國的炸彈和無人機密集襲擊立即恢複，人們根本無法接近這些地點。奧列克桑德裏夫卡、科斯坦丁尼夫卡和卡捷裏尼夫卡等地如今被夷為平地，其往日的城市麵貌隻能從高空通過廢墟結構辨認出來。
周日晚，一架俄方燃燒彈無人機襲擊了一對試圖駕車逃離德魯日基夫卡地獄般境況的平民夫婦。我們在從奧列克西耶沃—德魯日基夫卡通向反無人機通道路段拍攝到的另一段畫麵中，有三名平民在一輛燃燒的車輛旁死亡的影像，無法公開刊發。
（圖：住宅區變成了殺戮地帶。這就是“俄斯基世界”在烏克蘭留下的景象——版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在這些撤離行動中，共有382人被俄方攻擊，其中包括周五被襲的40名兒童，周六被襲的603名未成年人和100名少年，以及周日被襲的421名未成年人和74名少年。
在一些地區，人們被迫從水窪中取水飲用，用塑料袋排便，因為逼近的“俄羅斯世界”數月前就剝奪了他們的供水和排水係統，對所有可見的人類建築進行了地毯式轟炸。必須說明這一點，因為仍有一些卑劣人物上電視聲稱“俄國世界”會來拯救他們。
（圖：Alla與我在烏克蘭赫爾鬆一處被俄聯邦摧毀的加油站報道——版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
正如我們在赫爾鬆所描述的，即便在頓涅茨克，救護車也無法安全抵達居民區，因為俄方無人機阻斷了醫護人員的通行。 “俄斯基世界”的受害者包括坐輪椅的老人、臥床病人、孕婦以及在地窖中出生的新生兒，他們從那些無法生存的地方撤離時成為俄軍的攻擊目標，而俄羅斯士兵從未踏足這些地方。
戰場態勢顯示烏克蘭士兵在推進，俄軍在撤退，即便在那些他們以極高人力代價建立據點的地區亦然。
戰略主動權越來越掌握在基輔手中，烏克蘭憑借無人作戰單位對俄方步兵施加了難以承受的壓力，俄軍士兵日益被“補償”許諾所誘惑，如我們已述，這些補償或許連他們的家人也得不到。
這一趨勢如今已在北部地區鞏固，俄軍在那裏每天損失士兵與戰線陣地。
（圖：我指向的是幾名烏克蘭孩子在兒童遊樂場，那裏被烏克蘭的壑壑所困。其餘是俄方炮彈與無人機挖出的坑——我們在殺戮地帶的生活 ——版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在突破通往沃夫昌斯克的敵軍防線行動中，烏克蘭第23突擊團清除了俄軍前線陣地，將基輔的控製區擴展到哈爾科夫州。更北些，在蘇梅地區以外，來自Atesh的烏克蘭遊擊隊實施了堪比陸軍特種部隊的行動，在俄羅斯利佩茨克地區摧毀了一台電力機車並損壞了一段鐵路。
顯然，無論普京政權對其聲稱要“保護”的頓巴斯平民施加多少恐怖，它都在走向衰落。以至於，除了已批準的兵力部署之外，它已在為防衛克拉斯諾達爾邊疆區和莫斯科調動另外四個團——24個師和162個炮兵營。
（圖：Alla與我在烏克蘭克拉馬托爾斯克報道 ——版權所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
***
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