Nina 🐙 Byzantina Profile picture
Feb 24, 2022 32 tweets 19 min read Read on X
Children of war hiding in a cellar in Donbass, 2014, is the quintessential image of the region’s suffering that the western establishment would rather ignore. A conflict longer than WWII.

📷 Photojournalist Andy Rochelli who died under Ukrainian Army’s fire with his interpreter Image
The same photo series of families escaping from the Ukrainian Army’s shelling in Donbass by Andy Rochelli (2014). ImageImageImageImage
A child celebrating his birthday in Donbass. Three candles stuck in a slice of bread. This one really gets me. 💔

Source unknown. Image
Look into the Eyes of Donbass, a photo project by Dan Levy, about the children of war in the breakaway republics. Veronica, Arina, Vika, and Igor. I don’t need to editorialize—their eyes do speak volumes. ImageImageImageImage
Donetsk airport which was bombed by Ukraine’s forces early on during this war. Eerie images right out of Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

📷 Dan Levy. ImageImageImage
Shelling Donbass by Ukraine’s troops — a reality for its residents since 2014.

📷 Dan Levy, 2015. ImageImageImage
This dog is named Khan. He was injured in the chest by a shelling in a small Donbass village located in the borderlands between the breakaway republics and the rest of Ukraine. The owner’s son is a medic and managed to save the dog. Five cats in total did not survive.
📷 Dan Levy Image
Doctors treating two children with shrapnel wounds in Donetsk. They got hurt at a playground. One did not survive.

📷 Dan Levy, 2017. Image
A Mona Lisa reproduction in a damaged nine-story building next to the ruins of the Donetsk airport.

📷 Dan Levy, 2017. Image
Donbass residents after Ukraine's shelling in 2014.

📷 Photojournalist Andrei Stenin (RIA) who was also killed that year while documenting the war in Donbass. He was 34. ImageImageImageImage
Donbass residents hiding from Ukraine's shelling in 2014.

📷 Photojournalist Andrei Stenin (RIA) (1980-2014) ImageImageImageImage
By the end of 2015, several dozen Orthodox churches were damaged or completely leveled in Donetsk and Lugansk areas, *each*, in what appears to have been deliberate shelling by Ukraine's military. ImageImageImageImage
Donbass, 2019.

📷 Dan Levy. ImageImageImageImage
Donbass exactly three years ago with buildings destroyed by Ukraine’s strikes in the background.

📷 Dan Levy. Image
Another dystopian landscape by Dan Levy featuring one of the dozens of Donbass Orthodox churches hit by Ukraine’s shelling as part of the ethnic cleansing that has gone on since 2014. Image
Prayer in a Donbass church damaged by Ukraine’s shelling.

📷 Dan Levy, 2018. Image
More images from Dan Levy's children of war photo series from Donbass. For these children, living under Ukraine's fire became the norm. Their eyes speak volumes. This series was later published as a book. ImageImageImageImage
The Alley of Angels in Donetsk commemorates the Donbass children who died in Ukraine’s war on the region since 2014. Where was the self-described civilized international community then? ImageImage
A room in Donbass by Dan Levy. Miniature Christmas trees in the background. And then there is the table... Image
Donbass during the initial stages of Ukraine's onslaught in 2014.

Captured by the photojournalist Andrei Stenin who was killed that same year. ImageImageImageImage
A girl waiting for food rations. A man mourning his daughter who died from Ukraine’s shelling while in a queue for humanitarian aid. A woman sheltering from explosions in a mine she’s worked for 35 years. These are the faces of Donbass that the “int’l community” ignores. ImageImageImage
Ukraine's previous President, Poroshenko, and his policy on Donbass: "We will have jobs—they will not. We will have pensions—they will not. [....] Our children will go to schools and kindergartens—theirs will hide in the basements (cellars)."
This is Kristina (23) and Kira (10 months) Zhuk who became the symbols of Donbass' suffering in summer 2014. They were killed during Ukraine's shelling. She never let go of her child (too graphic to post) and has since been known as the Madonna of Gorlovka ("Горловская мадонна"). ImageImageImageImage
The tragic and preventable story of Kristina, the Madonna of Gorlovka, was covered by @EvaKBartlett who traveled to Donbass.

mintpressnews.com/under-fire-fro… Image
The people of Donbass describe what it’s been like to live under Ukraine’s siege (subtitled). Hearing young children talk about serious weapons like Grads—and even know what they are—is surreal .💔
Casualties of the war in Donbass, the first three years, per UN: “From 14 April 2014 to 15 November 2017, at least 2,523 civilians were killed: 1,399 men, 837 women, 91 boys, 47 girls and 149 adults whose sex is unknown. […]”

reliefweb.int/sites/reliefwe… Image
Civilian casualties in Donbass 2014-2021 from mine-related incidents.

Source: UN.

ukraine.un.org/sites/default/… Image
UN estimates the total number of conflict-related casualties in the Donbass region from 14 April 2014 to 31 December 2021 to be 51,000–54,0008, of which 14,200-14,400 were killed, and of which 7-9,000 injured were civilians. Specifically civilian deaths:

ukraine.un.org/sites/default/… Image
Donetsk Iberian Monastery shelled by the Ukrainian Army in 2014.

Source pravoslavie.ru/112369.html ImageImageImageImage
One of Ukraine's main media sources, Hromadske, discussing Donbass as a region that has a "huge number of absolutely useless people." Of the 4M in Donetsk area at the time, 1.5M are "superfluous," and "simply must be killed." Donbass is just a "source of resources."
Lugansk area, summer 2020. The building is labeled "PEOPLE" so that the emergency services would know from where to retrieve its residents should it get shelled & collapse. A totally normal sign to have during the Minsk ceasefire.
📷 Dmitri Steshin, a well-known war correspondent ImageImage
A teaser for a would-be documentary about Donbass by Dan Levy and Maksim Fadeyev made 4 years ago. So heartbreaking to see these working-class people face hell. 😞

Again, I am posting this for context to underscore the fact that the ongoing war in Donbass began in 2014.

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More from @NinaByzantina

Aug 24
Pavel Durov is learning the hard way that he would’ve been better off in Russia. Image
Other than the incessant financial scam spam, Telegram is indeed the most enjoyable and the freest. So this EU per/prosecution over narrative control is unsurprising. We know where you all get your Ukraine news from.
Weird how the “rules-based order” is always pearl-clutching over Russian freedoms, but then arrests a social media owner who does just that.
Read 5 tweets
May 8
Motherland Calls, one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable Soviet monuments, stands in Volgograd commemorating the WWII Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles of all time. But did you know that its sculptor, Yevgeny Vuchetich, used multiple models to create this personification?

The monument was made between 1959 and 1967 and is 85 meters, or 279 feet tall, including the sword. This makes it one of the tallest statues in the world. This work of art was recently restored (completed in 2020). Despite its immediate connection to Stalingrad, Motherland Calls may be interpreted as a general allegory of a Mother(land) calling her sons to defend their country.

Considering the scope and scale of the project, Vuchetich used several models for the face and body of the statue. The author may have been inspired by the ancient Greek Nike of Samothrace—because of its dynamic movement—along with other famous paintings and sculptures featuring similar themes.

In terms of the actual models, Soviet athlete Nina Dumbadze, is believed to be one of the key inspirations for the body of Motherland Calls. Like the Greek Nike, this Georgian track-and-fielder was fit and powerful. Next was Valentina Izotova, a waitress, who served as a model for Vuchetich literally (because of her chiseled facial features) and figuratively, as a symbol of an ideal Soviet woman. It took a long time to convince Izotova to pose. Izotova stated in later interviews that initially she did not believe that an army wife should be a model for a sculptor.

It is also important to note that monumental sculptures typically feature anatomical adjustments to their faces because they are meant to be viewed from below. So their close-ups look exaggerated.

Allegedly, the sculptor also relied on several other models including the gymnast Yekaterina Grebneva and Anastasia Peshkova who later posed for other artists. The latter suggested that the sculptor initially wanted to depict the Motherland personification holding a flag rather than a sword.

Be that as it may, Motherland Calls is a collective image both apparently inspired by many famous historical works of art and based on several real women. What they all have in common is their power, athletic beauty, and dynamism like the Greek Nike—an appropriate way to depict such an important patriotic symbol.Image
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For reference, Nike of Samothrace. Image
Vuchetich, the creator of Motherland Calls and an award-winning Soviet monumentalist sculptor, was part-Serbian and was actually born in Dnepropetrovsk (Yekaterinoslav), present-day Ukraine. But I guess the current Kiev government would rather ignore such great men in favor of sketchy Banderites.Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 11, 2023
Regarding Erdogan, and the "Putin betrayal" (sic) with his Azovite release:

Erdogan has been sitting on the fence since the Ukraine war escalation in 2022. So exploiting the situation in ways that he perceives to benefit Turkey is nothing new. 🧵
First, from the geopolitical/geostrategic standpoint, Turkey and its predecessor states in the region are located in an extremely auspicious position between different regions and cultures with premiere access to the Black Sea--between the proverbial East and West and beyond.
Thus, Erdogan often seems to act in the way that he wants surpassing the 'acceptable' NATO state behavior.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 24, 2023
More Questions than Answers:

What we’re seeing with the Prigozhin-led mutiny in Russia is the tip of the iceberg, and much of it makes no logical sense. So it’s unsurprising that there are so many conspiracy theories floating around. Let’s break it down. 🧵
1. It makes no sense to use 25K (even 30-50K) Wagnerites for a full-fledged coup in a large country like Russia especially when its ammo and supplies come from the state itself. Thus, there must be someone big backing Prigozhin.
But so far we’ve only seen public support from 1990s convicted criminals like Khodorkovsky and a lot of oinking and barking from abroad.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 21, 2023
Today, Putin revealed two key conceptual documents in the framework of Xi Jinping’s Moscow visit: 1) a joint statement about deepening Russia-China relations 2) a joint statement about developing key trajectories in the Russian-Chinese economic cooperation until 2030. Image
Putin: Russia and China to work on developing the Northern Sea Route.
Putin:

“We support using the Chinese yuan in transactions between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. I am sure that these forms of transactions in yuan will be developed between the Russian partners and their counterparts in other countries.”
Read 13 tweets
Mar 21, 2023
What never ceases to amaze me is muppets like this one yapping about freedumbocracy from the European “garden,” half of which was under authoritarian pandemic lockdowns and most of which banned RT. And that’s besides the history of European colonialism.
Conclusion? @cgmk is still butthurt about losing the Great Northern War to us, Russkies, 300 years ago! 🙃
Lavrov is more of a skilled diplomat than any of the grey, interchangeable EU vassal-bureaucrats. This is why he’s always popular at the G20 as is well documented. But you know this already which is why you’re stalking my tweets @cgmk.
Read 5 tweets

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