The most difficult situation in #Ukraine is now in Luhansk region, #Severodonetsk and surrounding cities/villages.
Head of the regional administration Serhiy Haidai in interview told me some important things you should know: 🧵
“#Severodonetsk holds back a huge pile of Russian troops like #Mariupol held it in Donetsk region. In strategic military terms, the city is nothing, because #Lysychansk is close but much higher.”
“The only problem in #Ukraine is the lack of a long-range artillery. If there was enough artillery and ammunition for it, we would push back the enemy’s artillery, and I can guarantee that our military would clear the city completely in two days.”
“I am very annoyed by these European statements [like from France and Germany that they shouldn’t give heavy weapons to UA]. With their tolerance, it have led to the fact that #Ukraine is currently at war. It is their fault that there was no response [to Putin’s aggression].”
“All critical infrastructure - gas, water, electricity - is 100% destroyed in Luhansk region.”
“Many people were buried in yards. The arrival of heavy artillery tears people to pieces: there is a hand, there is a head… Bodies lie for a day, three, four, it is impossible to take them away.”
“Sometimes the neighbors go out to bury the bodies, new shelling comes - and they are being killed, too.”
No one evacuates people from #Severodonetsk anymore, there is no road. There are fragments on the roads that cut through the tires. 15% of locals remain in the city, and they can’t escape.
The interview was recorded in #Bakhmut, Donetsk oblast, the city where people help the neighboring Luhansk region with humanitarian aid and evacuation. Pretty close to the frontline.
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#Bakhmut, Donetsk region. 20 km from the Russian positions. One of the most beautiful cities in #Donbas. Now it is under shelling 24/7. I've heard dozens of incoming and outgoing in just 2 hours.
Surprisingly, the city is well-groomed. Flowers and rose bushes are everywhere.
#Bakhmut is a key city for the evacuation from the Luhansk region: people who flee from #Severodonetsk or #Lysychansk stop here to take a breath and move on further, to Pokrovsk and out of Donbas.
It's not safe here. You can see a school that was hit by a rocket, in the photo.
Russian army can’t reach the city with mortars so they use rockets like Iskander and Tochka U. I’ve heard sounds of heavy weapons very close to the city center.
What was the trigger for #Putin to invade Ukraine?
One of his messages during the 9 May parade was that the West wanted to take #Crimea from Russia. And I think, this is it. Thread.🧵1/9
In 2021 (in previous life huh), Ukraine has launched the Crimea platform - a government organization that aimed to return the #Crimea question to the international agenda on a high level.
The main issue was how we will take the peninsula back from #Russia. 2/9
The main problem with #Crimea was that very few high-up politicians in the West pointed out that #Russia took the peninsula illegally. There was a shameful silence about this Putin’s crime from which, actually, the war in #Donbas started. Impunity has spawned a monster. 3/9
Few years ago, I and my @zaborona_media team filmed a short op-doc about #Mariupol and it’s change makers. There are three different characters: eco activist who fought oligarch, owner of Azovstal plant, art activist who developed a new culture, and #Azov regiment’s officer. 🧵
This op-doc may give you an idea of what #Mariupol was like before the #Invasion, and who are the officers of Azov. They are not “nazis”, as Russian propaganda may tell you. There were people with different views, and the command didn’t approve the expression of radical views.
At the beginning of the war in 2014, there were people with radical, even white supremacy views, inside the first groups of the Azov battalion. But soon, command ordered them to resign. Azov regiment trained a lot, and they became professionals.
Commanders of #Azov regiment who resists #Russia in Azovstal plant in #Mariupol tell during the press-conference via Zoom, that about 25,000 civilians have been killed in the city by Russia.
In this thread you can read the most important things they tell.
“Civilians were evacuated in three days recently. We do not know if everyone was evacuated. From politicians we hear that it was success. But during the evacuation two servicemen were killed and six injured. This is the price of the evacuation of civilians.”
“On the territory of the Azovstal plant there are many civilian and military casualties, and tens of thousands of citizens died as a result of Russia's actions during 2,5 months, they didn’t have a chance to be evacuated timely.”
#Mariupol
Tolik says, they woke up at the first explosions – the shooting started at four or half-past four in the morning. As soon as it dawned, the men – that is, Tolik and his new comrades – got up, brewed coffee, and discussed the plan for the day.
To go to get water or not, whether or not there would be bombing in their area. They took water from a spring a couple of kilometers away from #Azovstal, near Malofontanna Street. And when drawing water, they saw shells bursting over the plant.
Gradually the place became unsafe: mortars started firing there. And once Tolik found out that a man who was drawing water from the spring there had been killed – and his “brigade” has not gone there since.
Conflict in #Ukraine.🧵
Politicians and media around the world often refer to the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine as a “conflict in Ukraine”. What does this "conflict" mean? Let's imagine how this word would sound in a different context, more familiar to many. 1/5
Ex#1. Conflict in Poland: The Nazis killed more than three million Jews in concentration camps. The leader of Germany says that these people were the first to unleash a confrontation with the Nazis. 2/5
Ex#2. There was a conflict between the Americans and members of the Bin Laden group in New York. As a result of this conflict, almost three thousand people died, more than 6300 were injured. 3/5