24 February. Morning. Phone call. Kyiv is being bombed, sirens are wailing all over the city. Following the unprovoked Russian attack in Ukraine, martial law is introduced, the President announces the severance of diplomatic relations with Moscow. Feeling of surrealism.
Today is the 20th day of the war, and Russia continues to deny that it is waging a war of conquest against Ukraine calling it a “special operation.” In the meanwhile, the Kremlin denies that it is targeting civilians in Ukraine or civilian infrastructure, but the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine as a direct result of the Russian invasion is growing every day.
The invaders continue to destroy Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Mariupol, Volnovakha, Zhytomyr, Akhtyrka, Sumy, Severodonetsk, Dnipro and many other cities and villages in Ukraine with cruise missiles and aerial bombardment. They kill civilians and destroy infrastructure. The howling of sirens does not stop throughout Ukraine.
After failing to defeat the Ukrainian army, Putin bombs unarmed people with cluster and phosphorus bombs in a scorched-earth tactic and blocks humanitarian aid.
According to an anonymous source in Russian diplomatic circles, as well as from the evidence of prisoners of war, the Russian military received a direct order to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure. The goal of the policy of total terror and genocide of the Ukrainian people is to spread panic in society, which Moscow hopes may force the Ukrainian leadership to capitulate and accept the conditions of the Kremlin.
As of March 14, 90 children have died and more than 100 have been injured. Most of the victims were in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kherson, Nikolaev and Zhytomyr regions.
Since March 1, Mariupol has been completely surrounded by Russian troops and all exits from the city have been blocked. As of March 14, more than 2,500 civilians have died in this city. On March 8, a 6-year-old girl died of dehydration in Mariupol under the rubble of a destroyed house. Her mother died. It is impossible to imagine how much suffering this innocent child had to endure. The last minutes of her life she was alone, exhausted, frightened, and experiencing terrible thirst. This is just one of the many horror stories from Mariupol, which has been surviving under siege for eight days.
Despite agreement on a temporary cease-fire for the evacuation of the population, on March 9 at 16:30, the Russian invaders dropped several powerful bombs on the Mariupol children’s hospital and maternity hospital killing 3 people, injuring another 17, including pregnant women. On March 14, a pregnant woman, who was the first to be carried out on a stretcher from the destroyed maternity hospital, died; her unborn child did not survive. In an address to Ukrainians and Europeans, President Zelensky stressed that the actions of the Russian military are beyond atrocity. “What kind of country is this – the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, maternity hospitals and destroys them? Did someone in the maternity hospital humiliate Russian speakers? Were pregnant women going to shoot at Rostov?”
More than 100 bombs have been dropped on the city in the last 24 hours. The bombing of Mariupol is by no means indiscriminate; the port and the plant are not attacked, Russian troops deliberatrely fire at residential buildings, bomb shelters, fire stations so that it is not possible to put out fires. A humanitarian catastrophe has begun in the city: there is no electricity, water and gas. People collect rainwater for drinking, cook food on a fire in the street, and bury their dead neighbours in their yards. The bodies of those who have no one to bury them lie right on the streets until the public services take away their bodies and bury them in mass graves.
For 20 days now, Russian invaders have been mercilessly bombing and shooting at residential buildings in the towns and villages adjacent to Kyiv. These formerly comfortable suburbs with parks and greenery have turned into ruins. In Irpin, Vorzel, Bucha, Gostomel, the Russian army does not allow local residents to leave their homes, the enemy hides in residential areas and shoots directly at the windows. The corpses of people are in the basements and on the streets, the Russian NaZis do not allow even the Red Cross to take away the bodies, they fire at humanitarian aid vehicles.
On March 11, when trying to evacuate along a humanitarian corridor agreed with the Russian Federation from the village of Peremoha, which is 30 km from the Kyiv region, Russian troops shot a column of women and children. As a result of the shelling, 6 women and 1 child were killed. The invaders forced the remnants of the column to return to the village of Pobeda and did not let them out of the village. At present, it is almost impossible to establish communication, as well as to provide humanitarian and medical assistance to people.
On March 13, in Volnovakha, Donetsk region, a chaplain of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ukraine died at the hands of the Russian military, and on March 14, in Berdyansk, Zaporizhzhya region, armed invaders broke into the priest’s house, searched it, and then kidnapped him and took him to an unknown destination.
Two days earlier, Russian invaders abducted the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov. He has been tortured for three days in order to record a video where he allegedly expresses his support for the occupying authorities of the Russian Federation. Fedorov refused to cooperate with the enemy.
These are only some of the examples of the atrocities of the Russian fascists invading Ukraine. The crazed dictator is continuing to launch missile strikes on both the military and civilian infrastructure of Ukraine, and send his army to kill, rape and rob civilians. If the Russian dictator achieves military goals in Ukraine, he will direct his efforts against other countries on the eastern flank of NATO to ease sanctions. We are witnessing before our very eyes the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 21st century unfolding in the centre of Europe. The civilisation of the future world order depends on the outcome of the Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is time to wake up and fight against the NaZi culture of lies and fascism being peddled by the Kremlin;
