… and the motherfucking MSM, the Marketeers, Mad Men in Media, pushing more of the Inverted Totalitarianism to the point of Westerners at their Point of No Return e
Yet, oh, yet, we are refugees in our own land. The death ships, all through the Mediterranean, the thousands dying in the ocean and in deserts, yet, oh, yet we have to hear the thugs of NPR and PBS and the rest tell us about some pukes trapped in a submarine looking for luster and photo shoots of the Titanic.
Billionaire James Cameron, stage left. Look at this piece of shit, this Chlamydia Capitalist, and this is it for the billionaire classless:
All five people who were abroad the Titan – Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet – were killed in the implosion, officials said Thursday.
Cameron said he hopes the tragedy doesn’t discourage tourists from exploring the ocean.
“I’m not worried about exploration, because explorers will go,” Cameron said. “I’m worried that it has a negative impact on, let’s say, citizen explorers, tourists. … These are serious people with serious curiosity willing to put serious money down to go to these interesting places – and I don’t want to discourage that.”
“Serious fucking money,” and who pays the bill for he rescue attempt? Fuck Cameron and the rip-off horse he rode into town on.
Tens of millions of U$ taxpayer money for these freaks bolted inside a shit-hole submersible.
As Haiti explodes brought to them by U$A, Klanada, le Fucked up French.
Toothless in Wisconsin, reacting to the mother fuckers of the world, the so-called free to fuck you in the ass market: Hundred-Year-Old Industry Plans To Leave Midwest Home
“Master Lock is profitable, but is ready to abandon the community for the profits of a wealthy few.”
Those low down, no good, motherfuckers. Those stealing, stain, stab you in the back, cocksuckers. Those lying, leave you in the lurch, love em and leave em, loathsome, losers, May be on to something.
Maybe it’s high time, hit the road, fan your ass, look for greener pastures. Maybe everybody needs to get a god damned passport, and git gone. The wheels are coming off. The roof is caving in. The foundation was always no good, and is rotten, and crumbling.
And there’s little rats running around all over the place. Ya kill em, one by one, but they just keep on coming.
It might be time to go.
Yeah, take a look at the former Milwaukee, under socialist management , and compare it to subsequent years of capitalist governance. There’s your perfect example of a place where socialism was successful, for practically everyone, while capitalist is shown to be good, only for the one… .
It’s a violent, impoverished, shit hole, county. It’s an example of an apartheid state. Wisconsin, North Arkansas. Look at the demographics of Wisconsin. Milwaukee in particular. Black folk are kept isolated, for the most part, in their specific zones, whether it’s Milwaukee, Madison, or the Green Bay Area.
The Milwaukee apartheid includes such cities as Racine, and Waukesha-(the place made Rittenhouse famous). Here are the places that you will find almost all of the drug sales, prostitution, and nightly shootings. It is also convenient to have Chicago nearby, to supply the area with additional bodies to violate. The home of the Walker/Foxcon con job.
I don’t care what the milquetoast liberals from Madison say, the racial tensions here are so ingrained in the population, that the air is unsafe to breathe. The prejudice is so thick that you can see the haze, so thick, that you can cut it with a knife.
The place I have lived all my life. You can see it in our faces. Smiles are few and far between, and generally alcohol, or substance induced. And, we both know how that generally turns out. This is KKK landia. Not so much KJK landia. You asked why this place is so hard/mean.
Maybe living in an apartheid state makes people ugly. All the people. Haters and victimizers as well. Makes alot of sense to me. The word ‘nigger’ is almost as common as the word ‘beer,’ up here.
It’s the term de jour, mostly in select company, but will be directed at blacks directly, if the proportion of white bodies is correct. Mexicans used to be better tolerated, until somebody came up with the idea of job theft.
The Hmong people who relocated here have always been insulted. And, don’t even get me started on the drunken, walleye stealin’, casino redskins. The Indians got to have a few casinos, to make up for the whites stealing, well, every god-damned thing.
So what happens? The whites, illegally, put slot machines in their white taverns, and the cops, and judges, refuse to enforce the laws, prohibiting such activities.
You want to meet these folks? A lot of them will be at this Country Fest 2023, that I’ve got tickets for. You won’t find Gil Scott-Heron playing there. But, whitey will definitely be howling at the moon, at Country Fest.
Social lubricant, as far as the eye can see. No trans Bud Light for these Hillbillies. I heard recently that Modelo is currently the most popular brand in America. What the fuck? [Sent from my iPhone]
The mother fuckers, from Yale to Stanford to UW to the entire suite of fucking training centers for the fuckers who put us through ringers every nanosecond; if you don’t have a bone in your brain, then, come with me and wish upon a star and hope that they, millionaires and billionaires, and their progeny and the rest end up six feet under, or in the Mariana Trench.
They have turned the world into refugees, and they laugh, as Fuckerberg and Elon-gated Ego Musk do some fucking grappling faggotry?
[Verse 1]
We got somethin’, we both know it
We don’t talk too much about it
Ain’t no real big secret all the same
Somehow we get around it
[Pre-Chorus]
Listen, it don’t really matter to me, baby
You believe what you want to believe
[Chorus]
You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)
[Verse 2]
Somewhere, somehow, somebody
Must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you wanna lay there
And revel in your abandon
[Pre-Chorus]
Honey, it don’t make no difference to me, baby
Everybody’s had to fight to be free
[Chorus]
You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)
No baby, you don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)
[Bridge]
Baby, we ain’t the first
I’m sure a lot of other lovers been burned
Right now this seems real to you
But it’s one of those things
You got to feel to be true
[Verse 3]
Somewhere, somehow, somebody
Must have kicked you around some
Who knows, maybe you were kidnapped
Tied up, taken away, and held for ransom
[Pre-Chorus]
Honey, it don’t really matter to me, baby
Everybody’s had to fight to be free
[Chorus]
You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)
No, you don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)
You don’t have to live like a refugee
(Don’t have to live like a refugee)
And we have to hear from that piece of human Chlamydia Capitalist, James fucking Cameron.
[A migrant being rescued in the Mediterranean by a volunteer of the humanitarian organisation OPEN ARMS. Since 2014, according to the UN, at least 15,000 refugees have lost their lives in their bid to cross to Europe in rickety boats. [Photo: OPEN ARMS]]
If they don’t give a shit about us, or the bridges collapsing and the reservoirs dropping and the lead in the water, why the fuck would they care about refugees? Sacked, dumped, fired, terminated.
Nazis one and all: Bild, the German tabloid owned and operated by major European publishing house Axel Springer, is expected to replace over a hundred human editorial jobs with artificial intelligence, a leaked email first obtained by the German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) has revealed.
Here we go, two fucked up Zionists, Lex and Mark, and then the fucking Elon, and how many Ukrainians (Goyim) perish because of another set of Zionists — Blinken, Yellen, Garland, Nuland, Kagan and thousands in his administration, amd Biden the Zionist Who Finally Got a Jewish Doctor Son-in Law). Read this pathetic racist shit:
I have big fan of Vice President Joe Biden since I volunteered and donated to his ill-fated 1980 Presidential campaign. So you can imagine my happiness when I found out that his daughter, Ashley, was engaged to my doctor, Dr. Howard Krein.
Dr. Krein is a very nice, thorough doctor. He is part of a big ear, nose and throat practice. My only complaint is that he kept me waiting over an hour and did not offer any apology when he did finally see me.
Think about these white pieces of SHIT Zionists and their rabbi-loving minds. Death in the world, and they play boy-boy hugging hard cum lately!
And, can you imagine if I took the odometer and turned it back and sold my car to a private buyer or car dealer? In Oregon?
Ahh, that is private enterprise — fuck them anyway you can, including the horse they rode into town on, in this case, the truck!
On Friday, Automotive News reports that FedEx and Holman Automotive have been accused of rolling back the odometers of old delivery trucks in a new lawsuit.
Companies like FedEx ordinarily get rid of their delivery trucks when they hit their operational limit, usually around 350,000 miles, but, in the suit, plaintiffs say a scheme involving old trucks started over a decade ago, when FedEx decided to stop scrapping the trucks and sent them to auto auctions instead.
Shit, more Greta and Bill Mckibben pornography, and both the motherfuckers (father fucker, too) want more more more depleted uranium for the Penis Piano Cocaine Cowboy ZioAzovNaziLensky:
Ecological doom-loops: Why ecosystem collapses may occur much sooner than expected
Shit, we have more important things to concern ourselves with, no? Fuckerberg and Friedmaniac playing bi-sexuals on the mat.
Banks and biology, interesting shit:
Previous studies have suggested significant costs from going past tipping points in large ecosystems will kick in from the second half of this century onwards. But our findings suggest these costs could occur much sooner.
We found the speed at which stress is applied is vital to understanding system collapse, which is probably relevant to non-ecological systems too. Indeed, the increased speed of both news coverage and mobile banking processes has recently been invoked as raising the risk of bank collapse. As the journalist Gillian Tett has observed:
“The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank provided one horrifying lesson in how tech innovation can unexpectedly change finance (in this case by intensifying digital herding). Recent flash crashes offer another. However, these are probably a small foretaste of the future of viral feedback loops.”
But there the comparison between ecological and economic systems runs out. Banks can be saved as long as governments provide sufficient financial capital in bailouts. In contrast, no government can provide the immediate natural capital needed to restore a collapsed ecosystem.
There is no way to restore collapsed ecosystems within any reasonable timeframe. There are no ecological bailouts. In the financial vernacular, we will just have to take the hit.
Water water, anyone? Can you lead a horse to water and have him drink too?
So, the population is shifting to the hot zones of the world, into the wet bulb mother fucking death zones — thanks to corporations heading from WA state to Florida, Texas and Arizona? Freaky Economics, and fuck you and the horse you rode into town on. Use fucking less water, poor slobs, but bring in more and more population and water consumers. SCHIZOPHRENIA a la Chlamydia Capitalism.
One year later, Mead’s elevation is inching back up. A combination of historic winter snowpack and new federal agreements to pay cities, farmers and tribes to conserve water are expected to raise Mead to a high point of 1,070 feet in February 2024, according to the most recent federal data. That elevation will likely change as more conservation agreements are signed.
Paying people to save precious water was an essential component to the recent deal struck between lower basin states Arizona, California, and Nevada to collectively conserve 3 million acre-feet over the next three years, experts say.
But as maps and charts show, the extra water will be a drop in the bucket for a reservoir that has dramatically declined in the past two decades.
Mead’s projected high elevation of 1,070 next year “is a lot better than 1,045,” Porter said. “It sounds like a nice elevation, but we know how fast it can go down.”
The conservation agreements will certainly contribute to Lake Mead’s modest rise in the coming months. But state officials and experts told CNN the largest effect on the reservoir by far will be the deluge of winter snow melting into the Colorado River headwaters.
Again, there are NO national conversations, no POTUS Fucks talking about the real stuff, including heat and water shortages and a list of ten thousand other important national and regional and state-by-state and county issues. Biden and the Bitches in his Office and the Butt Fuckers in the Republican party, man oh man. War war war, critical race theory, transgenderism, no more liberal educators in k12 and higher ed. They are, IMHO, the stuff of sending them all to the bottom of the sea. Titanic, sirs and madames, Davey Jones’ locker.
“Corporations are Moving out of Washington at Higher Rate Than any Other State” There you go, solidarity, the United (fuck that bullshit) $nakes of Amnesia. Imagine that, no national plan, not a fucking thing in dog-eat-dog fucking Chlamydia Capitalism AmeriKKK-uhh.
Approximately 9% of America’s corporations moved headquarters since the beginning of 2022, the highest rate since 2017, with most corporations moving to Florida, Texas, and Arizona.
The states that corporations were most likely to abandon were Washington, New York, and California.
Ah, photo below, of another weak democrat, that lock-down mother fucking guv: [Photo: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.]
Fuck, move to Russia, man, and you get bonuses for fucking and fornicating and having kids. This is the upside down world of the days of the living dead:
Lying flatism is a trending philosophy that has emerged in China and is practiced by young adults who choose to live a minimalist lifestyle and reject the pressures of society. Lying flatists refuse to participate in consumerist lifestyles, such as pursuing high-paying jobs, purchasing material possessions, getting married, or having children. They believe that personal efforts are no longer effective in improving their lives due to structural and societal factors.
Researchers became interested in studying lying flatism and its relationship with attitudes toward singlehood because singlehood has become a favorable lifestyle choice worldwide, particularly among young adults. The increasing number of singles in countries like the United States, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and China suggests a shift in perspectives and lifestyles. The researchers wanted to explore whether individuals who have positive feelings toward lying flatism also have positive attitudes toward singlehood.
Of course, some truth and relevance behind some of this, but if these fucks in America, in their lying flatism bullshit, still push bombs for the Piano Penis Playing Criminal, ZioAzovNaziLensky, then may they go the way of th dodo or personally fucked and the horse they rode into town double fucked!
Yikes. Another fucking limp-wristed photo: Who made that coffee: grew it, picked it? And the Ikea in the background, who made that, and his cotton T-shirt, who the fuck grew that, harvested it and loomed it? And those spectacles? Who slaved over them to provide him with his 20/20 bullshit vision? Lots of sweat shop sweat in those cushions and sofa, and that skateboard, the metal and wood and stain and wheels? Fucking yeah, lazy sons of bitches with the fucking Tracking Fit Bit Watch.
It is a fucking upside down world, and the news, well, that fucking dude, Wagner “Sort of CEO” Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin [centre] poses with two Wagner Group fighters, Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine, May 25, 2023.
In an address to the nation at 10.00 am Moscow time on Saturday, President Vladimir Putin strongly condemned the developments describing it as “an armed mutiny” and calling for the “consolidation of all forces.” Putin drew a parallel with the insurrection in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in February 1917 that led to the Bolshevik Revolution and a protracted civil war with large-scale western military intervention, including the United States, “while all sorts of political adventurers and foreign forces profited from the situation by tearing the country apart to divide it.”
He promised, “Decisive actions will also be taken to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don (700 kms south of Moscow where Prigozhin is located with Wagner fighters.) It remains difficult, the work of civil and military authorities is actually blocked.”
Putin vowed that those “who organised and prepared a military mutiny, who took up arms against his comrades – betrayed Russia,” will be punished. Significantly, Putin never once mentioned Prigozhin’s name.
This face-off has been in the making for several months and is traceable to tensions in the working relations between the Wagner forces and the Russian ministry of defence, Prigozhin’s personal antipathy towards Defence Minister Shoigu and the Russian top brass, his bloated ego and over
Now now, imagine how many sad fucks in the military, low and upper ranks, might want to take to task that Raytheon motherfucker, calling his calls on Ukraine fucked up and dangerous and motivated by PROFITS? Hmm, how about a few hundred or thousand of Erik Prince’s soldiers of blood lust fortune taking on Biden?
Legally, nominees must have been out of uniform for seven years to serve as the secretary of defense. The Senate Armed Services Committee in a voice vote passed Austin’s nomination.
[Photo: Criminal.]
Fuck him and the horses he rode into town on:
Austin, who would be the first Black person to lead the Pentagon, has not yet been retired from the military for seven years, and would therefore require a waiver from Congress to serve Biden’s Cabinet.
Lawmakers most recently granted a waiver in 2017 to retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, President Donald Trump’s first Defense secretary, and they have expressed reluctance to approving another exception for Biden.
Before Mattis, the last retired general to be granted a congressional waiver to become Defense secretary was George Marshall, who served under former President Harry Truman.
The United States has a long history of civilian control of its armed forces, and Biden’s reliance on the counsel of former military officials has already provoked some unease among foreign policy and national security experts.
A dimwit dem said what?
Today, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) released the following statement in response to her vote on the Congressional waiver to permit the confirmation of retired General Lloyd J. Austin to serve as Secretary of Defense. While Senator Cortez Masto believes General Austin is qualified for the position, she voted against the waiver due to concerns about the erosion of civilian control over the U.S. military. Under current law, military officers cannot serve as Secretary of Defense until seven years after they have retired from active duty unless they are granted a waiver by Congress. Austin retired from the U.S. Army on May 1, 2016.
“General Austin has served our country for over 40 years, and his impressive credentials make him incredibly qualified for the position of Secretary of Defense. Yet I cannot support continuing to erode civilian control over our military, which is a foundational principle of our democracy. In 2017, I voted in favor of a waiver for General Mattis because he presented one of the few options to reign in the most dangerous impulses of President Trump. The same is not true of our current moment. The events of January 6th show us how vital it is to preserve the strength of our democratic institutions. We cannot pick and choose which ones we want to protect when it’s convenient. So I voted today to protect the norms that ensure civilian control over our military, which is so essential to the life of our democracy.”
Again, these are monsters, and what would Russia do, what would Putin do?
Washington, D.C. — United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin raising a series of questions for the Department of Defense (DoD) regarding press reports that former Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt used his positions on defense advisory boards to further his own financial interests. Under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) the Secretary of Defense is responsible for ensuring that defense advisory board members adhere to ethics standards, including following ethics laws that prohibit participating personally and substantially in matters relating to individuals’ financial interests.
“Mr. Schmidt’s investment activities, and the lack of public disclosure, create the appearance that these boards are yet another tool for influence-peddling and profiteering at DoD, raising concerns about the ethics of their members and the utility of their recommendations,” wrote Senator Warren.
Reports have revealed several instances where companies Mr. Schmidt has invested in received multimillion-dollar Department of Defense contracts and may have created a direct financial conflict of interest with his roles as chair of the Defense Innovation Board and of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI).
Ahh, so that Wagner dude, another millionare, like Lloyd: Source.
Yeah, in my revolutionary world, Lloyd and the Wagner Boss, up against that firing squad wall. But not allowed here at Substack or Word Press, just hypothesizing.
Here, remarkable piece: Life in Donbass: How locals feel today, over nine years since their region broke away from Ukrainian control: Residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic give their perspectives on the hostilities that have been raging since 2014, and how they feel about Russia and Ukraine.
[A view of Donetsk © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Those who believe that the Ukraine conflict started on February 24, 2022 are deeply mistaken – a point that residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) are eager to point out to anyone who visits their region.
The lives of locals were divided into “before” and “after” back in 2014, when the vast majority refused to accept the outcome of the Western-backed “Maidan” coup. Beyond Donetsk, the same mood prevails in Volnovakha, Mariupol, and other cities that were formerly under the control of Kiev.
[A neighborhood near Azovstal in Mariupol © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
RT correspondent Angelina Latypova talked with local residents to find out what life has been like in the DPR over the years, what they felt at the start of the Russian offensive in February 2022, how they survived the most severe battles, and why many decided not to leave their homes despite the danger.
Staying to help
Tanya was 20 years old when her city was first attacked. Forced to abandon her university studies in Slavyansk (the city was one of the focal points of the 2014 “Russian Spring” uprising but is still controlled by Kiev), she went to the battlefield to help the local militia.
After serving in the army, she became a medical worker and stitched up wounded soldiers. Eventually, Tanya became a volunteer. She now helps victims of the hostilities, finds new owners for homeless pets, and delivers humanitarian aid. She also shoots video reports.
[Tanya is a volunteer in Donetsk and other reclaimed territories © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
After the start of the Russian offensive in February 2022, Tanya helped evacuate people from the sites of severe battles, including Volnovakha and Mariupol.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) threw all the civilians out. In Volnovakha, there was only one building on the block with a basement that was big enough. They came and kicked all the civilians out, and went into hiding there. And then, when they retreated to Mariupol, they used a tank and leveled the entrance to the building. During negotiations, they said that all the people had been evacuated,” Tanya said.
[Cars burnt in a Ukrainian strike on central Donetsk © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Tanya explains that she was almost killed – on her birthday – when a missile flew into a yard in the city center. There were also explosions near her home, in a part of the city with no military facilities.
Locals say that civilian infrastructure is most often attacked by the AFU, and that targets have included the Transfiguration Cathedral and the local market. They say the church gets shelled during services on holy days, and the market is regularly attacked on weekends. The AFU reportedly strikes on days when these places are full of people.
[A view of the Transfiguration Cathedral and the local market © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
“Even the children here know where the missiles are flying from and why. I have a six-year-old niece. She sits in a taxi and says, ‘My God, what a nightmare. They are attacking us, aren’t they?’. I say, ‘Yes… And who is attacking us?’ She says, ‘Ukraine.’ She knows how to hide and where the attack is coming from. She knows that if the bombardment has started, she needs to grab her cat and her favorite coloring books, and go sit on a chair in the corridor. This is not normal.”
[Memorial “To your liberators, Donbass” © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Staying to survive
Lyudmila is a retiree who gives me a tour of the Kuibyshev district – one of the most heavily shelled areas of Donetsk.
Lyudmila has five grandchildren. After the start of hostilities in Donbass, two of her granddaughters moved to Yalta in Crimea, where they now live. Three others remained in Donetsk. Lyudmila says that over the past nine years, whenever the city comes under attack, her whole family has to hide in a narrow corridor, pressing close to each other. In the area where she lives, there are constant strikes. After our meeting, Lyudmila nearly got hit by a shell that exploded 500 meters away from her. In complete darkness, she ran home as fast as she could.
[Lyudmila stands in front of a burnt-down grocery store where her family used to shop © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Lyudmila hasn’t left because her husband is sick with cancer. Her sons also stayed. They said, “As long as the war continues, we’ll be here. We can’t quit our jobs, so we are forced to live under explosions.”
“Those who stayed won’t go anywhere now. They are glad that things have finally started changing. And now, there is hope. In the past eight years, we nearly lost all hope. We felt depressed and hopeless.”
[Russian flags in the center of Donetsk © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Lyudmila is originally from Maryinka, and her relatives still live there. The city is currently the scene of fierce battles, and it is no longer possible to evacuate them. In March and April last year, they were forced to hide in the basement from shelling, and were starving. Lyudmila says an 80-year-old relative stopped walking and went blind.
She also has relatives in Odessa, Ivano-Frankovsk, and Kurakhov (Donetsk Republic). However, communication is dangerous since Ukrainian officials allegedly arrest people who get calls from Russia. Lyudmila’s son-in-law was detained, for this reason, but fled across the border.
[A view of the Kalinin mine © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
During our walk around the city, Lyudmila frequently pointed to locations which have been hit by Ukrainian strikes. Near the opera house, a missile killed a girl with her grandmother. At the bank, another hit elderly people who were standing in line. At the local market, civilians out food shopping were killed. Missiles have struck schools and kindergartens.
“Every place around here has been hit. We used to think these were accidental, scattered attacks: I mean on schools, kindergartens, apartment buildings. Now we know that it’s targeted. If today there are two shellings of the same school porch, tomorrow it will happen again.”
[A savings bank in central Donetsk. On this spot, 22 people were killed and 33 injured in a Tochka-U missile strike. © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Ukrainian attacks surged just before the Russian offensive in February 2022.
“We thought there’s an offensive coming from the Ukrainian side because in February, the shelling was so severe. We were already used to it and did not think much. But that’s when our two republics [DPR and LPR] were hit by around 150-200 [strikes] per day. Or per week. But in February, when the evacuation was announced, we got up to 1,000 strikes.”
[Donetsk blacksmith Viktor Mikhalev makes sculptures from shell fragments. © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Lyudmila says that for eight years, the Ukrainian side announced ceasefires that were given “characteristic” names – like the “Easter truce” or “school truce” in honor of the start of school on September 1. But the same party that proposed them immediately violated these agreements.
Recounting the events of 2014, Lyudmila remembers how the residents of Donetsk went to Lenin Square carrying Russian flags, and called for their region to become part of Russia.
“In 2014, there were large rallies here. Everyone shouted that they sided with Russia, only with Russia. We did not agree with the coup that happened in Kiev. It was immediately clear that our paths had separated. Then we held a referendum. Everyone hoped that it would be like in Crimea. In Crimea, it all complied with international law. But in our case, there were no [legal] grounds. And it was too early to get involved in a big war. And now, here is the big war. Unfortunately, we got the big war.”
[Lenin square, where rallies were held in 2014 © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Staying to remember
Svetlana and her daughter Vera drove us from the checkpoint to Donetsk. Seeing that we are journalists from Russia, they gladly agreed to talk to us and invited us over to their house.
The family lives in Volnovakha, a city that was under siege for two weeks. When the evacuation was announced, the Voitenko family decided to stay. Having elderly parents and many pets, it wasn’t easy for them to leave.
[Svetlana and her daughter, Vera © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
On the morning of February 24, Svetlana heard a powerful explosion that made her jump up in bed. “Verochka, the war has started,” she said, running to wake her daughter up.
In addition to several cats and dogs, the family also has lizards, parrots, and roosters. None of the animals were injured during the attacks. However, after the shelling, their dog started having convulsions, which continued for several more months after the Ukrainian forces left.
[To provide food for their own pets, the Voitenko family opened the first pet store in Volnovakha after Ukrainian forces left. © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
For two weeks, the family hid in a small corridor together with the animals. When things quietened down, they looked out to see who was shooting. From the window of the house, they could see Ukrainian tanks driving along the streets and firing at residential areas. The family cooked food on a wood stove, each time fearing that their house would be discovered and attacked.
“Two or three times a day, the AFU would engage in a ‘tank biathlon’ – they fired at houses, residential buildings, people. We were afraid to kindle a fire in the stove, because the smoke [coming out of the chimney] would make us an easy target. When my husband got the fire burning, I would shout, ‘Put it out, they’re going to attack us now!’”
[The destroyed market in Volnovakha © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Locals attempt to explain the logic of the Ukrainians. Apparently, those who stayed in Volnovakha after the start of hostilities were considered “separatists,” which is what Kiev’s forces called anyone who didn’t move to their side of the frontlines.
The family says the city has been subjected to “Ukrainization” for many years, and the Ukrainian authorities tried to instill hatred towards Russia. Vera remembers how in 2014, at the very start of the events that lead to the coup in Kiev and the war in Donbass, schoolchildren shouted slogans like “Muscovites to the gallows!” and “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Muscovite!”. In class, teachers talked about Russia’s supposed shelling of Ukrainian cities.
“In the middle of our lesson, Grad rocket launchers started firing from the fields. The teacher said, ‘Look, Russia is attacking.’. Even then, I was wondering – what is Russia doing in a Ukrainian city? How can it shoot here? How? But many believed.”
[A new hospital in Volnovakha. Since Ukrainian forces were ousted, construction has been in full swing, with schools, apartment blocks and medical facilities being rebuilt. © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Because of this, some of the family’s friends who stayed on territory controlled by Kiev did not believe that the AFU had attacked civilians in Volnovakha.
“The worst is when the people who were here all the time but then left, say that it was Russia. Though some people changed their minds when they came here.”
[A central street in Donetsk. The inscription on the billboard says “Russia! This is our victory! This is our country!” © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Staying to live
In Mariupol, just like in Severodonetsk, Volnovakha, and other cities, the AFU set up firing points in apartment buildings while the residents of those homes hid from shelling in the basements.
“I evacuated one couple – the windows of their apartment were all broken and a firing point was set up there. The AFU went down into the basement and said, ‘Give us the keys. If you don’t give us the keys, we’ll blow up the door.’ And they blew up the door,” says Tanya, the volunteer from Donetsk.
[The ruins of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Denis, a Mariupol resident who survived the siege of the city, says his family got lucky: they locked the entrance to their apartment building, which helped them survive. However, the Ukrainian army still tried to force their way in with gunfire.
[A view of the Holy Intercession Church © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
“Azov started attacking us on March 1. I lost my sister. We buried almost 90 people in the yard. When I went to get water and descended down to the sea, Azov snipers fired at us. They specifically attacked us so we wouldn’t get the water. We were stuck here for three weeks without water and bread. We were so happy when it started raining. I carried rainwater to the old women in the basement,” recalls one of the local construction workers I talked to on the street.
[Views of Mariupol © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
The Azov Battalion is one of Ukraine’s infamous neo-Nazi units. Back in 2014, when Mariupol residents protested against the policies of Kiev’s new authorities, Azov fighters shot anyone who got in their way. Denis still remembers those events with a shudder.
“In 2014 it felt terrifying. But then apathy set in. Because we understood that with a policy like that, Ukraine had no future.”
[In Mariupol, shells are often seen scattered on the ground. City beaches still haven’t been completely cleared of mines. © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Denis says that in the following years, the city was actively “Ukrainized.” He doesn’t divide his life into “before” and “after” February 24, 2022, because the war has been going on since 2014. Donetsk, where civilians have been dying for nine years, is located only 100 km from Mariupol.
“Zelensky was elected as the ‘president of peace’,” says Denis. “But instead of stopping the war, he threw the residents of Mariupol and other cities right into the warzone in order to show the world how the Russian army supposedly ‘operates’ here.”
[Freedom Square in Mariupol © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
“On the other side of the city, they call the AFU ‘zakhisniki’ – ‘defenders’. But that’s not how you defend cities. The DPR and Russia did not aim to destroy cities – that is evident both in Melitopol and Berdyansk. No one destroyed buildings and killed people there. The AFU said right away, ‘We are not defending you, we are defending the territory.’ Knowing that they can’t retain control over Mariupol, they tried to completely destroy it. That’s why they hid in residential buildings and set up mortars on roofs,” Denis says.
[The Azovstal Stadium © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
Denis remembers the arrival of the DPR troops on March 18 as “the most heartfelt meeting”.
“They rejoiced and we rejoiced. We all hugged. We felt scared, and they felt scared. They probably did not expect anything like this.”
[A view of Mariupol © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
[A ruined residential building © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
[A crater left by a shell strike in the city center © By Angelina Latypova, special for RT]
By Angelina Latypova, a Russian independent journalist
Paul Haeder, Author 