2023-07-08 19:00:00
When the Russian president ordered the armed invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he promised that he would be able to conquer the country in 72 years: but already 500 days passed and the only thing he achieved was destruction, a list of 9,000 civilian deaths and a war that seems to have no end. On this journey, Ukrainians were brutalized, raped and murdered, their cities razed to the ground and their homes looted.
The current situation is not hopeful: Ukraine is demanding more weapons to sustain a slowly advancing counter-offensive and its cities are periodically shelled by Russian troops. The counteroffensive launched at the beginning of June to reconquer territories in the east and south is carried out with fierce fighting and significant casualties.
February 24, 2022: invasion. Despite weeks of speculation about whether or not it will happen, Russia surprises Ukraine and the entire world on February 24, 2022 with its decision to invade its neighboring former Soviet republic. The shock displayed on the bandaged face of Olena Kurilo, a teacher wounded in a bombing raid in the eastern Ukrainian city of Chuguev, reflects that of an entire country. Her resistance, too. “I will never, under any conditions, submit to Putin. It is better to die,” says Kurilo, whose photograph becomes one of the symbolic images of the war.
March 7, 2022: Mass exodus. As soon as the war starts, Ukrainians start leaving the country by car, bus, train or on foot, mainly towards the borders of Poland, Hungary and Romania. Men of fighting age are ordered to stay, leading to scenes of heartbreaking farewells, such as this image at the central station in the port of Odessa on March 7, in which a father watches his daughter leave.
In the other side, Russian forces deployed a powerful defense and Ukraine lacks aviation and artillery ammunition to dismantle it. And it is that the Russians “built solid fortifications, they have a lot of equipment,” according to Antonina Morajovska, a 73-year-old resident of Nikopol, who believes that there is a long way to go before the conflict ends. “I see the advances of ours, it is not easy for them… It will be difficult, but we are going to win anyway.”
Despite the million-dollar military aid packages from the Western powers, the Ukrainian army only managed to recover a few hundred km2 and liberate a dozen towns since the start of the counteroffensive.
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A far cry from his quick victories last year, when he reconquered more than 9,000 km2 in nine days east of Kharkov in September and 5,000 km2 in November in the Kherson region.
“The offensive is not fast, that is a fact,” acknowledged Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.which pressures Western powers for long-range weapons and F-16 fighter jets.
“Without long-range weapons, it’s difficult to not only carry out offensive missions but also, to be honest, defensive operations,” he explained.
April 2, 2022: horror in Bucha. One month after the start of the war, the Russian army announces its withdrawal from northern Ukraine after having failed in its attempt to take kyiv. Thus arises the horror of what happened in the towns and villages it has occupied. In the recently liberated Bucha, in the suburbs of Kiev, international correspondents discovered the bodies of at least 20 civilians, some with their hands tied behind their backs, strewn on a residential street.
April 12, 2022: Mariupol in ruins. One city above all symbolizes the suffering of the first part of the war: the southern port of Mariupol, destroyed during a brutal three-month siege. This photograph, taken during a visit organized by Russian forces on April 12, shows the ruins of a theater razed to the ground during a Russian attack as hundreds of people took refuge inside.
More than 9,000 civilians killed in 500 days of war in Ukraine
On Friday, the UN denounced the human cost of the war in Ukraine, which in its first 500 days it claimed more than 9,000 civilian lives, including nearly 500 children.
“Today marks another grim milestone in the war that continues to take a horrible toll on the Ukrainian civilian population,” said Noel Calhoun, deputy head of the HRMMU.
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Although the number of victims had fallen on average this year compared to 2022, it picked up again in May and June, observers say.
On June 27, 13 civilians, including four children, were killed in a missile attack in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine and on Thursday, far from the front line, at least ten people were killed in another attack in Lviv.
The number rose again on Saturday with the death of eight people by Russian rocket fire in the city of Lyman. This makes “The past two weeks have been among the deadliest since the start of the Russian invasion,” the HRMMU said.
June 15, 2022: Battle for Donbas. After the withdrawal in the north, Russian forces are concentrated in Donbas, the eastern region partly in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014. The Ukrainians, outgunned, ask the West for more powerful weapons to repel the attack. France sends several Caesar systems, truck-mounted guns, like this one pictured in action near the town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region.
October 8, 2022: Bombed bridge in Crimea. Russia’s prestige suffers a blow Oct. 8 when the 19-kilometre bridge linking the Russian mainland to the annexed Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, the pride of President Vladimir Putin, is partially destroyed. Ukrainian social networks are flooded with images of the bridge – a despised symbol of Russian annexation – in flames and with thick black smoke. The Ukrainian government denies being behind the attack.
After 500 days of war, Zelensky is still defiant
This Saturday, Zelenski, vindicated the “courage” of his people and released a video on the reconquered Island of Snakes, in the Black Sea, at the end of 500 days of resistance to the Russian invasion, which maintained the pressure with a new lethal bombardment in the east.
“Today we are on the Island of Snakes, which will never be conquered by the occupiers, together with all of Ukraine, because we are the country of the brave,” said.
October 17, 2022: the explosive drones appear. Retaliation for the Kerch bridge attack comes in the form of deadly missile and drone strikes against kyiv and other cities with the primary goal of destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. On October 17, kyiv residents wake up to the drone of Iranian-made explosive drones homing in on their targets.
November 13, 2022: Jerson released. Russia suffers a major setback on November 9 when its forces leave the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which has been occupied since the start of the war and the subject of a heavy counteroffensive. Days later the inhabitants of Kherson celebrate the arrival of the Ukrainian forces, although the euphoria is limited by the fear that Russia will continue to attack the city, something it does repeatedly.
Moscow captured this island shortly after launching its invasion on February 24, 2022. Despite this, the small island became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance after a group of guards defending it rejected the request in a radio message. Order to surrender launched from a Russian ship.
“Fuck off,” they told the crew of a Russian warship demanding their surrender.
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The Ukrainian soldiers were taken prisoner, but were later exchanged for Russian prisoners. Ukrainian forces recaptured the island in June last year, while Russia argued that it was actually a voluntary withdrawal so as not to complicate the passage through the area of grain-exporting ships.
“It will be a small piece of land in the middle of our Black Sea, but it is an extraordinary demonstration that Ukraine will take back every piece of its territory.”said the president.
“That is why I want to thank our soldiers from here, from this place of victory, for each of these 500 days that they have fought,” he added in the video.
December 21, 2022: Zelensky in Washington. The war offers actor-turned-Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the biggest role of his life as a relentless commander-in-chief trying to rally support in his country’s epic battle against the mighty Russian army. Without leaving kyiv he embarks on a virtual tour of the parliaments of his Western allies to call for more weapons and help. His diplomatic offensive culminates in December with his first trip abroad to the United States, where he speaks before Congress. “Ukraine will never give up,” he says there, leading to a standing ovation from all present.
February 1, 2023: Trench Warfare. As the months go by, the fighting mimics the trench fighting style of World War I, with soldiers on either side enduring harsh conditions in the dead of winter. This photo, taken by AFP photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba, shows Ukrainian soldiers digging a trench near the eastern city of Bakhmut and the subject of one of the bloodiest battles of the war so far.
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