Check out topic: There Never Was a “New Corona Virus”, There Never Was a Pandemic
Ukrainian refugee returns to homeland to chronicle horrors, carnage of Russian invasion
Mar 15, 2023 22:35:40 #
dtucker300
Loc: Vista, CA
Putin Wants Moldova
Putin wants Finland
Putin wants Poland
Putin wants Eastern Europe.
Ukrainian refugee returns to homeland to chronicle horrors, carnage of Russian invasion
By Kyle Schnitzer and Steve Janoski
March 14, 2023 7:57pm Updated
MORE ON:
UKRAINE WAR
US still can’t say if Russia meant to bring down drone over Black Sea
Most Republicans think Ukraine war ‘critical threat’ to US interests: poll
Putin’s drained Wagner mercenary army recruiting fighters for Ukraine ‘meat grinder’ on Pornhub
Ukraine invites Ron DeSantis to visit after his claim war not ‘vital’ to US
Iryna Verbivska had already seen the worst of war.
She hid in an underground bunker last February with her 83-year-old grandmother, Reta, and her pitbull, Nigel, as Russian jets tore through Ukrainian skies during the war’s opening salvo.
She fled to Moldova hidden in a tank convoy, holding her breath and waiting for Russian missiles to come and end her life.
But when the 37-year-old entrepreneur from Cherkasy, Ukraine, made it to Germany last April, she was shocked to see a different war on German TV than the atrocity-filled maelstrom from which she’d escaped.
“People knew a war was going on — but they weren’t showing how terrible it is,” Verbivska said.
So she determined that she’d return to her bleeding homeland — in secret, on the weekends, whenever she could — to document the cold realities of Vladimir Putin’s war and show it to the world.
But the scenes she recorded alongside her travel companion, a journalist named Igor Zakharenko, were so breathtaking in their horror that German news wouldn’t publish them.
Portrait of Iryna Verbivska.
Iryna Verbivska, a 37-year-old entrepreneur, fled Ukraine last March, then returned time and again to chronicle the Russian invasion.
Stephen Yang
Rows of dead men with their faces caved in like rotting pumpkins.
Charred bodies on the pavement, their blackened arms twisted like burned chicken wings as they tried to escape their torched cars.
Abandoned stands of strollers, luggage and stuffed animals were surrounded by bloody lakes that stained the bricks on which they sat.
“I want people to see the real side of war,” said the former travel agent and professional translator.
“I saw people without heads, tortured to death. Just civilians, not soldiers. Heads smashed. Bodies piled up together, people burned … those pictures matter.”
Part of a destroyed Ukraine city chronicled by Iryna Verbivska.
Many Ukrainian cities have been reduced to rubble by indiscriminate Russian missile attacks.
Iryna Verbivska
It was so much different before the war.
Verbivska was a self-made woman, an entrepreneur who knew how to make a buck.
She owned a travel agency with offices in three cities and ran a translation office with 44 employees, she said.
She and her family also had a resort in Crimea, a vacation hotspot that offered tourists the chance to scuba dive and hop on local excursions.
That all changed when the Russians came.
Dead civilians
Verbivska came across countless civilians whom the Russians butchered.
Ivan Zakharenko
They seized everything, Verbivska said.
She still remembers when she heard the first air raid warnings on Feb. 24, 2022, at about 6 p.m.
They hid in a milk factory bunker in Cherkasy before fleeing the city for her grandmother’s village in Synyavka, about three hours west of Kyiv.
“It was panic — kids crying, people running,” she recalled.
“One bunker didn’t allow dogs and said my dog had to stay outside — but my dog is like family. We were looking for another bunker and didn’t know what to expect.”
Dead civilians
Verbivska said she found dead women and children everywhere in Ukraine.
Ivan Zakharenko
“We spent the whole night in a bunker with cats, dogs, and people. We were sitting there underground and didn’t know what was happening above us.
SEE ALSO
Police in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine have arrested a 42-year-old Russian soldier (left) who had been secretly living in the area of Kupiansk (right) for the last six months.
Russian soldier arrested in Ukraine after hiding out for 6 months
“People thought that Ukraine didn’t exist anymore.”
It was a rude awakening for Verbivska, who thought the war would be over in two days.
And it was a nightmare come alive for her grandmother, who survived World War II’s savagery.
“She knows what war is,” Verbivska said.
“I didn’t know.”
They heard the jets overhead — they don’t know if they were Russian or Ukrainian — and the explosions decimating Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city.
They were also running out of water.
It was time to go.
“We didn’t feel safe,” Verbivska said.
When she fled for Moldova with her mother, grandmother, dog and two cats in March 2022, they had little more than each other and a few small bags.
A destroyed playground outside what looks like a bombed apartment building.
Verbivska thought the war would be over in two days. It’s now gone on for more than a year.
Iryna Verbivska
Vehicle with bullet holes
The drive to Germany, as Verbivska said, felt like the longest drive of her life.
Iryna Verbivska
The family hid their car among a row of tanks, waiting for Russian airstrikes.
“We feared the Russians knew about the tank line,” she said.
“It was the longest drive of my life. My mother and grandmother were crying, and I tried to not show my fear.
“But inside, I had so much fear. I was smiling and telling jokes on the outside, but I was even more scared than them. I was shaking while driving.”
But the missiles never came.
Abandoned nursery
Though she felt safe in Germany, Verbivska decided to head back to her home nation.
Iryna Verbivska
The family crossed into Moldova, and arrived in Germany by April.
They’ve been there ever since.
Verbivska was safe at last, but she couldn’t stand still.
Frustrated by what she thought was the sanitized international coverage of the war, she decided to head back to her mutilated nation.
Why?
Part of a destroyed Ukraine city chronicled by Iryna Verbivska.
Verbivska snuck back across the border numerous times to chronicle Ukraine’s bloodiest hour.
Iryna Verbivska
Because there was an ugly truth that needed to be told.
So under the guise of going to Berlin for business, she snuck back across the border time and time again to chronicle Ukraine’s bloodiest hour.
The scenes that greeted her were heart-stopping.
They found scorched bodies piled on the highways and corpses of naked women, surrounded by condoms, who she believed had been raped before they were butchered.
In Bucha, she and Zakharenko stumbled upon killing fields rarely found in Europe since 1945.
Luggage carts, strollers, and other items
Verbivska said she saw gruesome carnage in Ukraine.
Iryna Verbivska
“There were so many bodies on the streets — dead animals, women, children,” Verbivska said.
“We would visit houses and see people shot dead in their beds. They went to animal shelters and killed dogs. How are you protecting yourself when you’re killing dogs?
“We saw the body of a man on a fallen bicycle, shot dead. These weren’t soldiers. They were civilians trying to escape.”
In the shattered port city of Mariupol, the pair played possum by hiding in a field of corpses as Russian fighters flew overhead.
“We were laying on dead bodies,” she said.
Dead civilians
Many dead bodies were found, including corpses of naked women, surrounded by condoms.
Iryna Verbivska
“I was thinking I would die right now, and my mother wouldn’t know where I was. She thought I was in Berlin.”
Twice they were caught in a vicious crossfire that threatened to cut short their lives.
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Both times, she worried that her family wouldn’t know where to find her body.
She stopped the visits last fall after a close call in Irpin left her somewhat shell-shocked.
“There was a lot of shooting — this was the moment when I thought I would really die,” Verbivska said.
Now she lives a decent — if comparatively quiet — life in Germany.
She works for the mayor’s office in Kornwestheim, and joined the Rotary Club.
She plans to go back to Ukraine when the war ends, even though all her businesses are smoke and ash.
CONTINUES...
https://nypost.com/2023/03/14/refugee-returns-to-ukraine-to-chronicle-the-real-side-of-war/
Putin wants Finland
Putin wants Poland
Putin wants Eastern Europe.
Ukrainian refugee returns to homeland to chronicle horrors, carnage of Russian invasion
By Kyle Schnitzer and Steve Janoski
March 14, 2023 7:57pm Updated
MORE ON:
UKRAINE WAR
US still can’t say if Russia meant to bring down drone over Black Sea
Most Republicans think Ukraine war ‘critical threat’ to US interests: poll
Putin’s drained Wagner mercenary army recruiting fighters for Ukraine ‘meat grinder’ on Pornhub
Ukraine invites Ron DeSantis to visit after his claim war not ‘vital’ to US
Iryna Verbivska had already seen the worst of war.
She hid in an underground bunker last February with her 83-year-old grandmother, Reta, and her pitbull, Nigel, as Russian jets tore through Ukrainian skies during the war’s opening salvo.
She fled to Moldova hidden in a tank convoy, holding her breath and waiting for Russian missiles to come and end her life.
But when the 37-year-old entrepreneur from Cherkasy, Ukraine, made it to Germany last April, she was shocked to see a different war on German TV than the atrocity-filled maelstrom from which she’d escaped.
“People knew a war was going on — but they weren’t showing how terrible it is,” Verbivska said.
So she determined that she’d return to her bleeding homeland — in secret, on the weekends, whenever she could — to document the cold realities of Vladimir Putin’s war and show it to the world.
But the scenes she recorded alongside her travel companion, a journalist named Igor Zakharenko, were so breathtaking in their horror that German news wouldn’t publish them.
Portrait of Iryna Verbivska.
Iryna Verbivska, a 37-year-old entrepreneur, fled Ukraine last March, then returned time and again to chronicle the Russian invasion.
Stephen Yang
Rows of dead men with their faces caved in like rotting pumpkins.
Charred bodies on the pavement, their blackened arms twisted like burned chicken wings as they tried to escape their torched cars.
Abandoned stands of strollers, luggage and stuffed animals were surrounded by bloody lakes that stained the bricks on which they sat.
“I want people to see the real side of war,” said the former travel agent and professional translator.
“I saw people without heads, tortured to death. Just civilians, not soldiers. Heads smashed. Bodies piled up together, people burned … those pictures matter.”
Part of a destroyed Ukraine city chronicled by Iryna Verbivska.
Many Ukrainian cities have been reduced to rubble by indiscriminate Russian missile attacks.
Iryna Verbivska
It was so much different before the war.
Verbivska was a self-made woman, an entrepreneur who knew how to make a buck.
She owned a travel agency with offices in three cities and ran a translation office with 44 employees, she said.
She and her family also had a resort in Crimea, a vacation hotspot that offered tourists the chance to scuba dive and hop on local excursions.
That all changed when the Russians came.
Dead civilians
Verbivska came across countless civilians whom the Russians butchered.
Ivan Zakharenko
They seized everything, Verbivska said.
She still remembers when she heard the first air raid warnings on Feb. 24, 2022, at about 6 p.m.
They hid in a milk factory bunker in Cherkasy before fleeing the city for her grandmother’s village in Synyavka, about three hours west of Kyiv.
“It was panic — kids crying, people running,” she recalled.
“One bunker didn’t allow dogs and said my dog had to stay outside — but my dog is like family. We were looking for another bunker and didn’t know what to expect.”
Dead civilians
Verbivska said she found dead women and children everywhere in Ukraine.
Ivan Zakharenko
“We spent the whole night in a bunker with cats, dogs, and people. We were sitting there underground and didn’t know what was happening above us.
SEE ALSO
Police in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine have arrested a 42-year-old Russian soldier (left) who had been secretly living in the area of Kupiansk (right) for the last six months.
Russian soldier arrested in Ukraine after hiding out for 6 months
“People thought that Ukraine didn’t exist anymore.”
It was a rude awakening for Verbivska, who thought the war would be over in two days.
And it was a nightmare come alive for her grandmother, who survived World War II’s savagery.
“She knows what war is,” Verbivska said.
“I didn’t know.”
They heard the jets overhead — they don’t know if they were Russian or Ukrainian — and the explosions decimating Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city.
They were also running out of water.
It was time to go.
“We didn’t feel safe,” Verbivska said.
When she fled for Moldova with her mother, grandmother, dog and two cats in March 2022, they had little more than each other and a few small bags.
A destroyed playground outside what looks like a bombed apartment building.
Verbivska thought the war would be over in two days. It’s now gone on for more than a year.
Iryna Verbivska
Vehicle with bullet holes
The drive to Germany, as Verbivska said, felt like the longest drive of her life.
Iryna Verbivska
The family hid their car among a row of tanks, waiting for Russian airstrikes.
“We feared the Russians knew about the tank line,” she said.
“It was the longest drive of my life. My mother and grandmother were crying, and I tried to not show my fear.
“But inside, I had so much fear. I was smiling and telling jokes on the outside, but I was even more scared than them. I was shaking while driving.”
But the missiles never came.
Abandoned nursery
Though she felt safe in Germany, Verbivska decided to head back to her home nation.
Iryna Verbivska
The family crossed into Moldova, and arrived in Germany by April.
They’ve been there ever since.
Verbivska was safe at last, but she couldn’t stand still.
Frustrated by what she thought was the sanitized international coverage of the war, she decided to head back to her mutilated nation.
Why?
Part of a destroyed Ukraine city chronicled by Iryna Verbivska.
Verbivska snuck back across the border numerous times to chronicle Ukraine’s bloodiest hour.
Iryna Verbivska
Because there was an ugly truth that needed to be told.
So under the guise of going to Berlin for business, she snuck back across the border time and time again to chronicle Ukraine’s bloodiest hour.
The scenes that greeted her were heart-stopping.
They found scorched bodies piled on the highways and corpses of naked women, surrounded by condoms, who she believed had been raped before they were butchered.
In Bucha, she and Zakharenko stumbled upon killing fields rarely found in Europe since 1945.
Luggage carts, strollers, and other items
Verbivska said she saw gruesome carnage in Ukraine.
Iryna Verbivska
“There were so many bodies on the streets — dead animals, women, children,” Verbivska said.
“We would visit houses and see people shot dead in their beds. They went to animal shelters and killed dogs. How are you protecting yourself when you’re killing dogs?
“We saw the body of a man on a fallen bicycle, shot dead. These weren’t soldiers. They were civilians trying to escape.”
In the shattered port city of Mariupol, the pair played possum by hiding in a field of corpses as Russian fighters flew overhead.
“We were laying on dead bodies,” she said.
Dead civilians
Many dead bodies were found, including corpses of naked women, surrounded by condoms.
Iryna Verbivska
“I was thinking I would die right now, and my mother wouldn’t know where I was. She thought I was in Berlin.”
Twice they were caught in a vicious crossfire that threatened to cut short their lives.
Keep up with today's most important news
Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update.
Enter your email address
By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Both times, she worried that her family wouldn’t know where to find her body.
She stopped the visits last fall after a close call in Irpin left her somewhat shell-shocked.
“There was a lot of shooting — this was the moment when I thought I would really die,” Verbivska said.
Now she lives a decent — if comparatively quiet — life in Germany.
She works for the mayor’s office in Kornwestheim, and joined the Rotary Club.
She plans to go back to Ukraine when the war ends, even though all her businesses are smoke and ash.
CONTINUES...
https://nypost.com/2023/03/14/refugee-returns-to-ukraine-to-chronicle-the-real-side-of-war/
Mar 15, 2023 23:04:47 #
dtucker300 wrote:
Putin Wants Moldova br Putin wants Finland br Puti... (show quote)
Yes I find it weird that I can find more pictures of the Vietnam War then I can find of the one in Ukraine
Mar 16, 2023 00:13:17 #
dtucker300 wrote:
Putin Wants Moldova br Putin wants Finland br Puti... (show quote)
Love it...
She should become a fiction writer...
So weird how the entire West has United against Russia, but they won't show the atrocities🤔🤔🤔
My favorite part was her bouncing back and forth across the border and visiting all of those war zones...
Mar 16, 2023 00:14:02 #
Birdmam wrote:
Yes I find it weird that I can find more pictures of the Vietnam War then I can find of the one in Ukraine
The press was much freerer then..
Mar 16, 2023 09:23:40 #
dtucker300
Loc: Vista, CA
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
Love it...
She should become a fiction writer...
So weird how the entire West has United against Russia, but they won't show the atrocities🤔🤔🤔
My favorite part was her bouncing back and forth across the border and visiting all of those war zones...
She should become a fiction writer...
So weird how the entire West has United against Russia, but they won't show the atrocities🤔🤔🤔
My favorite part was her bouncing back and forth across the border and visiting all of those war zones...
Sorry, Media Nerds, The War In Ukraine Is Literally A ‘Territorial Dispute’
BY: EDDIE SCARRY
MARCH 16, 2023
3 MIN READ
Ron DeSantis should say it one more time for the people in the back. The war is literally a dispute over territory.
Apologies in advance for making you consider something uttered by David French and Jennifer Rubin, but the two work for prominent news publications that unfortunately shape our national dialogue, so bear with me.
“DeSantis actually called Russia’s grotesque, aggressive invasion of a sovereign country a ‘territorial dispute.’ … Astonishing. Dangerous.”—French, New York Times columnist
“[DeSantis] has decided that if you can’t beat the pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party, then join them. He declared that Russia’s brutal and unjustified war of aggression against a sovereign Ukraine is actually ‘a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia…'”—Rubin, Washington Post columnist
The “territorial dispute” quote is from Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recently released statement about the ongoing war in Ukraine (a place our elected leaders in Washington sometimes refer to as “Our Last Great Hope.”) What he said more fully is that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a “vital interest” to the United States.
That’s a view shared by anyone who thinks yet another foreign war without clear and substantial strategic benefit to America is not something we should busy ourselves with. (It’s not like we have any pressing problems here!) But French, Rubin and the rest of the national media really hate that view. It’s “pro-Putin”! It’s “astonishing” and “dangerous”!
DeSantis should say it one more time for the people in the back. The war is literally a dispute over territory. Russian leadership claims Ukraine as its own and the Kremlin’s settlement offers are based almost solely on territory concessions (with some details related to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
“I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are one people … one nation, in fact,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2019. In some parts of Ukraine, even Ukrainians claim that. “Many In Eastern Ukraine Want To Join Russia,” read a NPR headline in 2017.
The Washington Post last year found at least 15 percent of residents of Ukraine’s Donbas region said they wanted to join Russia. Maybe, just maybe, this has something to do with Russia and Ukraine being literally part of the same nation for more than half a century.
I know that’s not very sexy for the nerds in the media who prefer to think of the war like a Marvel movie where a corny villain can be overpowered by a united and freedom-loving Justice League, but that’s not the case.
Democracy is at stake!
*Cue Max Boot solemnly removing his little hat in reverence.*
It turns out that discussing the conflict doesn’t first require the speakers to confess their love for Ukraine and hatred for Putin while shedding a tear. It’s not the romantic affair that Rubin, French, et al. want it to be.
Mar 16, 2023 16:06:55 #
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
The press was much freerer then..
Everybody has a phone even in Ukraine
Mar 16, 2023 19:08:26 #
dtucker300 wrote:
Sorry, Media Nerds, The War In Ukraine Is Literall... (show quote)
I agree with DeSantis on this one...
Good article...
Mar 16, 2023 19:08:58 #
Birdmam wrote:
Everybody has a phone even in Ukraine
Yes... Telegram is swamped with videos and photos... Some rather horrific...
Mar 16, 2023 19:10:02 #
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
Yes... Telegram is swamped with videos and photos... Some rather horrific...
I’m sorry I am not hip. What is telegram.
Mar 16, 2023 19:15:41 #
Birdmam wrote:
I’m sorry I am not hip. What is telegram.
Sort if like Wechat or Twitter...
You can chat and post stuff...
Supposedly not as regulated as Twitter....
Mar 16, 2023 19:18:29 #
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
Sort if like Wechat or Twitter...
You can chat and post stuff...
Supposedly not as regulated as Twitter....
You can chat and post stuff...
Supposedly not as regulated as Twitter....
Thank you I will check it out.
Check out topic: NATO’s Strategic Failure in Ukraine
Mar 16, 2023 20:54:33 #
dtucker300
Loc: Vista, CA
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
I agree with DeSantis on this one...
Good article...
Good article...
That's what most war is about...territory.
Mar 17, 2023 01:00:33 #
dtucker300 wrote:
That's what most war is about...territory.
Yes... Most wars...
Although I think "resources" should replace "territory"... Semantics...
Mar 17, 2023 02:36:06 #
dtucker300
Loc: Vista, CA
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
Yes... Most wars...
Although I think "resources" should replace "territory"... Semantics...
Although I think "resources" should replace "territory"... Semantics...
Mar 17, 2023 03:43:01 #
Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
Love it...
She should become a fiction writer...
So weird how the entire West has United against Russia, but they won't show the atrocities🤔🤔🤔
My favorite part was her bouncing back and forth across the border and visiting all of those war zones...
She should become a fiction writer...
So weird how the entire West has United against Russia, but they won't show the atrocities🤔🤔🤔
My favorite part was her bouncing back and forth across the border and visiting all of those war zones...
So weird how the press of the entire free world has widely reported on this Russian invasion with such remarkable unanimity, but the contrarians in authoritarian dictatorships like Iran, North Korea and China, implausibly insist the Putin regime was unfairly “provoked”.
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