Latest news with #Dnipropetrovsk
The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘Ukraine doesn't forget its cultural landmarks': the team risking their lives to rescue statues from the frontline
A bearded expert and a group of Ukrainian soldiers arrived in the village of Slovianka on a special mission. Their goal did not involve shooting at invading Russian forces. Instead, they had come to rescue a unique piece of history before it could be swallowed up by war and a frontline creeping closer. The soldiers placed a giant object a wooden pallet. It was a carved stone figure created about 800 years ago. The sculpture – of a woman holding a ceremonial pot, wearing a necklace and with tiny legs – was lifted gently on to a flatbed truck. 'We didn't think we would have to evacuate it. But we do. It's sad,' Yurii Fanyhin, who coordinated the operation, explained. Today Slovianka is a small farmland community, not far from the administrative border between Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk oblasts. In the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, however, it was at the centre of a vast steppe route. A Turkic nomadic people – known as the Cumans or Polovtsy – flourished here, north of the Black Sea. They were formidable and skilled warriors. Their world survives in the form of elaborate funerary statues known as babas, which once littered the landscape of southern Ukraine. Each represents a dead individual. There are fighters depicted with weapons, helmets and belts. And – unusually for the early medieval period – there are many women. Some wear jewellery; one is pregnant; all have hair hidden under a hat. In spring 2024, Fanyhin and his soldier-volunteers travelled to the under-fire city of Velika Novosilka, now under Russian occupation. They retrieved a sculpture hit by shrapnel. Other figures standing on a hill were damaged when the Russians seized the north-eastern city of Izium. So far the team has rescued 11 babas. They have been transported west to Dnipro's national history museum. The museum has more than 100 Polovtsian sculptures. It is the world's biggest collection. Some are in good condition. Others – after centuries of rain and snow – have lost many of their features, their smooth heads and torsos reminiscent of abstract works by the 20th-century sculptor Henry Moore. The outside pavilion where they are kept recently lost some of its glass, when a Russian missile landed nearby. The museum's director Oleksandr Starik said he was hopeful the British Museum or another international institution could help conserve and restore the statues. At a time of conflict, there was little Ukrainian government funding available for culture, he acknowledged. The babas were not only sacred national heritage but disproved the claim that Ukraine did not exist and was a part of 'historical' Russia, he added. In 2022, Vladimir Putin used this false idea to justify his invasion. 'It's important for Russia to show that only Slavs lived on this territory and no one else. In fact, the steppe was mixed. There were many different ethnicities,' Starik said. He added: 'Our task is to show that it's our ancestors who lived there. They were nomads who moved all the time and were not connected with the Russian imperium.' The Cumans placed their statues on mounds, as close to the heavens as possible. According to Starik, the figures showed the boundaries of different tribes and were used as easy-to-spot steppe markers. The figures were seen as alive, and as a way of communicating with ancestors, in accordance with shamanist religious traditions. Sacrifices were carried out at the sites, Starik suggested. Of Putin's attempted conquest of Ukraine, he said: 'It's colonial politics. The empire doesn't work unless you seize new territory.' He continued: 'It was important for us to save the statues. The enemy doesn't care about them. The Russians are completely indifferent to the past. They keep smashing up our monuments using artillery and bombs.' Two of the babas were retrieved from the town of Mezhova, now only 15kms from the frontline, on the eastern edge of Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Earlier this month a Russian drone blew up a civilian minibus and a glide bomb destroyed the town's school. In 2014, statues were lost when Russia staged a covert part-takeover of the eastern Donbas region, seizing the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and their museum artefacts. Yevhen Khrypun, the editor of the local Mezhivskyi Merydian newspaper, said the sculptures were fascinating because they were a concrete representation of a living person. 'The idea that the Polovtsy are our ancestors is not very scientific, to be honest. Earlier we had Scythians, Sarmatians and Cimmerians. It's more symbolic: these were all people who lived on our lands,' he said. Not everyone is happy to see the sculptures moved to safer areas. Last weekend, after the female baba was removed, the Slovianka village authorities filed a report with the police. They alleged the sculpture had been stolen. The convoy heading back to Dnipro was stopped for several hours while officers checked documents. 'It was a crazy standoff. They blocked the road with a tractor,' Fanyhin reported. In some cases the statues are impossible to retrieve. One is located outside the city of Kostyantinivka, besieged by Russia. First-person view drones cruise its streets, targeting any vehicle that moves. 'We need help from the military to get it out. But no one wants to risk their life for a statue. I don't want to risk mine either,' Fanyhin said. The historian said the rescue missions had kept him sane, during a stressful period of war and loss. 'In some way the babas saved us,' he said. 'We feel we are doing an important and even a great thing. It shows that Ukraine doesn't forget its cultural landmarks, even statues on the frontline. After our victory, they will be more valuable.'
Malay Mail
2 days ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Ill-equipped and tired: a night with a Ukrainian air defence unit
KYIV, July 30 — A menacing buzz reverberates through the night sky in eastern Ukraine. Explosions ring out, flashes illuminate sunflower fields below and the smell of gunpowder poisons the air. 'There! Three kilometres away!' shouted one Ukrainian serviceman in the air defence unit equipped with Soviet-era weapons and tasked with intercepting Russian drones, before they home in on Ukrainian towns and cities. The long-range unmanned aerial vehicles originally designed by Iran but improved and launched by Moscow have been devastating Ukraine since the early chapters of the Kremlin's invasion launched in early 2022. Moscow has trumpeted its industrial-scale production of the cheap weapons, with state-television broadcasting what it called the world's largest drone factory. The rare footage showed the assembly of hundreds of jet-black triangle-shaped Gerans—geraniums in Russian. On the night in July that AFP embedded with an air defence unit in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia launched 344 drones, but its largest-ever barrage comprised of more than 700. 'It's rotten tonight, just like the day before,' said one serviceman in the air defence unit, leaning over a radar. Increasingly sophisticated Gerans are flying at higher altitudes and able to alter course en route, but Vasyl's unit is equipped with old, short-range weapons. 'They fly chaotically and unpredictably. It has become harder to destroy them,' the 49-year-old told AFP. 'We're effective, but I can't promise that it will be like this every week,' he added. 'Nothing we can do' Oleksandr, a fellow serviceman defending airspace near Pavlograd city, was scrutinising a radar where hundreds of red dots were appearing. 'There's nothing we can do. It's not our area,' he said of the incoming drones. His 20-year-old daughter, who lives in Pavlograd, was not answering her phone, he told AFP while lighting a cigarette. 'But I warned her,' added Oleksandr, who like others in this story identified himself with his first name or army nickname in line with military protocol. An explosion boomed, the horizon glowed crimson and dark smoke appeared in the sky moments later. President Volodymyr Zelensky has secured several Patriot batteries from allies since the invasion began and is appealing for funding for 10 more systems. But the sophisticated systems are reserved for fending off Russian missile attacks on high-priority targets and larger cities. Ukraine is instead seeking to roll out cheap interceptor drones to replace units like Vasyl's, and Zelensky has tasked manufacturers with producing up to 1,000 per day. 'People and modern weapons' are what Ukraine needs to defend its air space, Vasyl told AFP. The teams get little sleep—two hours on average, or four on a good night, and perhaps another one between drone waves, Vasyl said, adding that the deprivation takes a physical toll. One serviceman with another air defence unit in the eastern Donetsk region, who goes by Wolf, told AFP he has problems sleeping anyway due to grim memories he has fighting in east Ukraine. Sleep deprivation Belyi who works alongside Wolf was assigned to the unit regiment after he sustained a concussion and a shell blew off part of his hand while he was fighting in eastern Ukraine. Both were miners in eastern Ukraine before Moscow invaded. Russian drones are threatening their families in the city of Kryvyi Rig, in the neighbouring region further west. Neither has been granted leave to visit home in more than two years and they are instead working around the clock, seven days a week. Back near Pavlograd, sunrise reveals dark circles under the soldiers' eyes, but the buzz of a new drone wave emerges from the horizon. The unit's anti-aircraft gun fires one volley of tracer rounds, then jams. The team grabs WWII-era machine guns and fire blindly in the air. Another drone in the Russian arsenal is the Gerbera, once an unarmed decoy used to overwhelm air defence systems that have since been fitted with cameras and are targeting Vasyl's team. 'Only fools are not afraid. Really,' he said. On his phone he showed an image of his two blond-haired children who are now living in the capital Kyiv—also under escalating bombardments. 'I'm here for them,' he told AFP. — AFP
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Russian bombs in Ukraine kill 20 including 16 in strike on a prison
At least 20 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in a series of overnight Russian missile strikes across Ukraine, officials said on Tuesday. It comes just hours after Donald Trump warned Vladimir Putin to end the war within ten days or face crippling new sanctions. Missiles also rained down on the Dnipropetrovsk region, where several more people were killed and injured in multiple attacks, officials said. A strike on the city of Kamyanske killed two people, wounded five others and damaged a hospital, according to regional governor Sergiy Lysak. Another attack on the region's Synelnykivsky district left one person dead and several more wounded, he said. In a separate incident in Velykomykhaylivska on Monday night, 'a 75-year-old woman was killed. A 68-year-old man was wounded. A private house was damaged,' Lysak added in another Telegram post. In southern Russia, a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person, according to local authorities. 'A car was damaged on Ostrovsky Street. Unfortunately, the driver who was in it died,' said Yuri Slyusar, acting governor of the Rostov region. The attacks came as Ukrainian forces continue efforts to repel Russia's summer offensive, which has pushed into areas that have been largely spared since the early stages of the full-scale invasion in 2022 . Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, blasted the strikes, saying it was 'another war crime' committed by Russia. Writing on X, he said: '(Russian President Vladimir) Putin's regime, which also issues threats against the United States through some of its mouthpieces, must face economic and military blows that strip it of the capacity to wage war.' Over the weekend, the Russian army announced it had 'liberated the settlement of Maliyevka' in the Dnipropetrovsk region, just weeks after it seized the first village in the area.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Strikes overnight on Ukraine kill 22, says Zelenskyy, as Trump sets new Russia deadline
Russian airstrikes on Ukraine killed 22 people overnight, said the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and injured another 85, a day after Donald Trump said he was setting a new deadline of '10 or 12 days' for Russia to make progress towards ending the war. The worst death toll was at a prison facility in the town of Bilenke in the frontline region of Zaporizhzhia, which appeared to have taken a direct hit from a guided air bomb. Local authorities said 17 people died and dozens sustained injuries. A hospital in the city of Kamianske in the Dnipropetrovsk region was also hit, killing three people including a 23-year-old pregnant woman, Zelenskyy said. The Zaporizhzhia regional governor, Ivan Fedorov, said Russian forces launched eight strikes against the region, with four aerial bombs used against the prison in Bilenke, destroying the facility and damaging nearby houses. Video footage from the aftermath of the attack showed part of the brick prison building had collapsed and broken glass and debris were scattered on the ground. 'It was a deliberate strike, targeted, not accidental. The Russians could not have been unaware that they were hitting civilians in this penal colony. Many people died, another 43 were injured, and among them there are people with very serious injuries,' Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel. Zelenskyy said only harsh measures against Moscow could stop the killing, and said he welcomed Trump's recent harsher rhetoric towards the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. 'Every murder of our people by the Russians, every Russian strike, when there could have been a ceasefire long ago if Russia had not refused – all this shows that Moscow deserves very tough, truly painful, and therefore fair and effective sanctions pressure. They must be forced to stop the killings and make peace,' Zelenskyy wrote. On Monday, during talks with Britain's prime minister, Keir Starmer, Trump said he was going to cut a previous 50-day deadline for Putin to 'about 10 or 12 days', citing 'disappointment' with the Russian president over a lack of progress. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion 'We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street, and I say that's not the way to do it. So we'll see what happens with that,' the US president said. In Kyiv, there is hope that the new tough words from Trump could be followed up with concrete action, including tougher sanctions on Russia and continued military and intelligence support for Ukraine.
LBCI
3 days ago
- Politics
- LBCI
Ukraine says at least 20 killed in Russian strikes
At least 20 people have been killed and more than 40 wounded in overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine, regional officials said on Tuesday. Strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region killed 16 people and wounded 35, Ivan Fedorov, the head of the military administration, said on Telegram. Four people were also killed and more wounded in attacks on the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to regional government officials. AFP
