War in Ukraine: the massacre of civilians is documented by photos and videos that impress with the scale and cruelty of the tragedy. The war in Ukraine brings pain, destruction and death to the heart of Europe. Russia does not spare the Ukrainian cities, bombed without pity or respect for women, children, the elderly, men and things. Berdiansk, Dnipro, Donetsk, Melitpol, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv: the bombings are tearing apart Mariupol while the bombs have now reached the outskirts of Kiev. Everywhere rubble, desperation, human carnage: the tragedy that began on February 24 with the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine and the incessant bombings are documented in a crescendo of photos and videos that all have horror in common. Gutted buildings, victims abandoned in the street, innocent men and women, cries of pain from their families, silence in the gutted and empty houses, abandoned by people fleeing the carnage.
War in Ukraine: the will to annihilate a people
It is clear, evident in the photos and videos, the will to destroy, to hit every living being within reach in the hospital or on the street, even in the pediatric ward of Mariupol – a city symbol of resistance where everything is missing and civilians have no way of escape. In Ukraine there are now 5 million people without a home, according to the UN Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. A gigantic humanitarian emergency, a flood of people marching in the hope of saving themselves elsewhere but with growing difficulties because even the humanitarian corridors, the queued up cars, are in the Russian sights. A disaster for cruelty and will to annihilation that evokes the tragedy of Chechnya.
There are very raw photos, is it right to publish them? Some cannot be published, of course. What we propose below is certainly a strong image but her strength is also in pity for the innocent dead like this lady with her bundle of clothes that she was trying to escape and that she was shot dead before succeeding.
Among the videos and images that arrived at FIRSTonline editorial staff, there is one that is striking for the fear and anguish it reveals, rather than for the images. The protagonists are a father and a son. There was an explosion and the father was thrown out of the car. The son shouts at him not to move, to stay calm. "Don't die, wait, wait, don't die!" he repeats several times. A dog whines but is saved. The ending is obscure, will they have managed to save themselves?
Here's how Francesca Mannocchi describes Mikolayiv - the city under siege to arrive at the conquest of Odessa - with a video posted on Twitter. Rubble, destroyed houses, and a ghostly silence:
