12/7/2022 0 Comments Chicken Invaders 4I dropped my half-eaten chicken burger and jumped in my cockpit. Invading intergalactic chickens, out to punish humanity for our oppression of their earthly brethren. They came without warning, squawking menacingly, their ruffled feathers darkening the sun. The memories still burn deeply, like spicy chicken wings. 1.I remember the day of the invasion well. Ukrainian soldiers manning a checkpoint along the front line in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region on Nov. The scale of the task is staggering.įor more than eight months, photographers with The New York Times and other news organizations throughout Ukraine have chronicled the ordeal of war. With no end in sight to the war, it is hard to contemplate what it would take for Ukrainians to rebuild their lives and their country. In Zaporizhzhia, where a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant has been shelled repeatedly, the game of nuclear chicken continues. The Russians have retreated in the Kherson, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, and even on the edges of the Luhansk region, with heavy casualties on both sides. And everywhere, bodies - dead soldiers and civilians, in hastily dug graves, in blasted cars or just lying out in the open. This, then, is what winning now looks like: ruined buildings, crumpled bridges, burned-out vehicles and depopulated places where the few residents who remain look haunted, many of them older, hungry, sick, cold. The slow-moving war of summer, waged with long-range artillery that flattened whole towns, has given way to rapid Ukrainian advances.īut for Kyiv’s forces, the elation at retaking territory seized by the Russians is tempered by the brutal cost, both in and out of their own ranks, and by the knowledge that a large part of Ukraine remains in Moscow’s hands. The Ukrainian counteroffensive and Russian retreat are making a mockery of the Kremlin’s claims to have annexed four regions of Ukraine after sham referendums - though Russia’s advantage in arms and its conscription of civilians could yet change that balance. Shattered towns, mass graves and suffering beyond measure greet the Ukrainian forces steadily pushing back Russian troops, revealing the civilian and military toll of the war and the invaders’ occupation in the east and the south.
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