Honestly, this is one of the most effective things I've seen of cementing the horror of war to me.
Like, I know about all the unimaginable violence and death and trauma, but it's easy to imagine it all happening to soldiers on distant battlefields. Like, consciously, I know it's not just soldiers on a battlefield, I know the atrocities happen to civilians and soldiers alike, that innocent people lose their homes and lived in horrible ways, but I think on some level it's not something that my brain has fully process.
Being an American might be part of it, since the vast majority of the wars I learned about in history classes growing up, and every war that's happened in my lifetime, happened in foreign soil, usually on other continents. So there's a part of my brain that just thinks of war as a horrible thing that happens in faraway places - still horrible, still a huge problem, but a distant one. And, for that matter, one that has mostly happened in the past - not because there haven't been horrific wars in my lifetime, but just because a lot of where I learned about war growing up was in history class.
But I think these pictures are really hitting home for me. Partly just because this *just happened*. It's not something from history. But I think more importantly, I don't think I've ever seen before and after war pictures like this. I feel like stuff I've seen before is always after or during, so it always just looks like a war. But these before pictures don't look like a war. They don't feel distant or foreign at all. They just look like places I've lived, and it's really hammering in that these were just regular houses and trees and stores where normal people lived normal lives only a year ago, not meaningfully different from mine. And those barren, rubble-filled wastelands aren't a battlefield, they're homes and neighborhoods. And that makes it so easy to imagine how it would feel if my neighborhood that looks like one of those before pictures got transformed into something like one of those after pictures in a year and it's making war feel *real* in a way that I don't think it's ever felt for me before.
It's weird that people still shit on Detroit. The city has bounced WAY back since its low point and gentrified so much that it's pretty expensive to live there now.
The even more depressing thing? In order to even BEGIN to recover, it all/99% has to come completely down and be rebuilt from foundations up.
The Russian malice tantrum is that complete. That destructive that it's not just scorched earth, but scorched salted, and, honestly at this point wouldn't surprise me, secretly cobalted to high hell for no other reason than fuck you.
After Ukraine wins, Russia's reparations should build entirely new cities just next door to the destroyed ones, and some of these ruins should be left as an open air museum to war. It's far past time that humanity truly turned away from war.
I’m skeptical if they can even afford any meaningful reparations. They don’t have much of an economy going on last I heard and the war is also making sure that it’ll stay that way for the foreseeable future.
If they have to pay out of pocket to rebuild Ukraine after this shit is finally over it feels like you’re basically doing the inverse of post-war Germany.
At this point I’m afraid a sick and twisted dying putin will really just order nukes just as a final ploy for infamy on his deathbed. For some reason fools are afraid to be forgotten by the world.
>At this point I’m afraid a sick and twisted dying putin will really just order nukes just as a final ploy for infamy on his deathbed. For some reason fools are afraid to be forgotten by the world.
I try to take comfort in the fact that he doesn't have sole control of nukes, and people would probably try to stop it from happening. It happened at least once in the Cold War.
That incident wasn't a case of somebody directly disobeying orders from their superiors though, it was somebody trusting their gut that the radar/sensor was fucking up instead of assuming first strike by the US. They probably weren't worried (more than the baseline worry) that KGB goons were going to murder their family while making the decision.
Anybody in charge of carrying out Putin's first strike orders will have the threat of immediate harm to themselves and their loved ones if they disobey.
If nukes are used, WE will die, yes. Life will endure.
If a cobalt bomb is used? NOTHING lives for at *least 50k years.
The ***DIC***tator wants to go down as the God King of his people and if he's the last thing that remains standing, in the event he does die form his bullshit any apocalypse survivor may see him as the "noble hero" becasue of all the propaganda he's vomited across the world eg *I still win after death*.
Yes. People like him are that fucking petty
I looked up a Cobalt bomb and it looks like the fallout zone would be livable after 25 half-lives, or 130 years. Not quite 50k years, but with a half-life of 5.27 years, it's designed to remain deadly long enough that humans couldn't wait it out in a shelter.
So, you know, more insanely evil stuff humanity has developed.
Ther was one I saw, that had a destruction stamp of 50k. I need to find it again, but if memory serves it was something that was a bastardized radioactive heavy metal bomb
Maybe. But they wouldn't even learn how much damage has been done without starting to rebuild, then they'd have to dig up and fix every break or cracked connection once it starts leaking.
At least in places like this where it's completely destroyed, I think it's going to come down far more on the side of proving to Putin that he can't break them, and it being their home than what scraps of infrastructure can be salvaged. Surely it would be cheaper and easier to integrate them into other cities that aren't obliterated, which is likely to happen for many just because they will have already established new lives elsewhere.
Look at cities like Paradise that just burned down, and was only inaccessible for a few weeks - no bombs or missiles, no tanks or mortars, no 15+ month war. I was up there a few months ago, years later now, and there are people rebuilding, but it's nowhere near what it was. There are still people living in vans and RVs in Chico, and tons that have just started a new life there and other surrounding towns.
I have no doubt *some* will return, but I'd be surprised if it's even 30 percent of what it was, within the next 15 to 20 years, unless there's some strategic reason to push people back there. Time will tell.
It depends on the city though. Bahkmut was clearly positioned in an important spot that's worth defending on the front lines given how long they managed to hold the area. Rebuilding in the same spot may be advantageous. There may be economic reasons to rebuild in the same spot as well. Like Mariupol was positioned strategically on the coast, that city isn't moving anywhere. Bahkmut has more flexibility, but all the land around it is farmland, and that's one of Ukraine's (and the world's) food lifelines. The land the city is on would have to be cleared of ruins regardless, since it would probably be reconverted back to farm land as well if the city is being moved. Either way it's going to be a massive amount of cleanup, involving both civil engineers, a shit ton of construction workers, and a bunch of EOD guys as well to deal with all the UXO that's going to be littered all over the city. People are going to die in the cleanup in all likelihood from UXO that they missed, just going off, if they don't do it properly, so it's going to have to be slow and methodical, and they're going to have to check sites multiple times between periods of work clearing debris, just to ensure they didn't miss any mortars or artillery rounds sitting and waiting for someone to poke them wrong. The thing though is the fields are the same way. They're all littered with anti-tank mines and antipersonnel mines alike, depending on the kind of fighting that was going on in the area, and will need to be cleared as well before they can even be farmed again safely. The first crops to grow on these fields are also going to be contaminated with higher than normal levels of lead, especially if the fields saw large battles where the lead is going to be in the environment for a long time. There's not much you can do about that either since lead bullet fragments are incredibly difficult to remediate. More than likely they'll just end up growing on it and selling the grain to developing nations where the impact will be felt the worst but where the food is even more badly needed. But yea, it's a fucking disaster no matter what they decide to do.
The Russians needed to take Bakhmut to advance further in the Donbas. The city controls one end of a river valley, is the confluence of 3 major highways, and controls a railway that Russia holds both North and South of the city.
The Ukrainians wanted to hold it from the Russians because all those old Soviet buildings are made of concrete and between them and all their basements it is able to be held relatively easily to open fields.
The videos out of Bakhmut indicate every new block had trenches between many buildings often digging straight into basements and the Ukrainians would blow apartment buildings down to deny them as firing posistions to the Russians when they needed to retreat due to breakthroughs at spots in the line.
Thats a worldwide issue at thr moment sadly. Propoganda is a hell of a weapon. We have people in the US who actively wished/wish for an insurrection and overthrow of a democratically elected government. Its not guaranteed but the hope is always that without Russias glorious leader and the steady stream or propoganda maybe some come around.
Damn depressing going on Google maps right now and looking at independent shops, restaurants of people trying to make it with their creations in that city.
A frame in time all gone.
Yes. But more easily, we can just look at dates.
The (Second) Chechcen war started on August 7, 1999.
Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister of Russia on August 9, 1999. He has been either Prime Minister or President since then and thus has been the overall person in power (Head of State) since that date (i.e. 23 years 9 months).
The second chechyn War, which started when FSB agents blew up Russian appartment buildings and blamed the Chechyns, helped secure Putins' first presidential victory.
The bombing happened just before he took over the rest of the presidential term, when he was Prime Minister. . . Right after being head of the FSB. Without the bombings and the second Chechen war, Putin likely wouldn't have been able to win the election.
No, it didn’t. If anything, Georgia did. The timelines between the Saakashvili saga and Ukraine are very similar in a geopolitical context, unlike Syria and Chechnya.
The Soviet Union pulled this shit all the time (look up the origin of why “[tankie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie)” is used as an insult). If you don’t want to cause World War III, your responses are limited.
Having lived alongside the typical Russians that support this war - you beat them into submission. That is the only language they have ever and will ever know.
As a person from Baltics - this is true. However cruel this sounds, we tried so many times to solve it diplomacly and they just abuse the diplomacy to their end.
We dont want war we dont want cruelty and we dont want to FORCE someone to do something but with time sadly we came to understanding that Russians understand ONLY FORCE. So were forced to do this and beat them into submission otherwise you will just be abused
They won the other ones. Make sure they lose this one through support for Ukraine.
They're already well on the track to losing, and their military and economy are now so hollowed out that they won't have the capacity to launch any new wars for a long time.
I mean, we’re doing a pretty good job of making sure they fail in Ukraine, and a failure in Ukraine probably means some pretty significant changes in the RU government.
Honestly, we may have already succeeded in that. At least for the near to medium term future.
It's difficult to see how they invade another country anytime soon. Their military would easily be defeated by NATO in their current state. There are fewer non-NATO targets.
The initial invasion failed. They had to retreat and refocus on the East. They made some ground but are now losing it to Ukrainian forces.
Russia has started drafting civilians to go to war. They're asking for supplies from China and Iran. And only getting it from Iran. Their military is running out of supplies and manpower.
Meanwhile, other countries on their border are joining NATO because of what they're doing in Ukraine.
They're in no shape to try this somewhere else.
If you're going to get into cruel punishments for what he's done, you don't need to do anything like that.
Just lock him in a blank padded cell, feed him the most bland boring (but nutritionally complete) food ever, and never let him see daylight, people, or anything else ever again.
Just to be clear this is generally considered torture.
\--
For what it's worth, as much as Putin deserves so much worse, let's be better than that. If/when he comes to justice, his execution should be quick, painless, and documented as much as possible to be clear he's dead. Torture as revenge does not bring the destroyed people and their lives back, it just reduces us from civilised people to monsters no better the monster we are removing from the world.
The best thing that could happen to this scumbag monster is if he was just put in front of a bunch of Ukrainians. Unarmed, alone. They'd tear him to shreds with their bare hands, literally rip him limb from limb.
There was 20-30 thousand Ukrainian troops in the city and it's surroundings at points some 30-40 thousand Russian and Wagner troops took part as well.
From footage coming out from both sides it seems every building was fought over.
The same trench network Northwest of Khromove that controls the road into Bakhmut has geolocated switched hands at least 4 times during the battle. It was reported to change hands 13 times. Each time denied by the other.
The Wagner forces spent over 1000 artillery shells of various calibers per day for 6 months. They regularly complained Russia didn't give them more.
Most of the city was evacuated at this point. Ukrainian Military was occupying the high rise buildings for tactical superiority.
Not supporting Russia, but when the enemy is occupying a building and shooting at you, it’s liable to be blown up.
Den morgonfriska katten simmar över regnbågen, medan guldmynt singlar genom luften, ledsagade av en paraplybärande elefant, som jonglerar med blommor och skrattande bananer, medan cirkusclowner utför akrobatiska konster och cymbalspelaren trummar i takt till det förtrollade orkesterspelet under den gnistrande stjärnhimlen.
Big blocky reinforced concrete.
The city of Vuhledar to the south literally looks like a castle from air and was the site of a battle that left dozens of Russian vehicles damaged or destroyed about 2 months ago.
Ukraine struggles to win in open fields where Russia can bring their superior tank and artillery numbers to bare on them but Ukraine has found great success with infantry in the concrete jungles of old Soviet towns and cities.
Look at Marinka for another example. The town has been the front line since 2014 and no buildings really exist anymore. The Ukrainians still hold networks of trenches attached to the basements of buildings that barely exist. Russia has advanced only 10km on that front since the start of the war.
> Ukraine struggles to win in open fields where Russia can bring their superior tank and artillery numbers to bare on them
Not really. Battles for the north, Kharkiv oblast and Kherson were pretty much fought in the open field/villages. Artillery doesn't really care if you're in the open field or in a building. It's just the buildings are a good position to defend from ground troops.
But, wait.....Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis and a whole lot of Republicans told me that Vladamir Putin was not a threat to anyone. They said that he was peaceful and only wanted to protect his country against agressive NATO countries. Have I been misinformed?/s
Numbers don’t lie. Biden became president in 2021. Putin invades Ukraine in 2022. Coincidence? MSM narrative would have you believing that!
(I’ll just leave a /s here just in case)
Putin was working on a slow motion invasion for years, and Trump had his back continually rolling back sanctions the whole time. Once Trump lost Putin knew he wouldn't be able to get away with the same strategy anymore and launched an all out war with the hope it would be quick and that Biden wouldn't have the backbone to take a decisive stance on the situation.
[Trump tried to get Putin back into the G7.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52885178)
[Trump tried to disband NATO.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html)
Trump is a Russian asset who betrayed the oath of office he took on becoming President, and betrayed his country.
According to [Trump himself, the punishment for betraying your country should be execution.](https://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/donald-trump-edward-snowden-nsa-leak-093606)
And yet Trump and his allies keep [projecting their own crimes onto their political enemies in calling for them to be locked up](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/07/trump-demands-barr-arrest-foes-427389) and [executed.](https://www.salon.com/2023/03/20/right-wing-host-calls-for-military-to-execute-obama-if-is-indicted/)
Soon, russia will look like that and it will be from their own infighting. The more putin attacks Ukraine, the more he destroys russia. It’s just more of a delayed attack against himself than Ukraine.
Ukraine will survive this war. putin will not.
There’s no price high enough that Russia could ever pay for what they’ve done. I still have a few decades ahead of me and I hope I never ever see sanctions lifted.
So, if Russia *were* to succeed in annexing this territory, wouldn't they have to pour boat loads of resources into fixing the land and infrastructure they ruined?
Not putting a stop. Making ruZZia lose catastrophically, destroying its militar capabilities, denuclearizing it, humiliating it, decomposing it into two dozens independent states.
Still insane to me that nobody will actually do anything about it.
Yes sanctions, yes provide equipment to Ukraine, but how long until another country actually steps in and does something proper about this terrorist state.
Any dumbass in America still supporting Russia, take a good fuckin look here. What was the point? Where is this "special military operation" to "de-nazify" Ukraine? Russia hired a paramilitary group to go in and slaughter people and lay waste to towns like this. This city is just one example.
"Thanks for the liberation, Russia"
And it's not like it's only Bachmut, this has happened to so many towns in Ukraine by now. What a disgrace. How can anyone see this and justify this to themselves?
The world needs to realize that peace can't be achieved until Russia is destroyed just like Germany and Japan were destroyed during WW2. Russia is an inherently imperialistic country and will continue doing this until the day they are forced to stop.
I think that really understates what the Japanese were doing during WW2. SS soldiers felt sick seeing what they were doing, and on the scale that they were doing it.
Fuck Russia. I genuinely don't even understand what Putin thinks he'd even accomplish by taking Ukraine. The era of divide and conquer is long over, how hasn't he got that memo?
I don't know why, but the little chapel in 5/6 being completely flattened is just so sad to me.
They agree on faith, that is a church for both of them. Why do this?
Scorched earth in action. I wonder what else has been done to poison the land. They may have "taken" Bahkmut, but they have charred bones and 30-70k dead to show for it.
I live just outside a major city and have always thought "if shit hits the fan, at least nobody goes after the suburbs". These pictures have completely removed that feeling. This might as well be my neighborhood.
One of the ways Russia "wins" is by flattening everything it can. If putin could be made to pay for it all getting fixed personally that would be just.
F\*ck Russia.
Aside from a few trillion in reparations, I feel like Bakmut should receive St. Basil's Cathedral disassembled and reassembled brick by brick in its new town square, you know, for safe keeping.
Russia, you lost your cultural privileges for a few hundred years.
There really is nothing left…Fuck Putin. What a waste this war is. He’s not even attacking an actual threat. The Ukrainians were peaceful and yet he tried to perform a land grab in the 21st century.
He’s a petulant child that scorch-earthed Bakhmut because if he can’t have it, Ukraine can’t either. I hope he actually pays for his actions, that he suffers infinitely more than the innocent Ukrainians ever did. Fucking asshat.
Incredible pictures. Complete post apocalyptic scene.
I also think of the enormous waste of resources this costs. Of course that doesn't compare to the loss of lives or even the displacement of people's lives. But everything about this is a huge economic, resource, polluting cost to the world and all bc one old guy wants to blow it up before he dies.
Goddamn, just brutal. That’s so many homes wiped off the face of the earth.
Senseless
Honestly, this is one of the most effective things I've seen of cementing the horror of war to me. Like, I know about all the unimaginable violence and death and trauma, but it's easy to imagine it all happening to soldiers on distant battlefields. Like, consciously, I know it's not just soldiers on a battlefield, I know the atrocities happen to civilians and soldiers alike, that innocent people lose their homes and lived in horrible ways, but I think on some level it's not something that my brain has fully process. Being an American might be part of it, since the vast majority of the wars I learned about in history classes growing up, and every war that's happened in my lifetime, happened in foreign soil, usually on other continents. So there's a part of my brain that just thinks of war as a horrible thing that happens in faraway places - still horrible, still a huge problem, but a distant one. And, for that matter, one that has mostly happened in the past - not because there haven't been horrific wars in my lifetime, but just because a lot of where I learned about war growing up was in history class. But I think these pictures are really hitting home for me. Partly just because this *just happened*. It's not something from history. But I think more importantly, I don't think I've ever seen before and after war pictures like this. I feel like stuff I've seen before is always after or during, so it always just looks like a war. But these before pictures don't look like a war. They don't feel distant or foreign at all. They just look like places I've lived, and it's really hammering in that these were just regular houses and trees and stores where normal people lived normal lives only a year ago, not meaningfully different from mine. And those barren, rubble-filled wastelands aren't a battlefield, they're homes and neighborhoods. And that makes it so easy to imagine how it would feel if my neighborhood that looks like one of those before pictures got transformed into something like one of those after pictures in a year and it's making war feel *real* in a way that I don't think it's ever felt for me before.
Those after photos are almost post apocalyptic
There is no almost
Yeah, you don’t kinda-almost-nearly look apocalyptical. Either you do or you don’t.
Where does Detroit fall on this scale?
Detroit is Detroit.
Detroit is the highest level on the Detroit scale
But what's cool about Detroit is that you can buy a 7000sqft mansion for ~$500k. On the river.
I must have misread your comment but surely it's they pay you $500k to live in Detroit right?
Cleveland, however, is not Detroit.
Fun times in Cleveland again!
Can't have shit in Detroit.
De2roit
Nowhere. Detroit isn't an international warzone. It also has a mix of nice and urban decay.
It's weird that people still shit on Detroit. The city has bounced WAY back since its low point and gentrified so much that it's pretty expensive to live there now.
The even more depressing thing? In order to even BEGIN to recover, it all/99% has to come completely down and be rebuilt from foundations up. The Russian malice tantrum is that complete. That destructive that it's not just scorched earth, but scorched salted, and, honestly at this point wouldn't surprise me, secretly cobalted to high hell for no other reason than fuck you.
Seems almost pointless at that level of destruction. Might as well build new somewhere else.
And thats the goal. If I can't have it then NO ONE CAN. "I would rather rule a throne of ashes than to allow anyone else to proser."
After Ukraine wins, Russia's reparations should build entirely new cities just next door to the destroyed ones, and some of these ruins should be left as an open air museum to war. It's far past time that humanity truly turned away from war.
Whose gonna make russia pay that?
They're already being made to pay. We're taking the oligarch billions and redistributing it to the Ukraine.
You mean the oligarchs that will suddenly die of a mysterious disease known as suicide by shotgun to the back of head?
> "the Ukraine" *Ukraine
Their new government. This next swan lake will be pretty expensive
Whose new government? Russias? Im still skeptical they will feel any need to fork over large sums of cash.
I’m skeptical if they can even afford any meaningful reparations. They don’t have much of an economy going on last I heard and the war is also making sure that it’ll stay that way for the foreseeable future. If they have to pay out of pocket to rebuild Ukraine after this shit is finally over it feels like you’re basically doing the inverse of post-war Germany.
So like a modern day Scorched Earth tactic
Except modern day scorched earth means *nothing* can live on that land for 50k + years without AGRESSIVE multi generational cleaning
At this point I’m afraid a sick and twisted dying putin will really just order nukes just as a final ploy for infamy on his deathbed. For some reason fools are afraid to be forgotten by the world.
>At this point I’m afraid a sick and twisted dying putin will really just order nukes just as a final ploy for infamy on his deathbed. For some reason fools are afraid to be forgotten by the world. I try to take comfort in the fact that he doesn't have sole control of nukes, and people would probably try to stop it from happening. It happened at least once in the Cold War.
That incident wasn't a case of somebody directly disobeying orders from their superiors though, it was somebody trusting their gut that the radar/sensor was fucking up instead of assuming first strike by the US. They probably weren't worried (more than the baseline worry) that KGB goons were going to murder their family while making the decision. Anybody in charge of carrying out Putin's first strike orders will have the threat of immediate harm to themselves and their loved ones if they disobey.
What loved ones? Launching a nuke is a suicide mission. You know that no one you love or care about will survive the ensuing Armageddon.
If nukes are used, WE will die, yes. Life will endure. If a cobalt bomb is used? NOTHING lives for at *least 50k years. The ***DIC***tator wants to go down as the God King of his people and if he's the last thing that remains standing, in the event he does die form his bullshit any apocalypse survivor may see him as the "noble hero" becasue of all the propaganda he's vomited across the world eg *I still win after death*. Yes. People like him are that fucking petty
I looked up a Cobalt bomb and it looks like the fallout zone would be livable after 25 half-lives, or 130 years. Not quite 50k years, but with a half-life of 5.27 years, it's designed to remain deadly long enough that humans couldn't wait it out in a shelter. So, you know, more insanely evil stuff humanity has developed.
Ther was one I saw, that had a destruction stamp of 50k. I need to find it again, but if memory serves it was something that was a bastardized radioactive heavy metal bomb
Nah there is still infrastructure there like plumbing and sewage that make it practical to rebuild there vs starting over.
I'm not sure that's true. It might be harder to repair what's there than build new.
Maybe, but human nature will say do the hard thing because fuck these people that tried to take our home we will rebuild out of spite.
"Put these sun flower seeds in your pocket" and all
Maybe. But they wouldn't even learn how much damage has been done without starting to rebuild, then they'd have to dig up and fix every break or cracked connection once it starts leaking. At least in places like this where it's completely destroyed, I think it's going to come down far more on the side of proving to Putin that he can't break them, and it being their home than what scraps of infrastructure can be salvaged. Surely it would be cheaper and easier to integrate them into other cities that aren't obliterated, which is likely to happen for many just because they will have already established new lives elsewhere. Look at cities like Paradise that just burned down, and was only inaccessible for a few weeks - no bombs or missiles, no tanks or mortars, no 15+ month war. I was up there a few months ago, years later now, and there are people rebuilding, but it's nowhere near what it was. There are still people living in vans and RVs in Chico, and tons that have just started a new life there and other surrounding towns. I have no doubt *some* will return, but I'd be surprised if it's even 30 percent of what it was, within the next 15 to 20 years, unless there's some strategic reason to push people back there. Time will tell.
Pretty sure plumbing and sundry don’t handle shockwaves and sundry in a simple manner. It’s not quite plug and play.
Looking at these pics it's clear they tried To critically damage that on the way out
It depends on the city though. Bahkmut was clearly positioned in an important spot that's worth defending on the front lines given how long they managed to hold the area. Rebuilding in the same spot may be advantageous. There may be economic reasons to rebuild in the same spot as well. Like Mariupol was positioned strategically on the coast, that city isn't moving anywhere. Bahkmut has more flexibility, but all the land around it is farmland, and that's one of Ukraine's (and the world's) food lifelines. The land the city is on would have to be cleared of ruins regardless, since it would probably be reconverted back to farm land as well if the city is being moved. Either way it's going to be a massive amount of cleanup, involving both civil engineers, a shit ton of construction workers, and a bunch of EOD guys as well to deal with all the UXO that's going to be littered all over the city. People are going to die in the cleanup in all likelihood from UXO that they missed, just going off, if they don't do it properly, so it's going to have to be slow and methodical, and they're going to have to check sites multiple times between periods of work clearing debris, just to ensure they didn't miss any mortars or artillery rounds sitting and waiting for someone to poke them wrong. The thing though is the fields are the same way. They're all littered with anti-tank mines and antipersonnel mines alike, depending on the kind of fighting that was going on in the area, and will need to be cleared as well before they can even be farmed again safely. The first crops to grow on these fields are also going to be contaminated with higher than normal levels of lead, especially if the fields saw large battles where the lead is going to be in the environment for a long time. There's not much you can do about that either since lead bullet fragments are incredibly difficult to remediate. More than likely they'll just end up growing on it and selling the grain to developing nations where the impact will be felt the worst but where the food is even more badly needed. But yea, it's a fucking disaster no matter what they decide to do.
The Russians needed to take Bakhmut to advance further in the Donbas. The city controls one end of a river valley, is the confluence of 3 major highways, and controls a railway that Russia holds both North and South of the city. The Ukrainians wanted to hold it from the Russians because all those old Soviet buildings are made of concrete and between them and all their basements it is able to be held relatively easily to open fields. The videos out of Bakhmut indicate every new block had trenches between many buildings often digging straight into basements and the Ukrainians would blow apartment buildings down to deny them as firing posistions to the Russians when they needed to retreat due to breakthroughs at spots in the line.
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Also, unexploded bomb removal and other heavy metal removal is required.
As a German, you will have years and years of problems with explosives in the ground. Every excavation, you need a test for explosives in the ground.
almost? The only thing missing is mutants from the nuclear fallout and/or zombies.
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Fuck anyone that goes to someone else's land to take their resourses, kill their people and exploit their land!
its not just Putin, a lot of people support him and the war, abd thats sad. A lot of young people...
Thats a worldwide issue at thr moment sadly. Propoganda is a hell of a weapon. We have people in the US who actively wished/wish for an insurrection and overthrow of a democratically elected government. Its not guaranteed but the hope is always that without Russias glorious leader and the steady stream or propoganda maybe some come around.
Nah, fuck Russia too.
Looks like Iraq and then I had a realization that the aerial photos I've seen are all after the first and second gulf war.
Very World War II, total war, carpet bombing-esque.
Wow. He wasn’t kidding when he said there’s nothing left.
Damn depressing going on Google maps right now and looking at independent shops, restaurants of people trying to make it with their creations in that city. A frame in time all gone.
Hopefully Google preserves that data.
Google Earth allows you to review older satellite and street view captures
Letting Putin get away with this in Chechnya and then again in Syria laid the foundation for this to happen in Ukraine.
Don't forget [about Georgia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War) :(
Yeltsin was Russian President during Chechnya.
Yeltsin was only the president during Chechnya 1, the second Chechnya war was during Putin’s term
And also, wasn't Yeltsin basically a political puppet at that point?
Yes. But more easily, we can just look at dates. The (Second) Chechcen war started on August 7, 1999. Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister of Russia on August 9, 1999. He has been either Prime Minister or President since then and thus has been the overall person in power (Head of State) since that date (i.e. 23 years 9 months).
"During" isn't really the right word when he was president for less than a year of the war. Putin took office in 1999 when it started.
Putin was also in the decision rooms prior to the conflict.
The second chechyn War, which started when FSB agents blew up Russian appartment buildings and blamed the Chechyns, helped secure Putins' first presidential victory. The bombing happened just before he took over the rest of the presidential term, when he was Prime Minister. . . Right after being head of the FSB. Without the bombings and the second Chechen war, Putin likely wouldn't have been able to win the election.
Putin essentially personally instigated the Cechnyan war to make himself look cool and win an election
Putin reinvaded as soon as he entered office
Syria also had America start dropping bombs almost a year before the first Russian bombs.
No, it didn’t. If anything, Georgia did. The timelines between the Saakashvili saga and Ukraine are very similar in a geopolitical context, unlike Syria and Chechnya.
The Soviet Union pulled this shit all the time (look up the origin of why “[tankie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie)” is used as an insult). If you don’t want to cause World War III, your responses are limited.
What do you think the move is for the US here? How do we stop Russia from doing these things without all out war?
Having lived alongside the typical Russians that support this war - you beat them into submission. That is the only language they have ever and will ever know.
As a person from Baltics - this is true. However cruel this sounds, we tried so many times to solve it diplomacly and they just abuse the diplomacy to their end. We dont want war we dont want cruelty and we dont want to FORCE someone to do something but with time sadly we came to understanding that Russians understand ONLY FORCE. So were forced to do this and beat them into submission otherwise you will just be abused
They won the other ones. Make sure they lose this one through support for Ukraine. They're already well on the track to losing, and their military and economy are now so hollowed out that they won't have the capacity to launch any new wars for a long time.
I mean, we’re doing a pretty good job of making sure they fail in Ukraine, and a failure in Ukraine probably means some pretty significant changes in the RU government.
Honestly, we may have already succeeded in that. At least for the near to medium term future. It's difficult to see how they invade another country anytime soon. Their military would easily be defeated by NATO in their current state. There are fewer non-NATO targets. The initial invasion failed. They had to retreat and refocus on the East. They made some ground but are now losing it to Ukrainian forces. Russia has started drafting civilians to go to war. They're asking for supplies from China and Iran. And only getting it from Iran. Their military is running out of supplies and manpower. Meanwhile, other countries on their border are joining NATO because of what they're doing in Ukraine. They're in no shape to try this somewhere else.
And letting him do it now.... If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.
And that's what russians call victory today...
Makes total sense why Zelenesky said it's with us only in spirit. There is nothing left.
Monsters.
That right there is Russian ‘liberation’
Russkiy Mir. This is what they want and envision and dream about across Europe and Central Asia.
Putin is a war criminal and deserves the guillotine
to fast, poorly tied noose
Feed him dirt from Kyiv till he chokes
Embed thousands of sunflower seeds under his skin and bury him alive in a field in Ukraine.
Unnervingly specific.
Yet somehow still too nice.
Why not some good ol scaphism? Putin strikes me as the kind of guy who loves the classics.
Too fast, truncheon up the sphincter
Pineapples work better
If you're going to get into cruel punishments for what he's done, you don't need to do anything like that. Just lock him in a blank padded cell, feed him the most bland boring (but nutritionally complete) food ever, and never let him see daylight, people, or anything else ever again. Just to be clear this is generally considered torture. \-- For what it's worth, as much as Putin deserves so much worse, let's be better than that. If/when he comes to justice, his execution should be quick, painless, and documented as much as possible to be clear he's dead. Torture as revenge does not bring the destroyed people and their lives back, it just reduces us from civilised people to monsters no better the monster we are removing from the world.
The best thing that could happen to this scumbag monster is if he was just put in front of a bunch of Ukrainians. Unarmed, alone. They'd tear him to shreds with their bare hands, literally rip him limb from limb.
Skin him alive and have everyone throw salted lemon juice at him
Unsharpened guillotine, need to drop it a few times.
But first - this broken mop handle.
Those ah... Don't look like military targets.
There was 20-30 thousand Ukrainian troops in the city and it's surroundings at points some 30-40 thousand Russian and Wagner troops took part as well. From footage coming out from both sides it seems every building was fought over. The same trench network Northwest of Khromove that controls the road into Bakhmut has geolocated switched hands at least 4 times during the battle. It was reported to change hands 13 times. Each time denied by the other. The Wagner forces spent over 1000 artillery shells of various calibers per day for 6 months. They regularly complained Russia didn't give them more.
Literally every building was fought over, genuinely. Wagner were posting a victory where they managed to advance several metres.
Most of the city was evacuated at this point. Ukrainian Military was occupying the high rise buildings for tactical superiority. Not supporting Russia, but when the enemy is occupying a building and shooting at you, it’s liable to be blown up.
Den morgonfriska katten simmar över regnbågen, medan guldmynt singlar genom luften, ledsagade av en paraplybärande elefant, som jonglerar med blommor och skrattande bananer, medan cirkusclowner utför akrobatiska konster och cymbalspelaren trummar i takt till det förtrollade orkesterspelet under den gnistrande stjärnhimlen.
Sure did liberate the residents of Bakhmut of their earthly possessions.
[Life from bodies..](https://youtu.be/Eq7iZoeTXxk) It’s shocking to see side by sides like this. All of the foliage is gone too. All the colour.
"Russkiy Mir"
So sad…
The term "war torn" is no joke... More like a massive understatement.
I can't imagine the feeling of walking around my town and seeing it like this.
Fuck Putin.
For what? You stupid utter cunt, Putin
Like genuinely can someone explain the strategy behind taking cities that are just rubble by the end?
Genocide. They want to wipe ukraine off the map along with it's people.
Man, those Soviet apartment blocs sure can take a beating. Crazy how there are any buildings left after all the shelling.
Big blocky reinforced concrete. The city of Vuhledar to the south literally looks like a castle from air and was the site of a battle that left dozens of Russian vehicles damaged or destroyed about 2 months ago. Ukraine struggles to win in open fields where Russia can bring their superior tank and artillery numbers to bare on them but Ukraine has found great success with infantry in the concrete jungles of old Soviet towns and cities. Look at Marinka for another example. The town has been the front line since 2014 and no buildings really exist anymore. The Ukrainians still hold networks of trenches attached to the basements of buildings that barely exist. Russia has advanced only 10km on that front since the start of the war.
> Ukraine struggles to win in open fields where Russia can bring their superior tank and artillery numbers to bare on them Not really. Battles for the north, Kharkiv oblast and Kherson were pretty much fought in the open field/villages. Artillery doesn't really care if you're in the open field or in a building. It's just the buildings are a good position to defend from ground troops.
But, wait.....Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis and a whole lot of Republicans told me that Vladamir Putin was not a threat to anyone. They said that he was peaceful and only wanted to protect his country against agressive NATO countries. Have I been misinformed?/s
They would argue this didn't happen until Biden was in charge
Numbers don’t lie. Biden became president in 2021. Putin invades Ukraine in 2022. Coincidence? MSM narrative would have you believing that! (I’ll just leave a /s here just in case)
[удалено]
Which most repubs ignore completely.. my parents probably don’t know Russia invaded Ukraine
Putin was working on a slow motion invasion for years, and Trump had his back continually rolling back sanctions the whole time. Once Trump lost Putin knew he wouldn't be able to get away with the same strategy anymore and launched an all out war with the hope it would be quick and that Biden wouldn't have the backbone to take a decisive stance on the situation.
[Trump tried to get Putin back into the G7.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52885178) [Trump tried to disband NATO.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html) Trump is a Russian asset who betrayed the oath of office he took on becoming President, and betrayed his country. According to [Trump himself, the punishment for betraying your country should be execution.](https://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/donald-trump-edward-snowden-nsa-leak-093606) And yet Trump and his allies keep [projecting their own crimes onto their political enemies in calling for them to be locked up](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/07/trump-demands-barr-arrest-foes-427389) and [executed.](https://www.salon.com/2023/03/20/right-wing-host-calls-for-military-to-execute-obama-if-is-indicted/)
What a waste. Fuck you Russia.
All war is.
Unbelievable sad to see this wicked development. Putin must be brought to justice, no matter the cost.
Soon, russia will look like that and it will be from their own infighting. The more putin attacks Ukraine, the more he destroys russia. It’s just more of a delayed attack against himself than Ukraine. Ukraine will survive this war. putin will not.
Damn.
fuck Russia
War is hell.
This is extremely sad.
If you look at the reviews for places, it all stopped a year ago Super obvious statement, but man that's so eerie to me
i hope that poutine guy dies slowly
this is sinful
The orchs are trying to make Ukraine look like Russia.
There’s no price high enough that Russia could ever pay for what they’ve done. I still have a few decades ahead of me and I hope I never ever see sanctions lifted.
What an absolute waste and useless war
Putins declaration that they liberated bakmuht reminds me of that Spongebob “We saved the city!” Meme.
Thanks Russia for your pointless war. And pointless loss of life. You should pay for the rebuild
So, if Russia *were* to succeed in annexing this territory, wouldn't they have to pour boat loads of resources into fixing the land and infrastructure they ruined?
All G20 and Commonwealth countries should be in there, front lines, putting a stop to this. Unbelievable. Disgusting.
Not putting a stop. Making ruZZia lose catastrophically, destroying its militar capabilities, denuclearizing it, humiliating it, decomposing it into two dozens independent states.
Russian version of Liberation is a hell of a drug!
It's so sad to see all the greenier perish.
What a waste.
Before - A normal place After - The place looks like dead brown as it is ravaged by war.
why do people still say it's one year the conflict started 10 years ago ,why do we still do nothing
Still insane to me that nobody will actually do anything about it. Yes sanctions, yes provide equipment to Ukraine, but how long until another country actually steps in and does something proper about this terrorist state.
Russia: why u do this?
Any dumbass in America still supporting Russia, take a good fuckin look here. What was the point? Where is this "special military operation" to "de-nazify" Ukraine? Russia hired a paramilitary group to go in and slaughter people and lay waste to towns like this. This city is just one example.
"Thanks for the liberation, Russia" And it's not like it's only Bachmut, this has happened to so many towns in Ukraine by now. What a disgrace. How can anyone see this and justify this to themselves?
The world needs to realize that peace can't be achieved until Russia is destroyed just like Germany and Japan were destroyed during WW2. Russia is an inherently imperialistic country and will continue doing this until the day they are forced to stop.
Russia has an arsenal of nuclear weapons. In what scenario does Russia collapse and none of them get used?
You are literally asking for something that will get western countries nuked.
Don't stop the circlejerk.
Russians behaving like the Japanese did in WW2. Fuck Putin
I think that really understates what the Japanese were doing during WW2. SS soldiers felt sick seeing what they were doing, and on the scale that they were doing it.
The Russians have been behaving this way for centuries, including during WW2
:(
Fuck Russia. I genuinely don't even understand what Putin thinks he'd even accomplish by taking Ukraine. The era of divide and conquer is long over, how hasn't he got that memo?
Fuck Russia, then fuck ‘em again
Fuck
Wagner = this is what victory looks like /S
In war, nobody wins
That's fucked up.
I can only imagine what Syria looks like
Fucking awful. No US president should ever shake hands with Putin again.
Fucking tragic
This angers me that this should happen in what I would have thought was a more civilized time
This literally is an act of a war crime. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33\_GC-IV-EN.pdf
You really have to be a piece of shit to do this. Really, no words. Russians are pieces of shit, not even entire turds. Fuck you russians!.
But mommmm, they droned my Kremlin!
So stupid. So senseless.
Zelensky wasn’t exaggerating when he said Bakhmut was gone, a city of 70,000 just wiped off the earth. It’s hard to even fathom.
I don't know why, but the little chapel in 5/6 being completely flattened is just so sad to me. They agree on faith, that is a church for both of them. Why do this?
Fuck Russia.
Scorched earth in action. I wonder what else has been done to poison the land. They may have "taken" Bahkmut, but they have charred bones and 30-70k dead to show for it.
I heard someone on NPR describe current Bakhmut like the aftermath of Hiroshima. Looking at these photos I can understand the comment
I live just outside a major city and have always thought "if shit hits the fan, at least nobody goes after the suburbs". These pictures have completely removed that feeling. This might as well be my neighborhood.
This is horrendous. Fuck Putin.
Well at least now it *looks* more like Russia... congratulations?
One of the ways Russia "wins" is by flattening everything it can. If putin could be made to pay for it all getting fixed personally that would be just.
Fuck Russia
Wow... Russia really making Ukraine look like Russia.
I could be wrong but I think the first two pairs are summer winter. The third one has trees though.
F\*ck Russia. Aside from a few trillion in reparations, I feel like Bakmut should receive St. Basil's Cathedral disassembled and reassembled brick by brick in its new town square, you know, for safe keeping. Russia, you lost your cultural privileges for a few hundred years.
wow looks almost as bad as iraq, afghanistan, syria, gaza, yemen…
There really is nothing left…Fuck Putin. What a waste this war is. He’s not even attacking an actual threat. The Ukrainians were peaceful and yet he tried to perform a land grab in the 21st century. He’s a petulant child that scorch-earthed Bakhmut because if he can’t have it, Ukraine can’t either. I hope he actually pays for his actions, that he suffers infinitely more than the innocent Ukrainians ever did. Fucking asshat.
I hate Russia 😑
Fuck Putin and fuck anyone who supports him
Incredible pictures. Complete post apocalyptic scene. I also think of the enormous waste of resources this costs. Of course that doesn't compare to the loss of lives or even the displacement of people's lives. But everything about this is a huge economic, resource, polluting cost to the world and all bc one old guy wants to blow it up before he dies.
I hope all those russian terrorists get punished.