In Balakliia The russian Terror Has Only Changed Altitude
By:Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine ??
WE ARE DEEPLY GRATEFUL TO THOSE WHO MADE THIS REPORTING POSSIBLE, BY SUPPORTING US ??
Balakliia Compared with four years ago, the terror here has only changed altitude. We drove intoa city that stands largely deserted. The main road has been reduced to a string of potholes, and the building facades tell you how they got there: patched with plywood, wooden boards and sheet metal wherever they are not destroyed outright. As we arrived, three Russian KABs glide bombs carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosive each, released at standoff range and guided onto the target had just fallen, and five more had fallen the day before. The playgrounds all stood empty: not a single child.
Just weeks ago we were heredocumentinghow two ballistic missiles had slammed into other buildings downtown, with a heavy toll among civilians; only days ago another missilekilleda civilian and wounded eight more.
Liberated from Russian occupation in September 2022, Balakliia is living through a new form of terror: if back then it came by land, with the armored columns of the invasion, today it comes from above.
Half an hour from Izium another martyred city of Kharkiv oblast that passed through the occupiers hands and was then liberated over the city fly Russian reconnaissance drones, handing the air force its coordinates; then come the glide bombs.
On a completely deserted street we met a civilian selling watermelons: a lone stall, some twenty melons under the sun, not a customer in sight, and in front of the fruit a small Ukrainian flag fluttering. Larger ones dot Balakliias empty streets. We are bound to this city: we lived through its liberation firsthand, and people dear to us fought in that battle, testifying to the horrors found the moment the occupiers were driven out. We have many friends here,living witnesses to the horrors the Russians perpetrated during the occupation, above all among the volunteers who keep resisting weaving camouflage nets for the soldiers, packing parcels of basic necessities and shipping them to the areas hit harder still.
One look in the residents eyes is enough to understand that the scene just described is nothing other than the prelude to new attacks. Staying here a while, we documented in the immediate aftermath how the Russian vectors that fell on Balakliia destroyed a row of residential buildings in a densely populated neighborhood, damaging the church as well. While recording our clips we spoke with Father Yurii, the chaplain who looks after that church, and looking into the camera we put a question to those watching from the West: is it hard to imagine what happens when hundreds of kilograms of explosive fall on a European city? Of course it is: across much of the continent, luckily for them, people forgot decades ago. In this part of it, this is normality. And yet these are hundreds of kilograms, at times tons, crashing down on a populated center of that same Europe, with daily cadence.
Likewise, all of this belongs to a single design.
Call it what they like, further West, wherethe word genocide is reserved for what already belongs to history while the present is forgotten: this is persecution to that end.
As wedocumentedno later than yesterday always firsthand, with photos, video, testimony and official data people are being driven out of the Donbas, and out of cities like Balakliia. Just hours ago in these pages wedescribeda Russian FPV drone attack on a civilian target in Oleksandrivka and the evacuation numbers from the rest of Donetsk oblast:seven hundred to a thousand people a day, very many of them children, forced to abandon their homes. How do you call it, Western friends, when this happens?That exodus began in 2014, when Putin set about emptying the Donbas of the very people he claimed to protect.
At a service station alreadybatteredby Russian drones and shored up with sandbags, plywood panels and worn netting stitched together, we took a photograph of what life is like in these parts. Beyond everything described above, it shows a family lined up for gas with what remained of their home loaded onto a Soviet-era Lada with Donetsk plates, and beside them a young man with a prosthetic leg, stepping out of another car surely headed for the front. Its just the latest frame of a persecution twelve years in the making, and one that strikes the word as well.
In July alone, Russian attacksdestroyedmore than one and a half million Ukrainian books.
At the Konvi Plus printing house, over six hundred thousand finished volumesburnedalong with roughly three hundred fifty thousand more in production, five thousand square meters of production floor razed to the ground; the publisher Knygolav lost nearly a quarter of a million copies; the MISON publishing house was destroyed on the eve of its first book launch. Many were textbooks meant for school desks in the new year.
On Thursday night alone Russialaunchedmore than seventy missiles and two hundred eighty drones: at least nine civilians killed and over fifty wounded. In Radushne, near Kryvyi Rih, a missile struck a private home: a six-year-old girl, two boys aged eleven and seventeen and their parents were killed, while two more children werepulledalive from the rubble. UNICEFcountsinjured children in Kherson, Kyiv and Lviv oblasts as well.
That is, on the European Unions own frontier. That same night a Kh-101 cruise missileflewsome hundred kilometers into the Lublin Voivodeship before crashing in a field: two NATO fighter jets and an attack helicopterroseinto the air while ground defenses were activated, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybihaidentifiedthe vector. Days earlier it had been Romanias turn toscrambleits jets against Russian drones.
From the impact site, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tuskannouncedthat Warsawwill considerfurther assistance to Ukraine, including additional Patriot missiles,should the need arise: the same Tusk who two weeks agoexcludednew transfers, citing limited stockpiles. Faced with that wreckage, the leader of the White House insteadtoldthe Financial Timeshe is not sure he will grant Ukraine the license to produce Patriot interceptors on its own walking back, in part, the promisemadeat the NATO summit in Ankaraand already discussed at the White House on July 28 because the Patriot remains too extraordinary a weapon to license out:Im not looking for missiles. Were looking for peace. He, who started a needless and senseless third war in the Gulf, with no plans to end it.
In these terms speak Ukraines so-called partners, whilerivers of Russian gas and LNG keep flowing toward Europe and cylinders of uranium enriched in Russia replenish American stockpiles.
And when history asks the exact name of all this, which one will they dare to pronounce?
In 1.618 days of war, we recorded over 300 videos from ground zero and wrote more than 3,000 articles at least 1,600 in English, and over 1,400 in Italian.
Were doing our best to provide genuine, first-hand reports from zones where almost no press dares to go. This means living in a kill zone constantly. We take the risk, but without your invaluable support, our voices would remain unheard and silent. Without brave people sharing our articles from afar, they would remain unread. Our reports would go unseen, and our efforts would be lost. Theres still a lot of work to do here, as the people around us are also in no better situation.
Were renewing our fundraising campaign and thanking everyone who joins us in helping to restore what Russia is destroying. Moving forward, not even with a small reimbursement for each article we write, is extremely challenging. Thats why we are grateful to all the kind people who support us and trust in our mission.
Even a small donation helps.
Well keep you updated on developments.
Thank you all, dear friends ??
在巴拉克利亞，俄国恐怖仅改变了高度
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
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巴拉克利亞与四年前相比，这里的恐怖只是改变了来袭的高度。当我们驶入这座城市时，映入眼帘的是一片近乎荒凉的景象。主干道变成了一串坑洞，建筑的外墙则诉说着它们为何成了那样：在未被彻底摧毁的地方，用胶合板、木板和铁皮修补支撑。我们抵达时，俄军刚刚投下三枚KAB滑翔航空炸弹，每枚携带数百公斤炸药，在远程投放后依靠制导系统飞向目标。而前一天已有五枚落下。所有游乐场都空无一人：一个孩子也没有。
（图：我们重返巴拉克利亞时面临的场景版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
就在几周前，我们还在此记录两枚弹道导弹猛击市区其他建筑，造成大量平民伤亡；而就在几天前，又有一枚导弹杀死一名平民、并造成八人受伤。
自2022年9月从俄占领下解放以来，巴拉克利亞正经历一种新的恐怖形式：当年的恐怖从陆地而来，伴随装甲纵队的侵入；如今则从空中降临。
距伊久姆半小时车程，另一个饱受蹂躏、曾被占领后获解放的哈尔科夫州殉城，俄罗斯侦察无人机在城上空盘旋，将坐标交给俄空军；随后而来的便是滑翔炸弹。
（图：我在乌克兰巴拉克利亞撰写本文章前所拍??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在一条完全空无一人的街道上，我们遇到一名卖西瓜的市民：一个孤零零的摊位，太阳下约二十个西瓜，周围看不到顾客，水果前面一面小小的乌克兰国旗随风飘扬。更大的国旗点缀着巴拉克利亞空荡荡的街道。我们与这座城市结下了牵绊：我们亲历了它的解放，我们所爱的人中，也有人参加了那场战斗，亲眼见证了俄军被驱逐后，城中被发现的恐怖惨状。我们在这里有许多朋友，他们是俄罗斯占领期间实施的种种暴行的亲历者，尤其是那些坚持抵抗的志愿者，为士兵编织伪装网，打包基本生活物资并运往遭受更严重打击的地区。
（图：这是我们在乌克兰巴拉克利亞解放后拍的照片??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
只需看居民眼神一眼就能明白，上述场景不过是新一轮袭击的序幕。我们在此短暂停留期间，立即记录到一次袭击后发生的现场情况：俄空袭武器落在巴拉克利亞一个人口密集的社区、摧毁了一排住宅楼，并波及教堂。在拍摄现场报道时，我们与照看那座教堂的牧师尤里神父交谈，并在镜头前向西方观众提出了一个问题：想象一下数百公斤炸药落在一座欧洲城市会时什么景象，这难吗？当然难：在欧洲大部分地区，幸运的是他们几十年前就忘记了战争的模样。但在欧洲这部一带，这已成常态。然而这些却是数百公斤，甚至有时是吨级的炸药，以每天的频率，坠落在同一个欧洲的人口聚居中心。
（图：我与尤里牧师在乌克兰巴拉克利亞??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
同样，这一切属于同一个整体设计。
无论西方更远处的人如何称呼它，在那儿种族灭绝一词被保留给已成历史的事件，而当下则被遗忘，这是一场以此为目标的系统性迫害。
正如我们直到昨日所记录的（所有记录均为亲历、附照片、视频、证词和官方数据），人们正被驱逐出顿巴斯，和像巴拉克利亞这样的城市。就在数小时前，我们还在这个版面上报道了俄方FPV无人机对俄列克桑德里夫卡一处平民目标的袭击，以及顿涅茨克州其余地区的撤离人数：每天七百到一千人，其中许多是儿童，被迫放弃家园。西方朋友们，当这种事发生时，你们会称它为什么？这种出逃始于2014年，当时普京就着手清空顿巴斯人，而这些人恰恰是他声称要保护的对象。
（图：我在进入乌克兰巴拉克利亞前的一处加油站所拍照片??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在一座已被俄方无人机多次攻击、并用沙袋、胶合板和缝补过的破旧网眼布勉强拼凑加固的服务站，我们拍下了这里生活的一个画面。除了前述一切，画面中是一家人排队加油，带着剩余的家当装在一辆挂顿涅茨克车牌的苏式拉达车上；旁边是一名装有假肢的年轻人从另一辆车上走下，显然正赶往前线。这只是长达十二年的持续迫害进程中的又一帧定格，这场迫害同样针对语言和文化。
在Konvi Plus印刷厂，六十多万本已装订好的书籍与大约三十五万本在生产中的图书一同被焚毁，约五千平方米的生产车间被夷为平地；Knygolav出版社损失近二十五万册图书；MISON出版社在其首场新书发布会前夕被毁。许多被烧毁的是为新学年准备的教科书。
仅在周四晚，俄罗斯就发射了70多枚导弹和280架无人机：至少九名平民遇难，五十余人受伤。在靠近克里维里赫的拉杜什内，一枚导弹击中一处民宅：一名六岁女孩、两名分别为十一岁和十七岁的男孩及其父母被炸死，另外两名儿童从废墟中被活着救出。联合国儿童基金会统计到赫尔松、基辅和利沃夫州也有受伤儿童。
而这一切，就发生在欧盟自己的边境线上。同一夜，一枚Kh-101巡航导弹飞入波兰卢布林省约一百公里后坠落在田地：两架北约战斗机和一架攻击直升机升空，地面防空进入战备，乌克兰外长西比哈确认了飞行轨迹。几天前，罗马尼亚也曾紧急起飞其战机应对俄方无人机。
（图：乌克兰巴拉克利亞的一个没有孩子的游乐场??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
从导弹坠落现场，波兰总理唐纳德图斯克宣布华沙将在必要情况下考虑对乌克兰提供进一步援助，包括额外的爱国者导弹：而两周前正是同一位图斯克以库存有限为由排除了进一步转让爱国者的可能。在面对那片废墟时，白宫领导人却对《金融时报》表示，他不确定是否会授予乌克兰自行生产爱国者拦截弹的许可，在某种程度上收回了此前在安卡拉北约峰会上以及7月28日白宫讨论时做出的承诺，因为爱国者仍然是过于非凡的武器，不应轻易授权：我不是在找导弹。我们在寻找和平。而说这句话的人，恰恰发动了那场本无必要、也毫无意义的第三次海湾战争，却至今没有任何明确的结束方案。
这就是乌克兰的所谓伙伴们所说的话，而俄罗斯的天然气和液化天然气如河流般继续流向欧洲，而在俄罗斯浓缩的铀圆筒则补充着美国的库存。
当历史终追问，这一切究竟应该被称为什么？他们又敢称之为何？
（图：本报道来自乌克兰巴拉克利亞??照片版权：Giorgio Provinciali）
***
在1618天的战争中，我们从前线录制了300多段视频，并撰写了3000多篇文章其中至少1600篇为英文，1400篇为意大利文。
我们尽最大努力从几乎没有媒体敢进入的地带进行真实的一手报道，这意味着我们长期生活在杀伤区。我们承担风险，但若没有你们宝贵的支持，我们的声音将无从传出。若没有远方的勇敢的人们转发分享我们的文章，它们将无人问津。我们的报道会被忽视，我们的努力将付诸流水。这里还有大量工作要做，周围的人们境况同样艰难。
我们正在更新筹款活动，感谢每一位加入我们、帮助修复俄罗斯破坏的人们。仅靠一家勇敢的报纸为我们每篇文章支付微薄稿酬以维持前线报道极为困难。因此，我们感激所有支持并信任我们使命的善良人们。
哪怕是小小的捐助也有助益。
我们会持续为你们更新事态进展。
谢谢大家，亲爱的朋友们??
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