Report from the Apocalyptic Scene in Myra

🇺🇸 Lights, Camera, Freedom 🇺🇦

With camera in hand, DW shares frontline stories of perseverance and humanity in the great battles of the 21st Century. He brings the perspective of a filmmaker, journalist and constitutional attorney to his commentaries.

DW PHILLIPS

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DW Phillips

Last night we watched and listened to an extraordinary assault on the capital and listened to the heavy and constant booming sounds of Ukrainian air defense. Reports coming in this morning reveal a growing number of killed, including children and six heroic railway workers, in last night’s massive strike.

All this after nearly five days of constant attacks in the largest barrage of the war since the early days of 2022.

Today, we are on the ground in Myra, bringing portable power banks to survivors, as well as other forms of aid, with our partners on the ground.

Within twelve hours of the explosion that ignited an ammunition depot and killed a reported 37 people, our Ukraine Story partners and team members were on the ground providing aid. Honor and I had been delivering power to air defenders at other locations when the strike occurred and only now are arriving on the scene.

Myra looks like an apocalypse. An entire home for the elderly eviscerated by Putin. Body bags, now removed, but previously stacked on the streets. Homes in rubble. Smoke still lingering. But the critical message I want to share is that these attacks are having a psychological impact, which is Putin’s goal.

Our own team members, some of the most resilient and self-sacrificing people I have met in this war, are in tears and deeply affected. Their own homes are filled with smoke, even as ordnance has dropped from the sky, damaging neighboring homes. Thankfully, no one is injured.

One very young girl affected by the strike is having a birthday and today prayed for Putin’s death.

This Irpin/Bucha region is an area Ukraine Story has worked in for some time, and it is clear that attacks are escalating. Weeks ago, our partners were cleaning up a similar ammunition depot strike, which destroyed 300 homes and took many lives. I do not fault the government for its discretion on numbers, but I assure you that the number of casualties is far higher than is being reported.

Putin’s mission is to discourage, destroy, and wear down. He is effective. I hesitate to elaborate because it is personal to the people I work with, but the closeness of the strikes and their consistency are affecting even stronger people.

We must, must, must bring encouragement to the discourage. We must stymie Putin’s evil plans.

We are doing our part to bring hope and critical resources to rebuild life and defend the skies. In Ukraine, power banks are gold because they mean life, defense, connection, and protection.

I am almost out of power banks at the moment but have secured additional units in Kyiv if the resources come in. If you want to help a strike victim or air defense, click the link below.

Sponsor a powerbank for strike victims and air defense

Password: DefendKyiv

Importantly, remember our friends here in Ukraine. This is a hard moment. Help needed now. More reports to follow.

https://www.kyivpost.com/authors/1328

https://directorukrainestory.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

3 comments

DW :

It’s the first day of school here in Ukraine and I have concerns. Video here :

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dw-p-59111859_its-the-first-day-of-school-here-in-ukraine-activity-7500488395853385728-85td?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAbzsX4Bd5uGRRvx_FE5Zra0KIdYj1g_WBs

Valerii Buzov :

Russia has been attacking Kyiv almost non-stop for a sixth day. Around 2,000 drones in five days. More than half of them jet-powered. This is not just “another massive attack”. Putin has spotted a new hole in our defences and he is hammering it for as long as it stays open. That’s how Russia fights. We got better at shooting down ordinary Shaheds? Fine, they made them faster. We don’t have enough interceptors against ballistic missiles? Then we get more ballistic missiles. Moscow doesn’t wait for us to adapt. It tries to kill as many people as possible in the gap before we do. But now we get to the real point. Why exhaust Kyiv for days on end? Why systematically hit energy, warehouses, logistics, everything a major city needs to function normally? Because Putin does not just want destroyed infrastructure. He wants a broken Ukrainian. Someone who, after yet another sleepless night, finally says: I don’t care what they are demanding any more, just make a deal with them and make it stop. That is the calculation.

And then comes Europe. If Ukrainian cities become harder to live in, more people will leave for Europe again. And migration in Europe stopped being merely a social issue a long time ago. It’s elections, polling numbers, governments falling, radical parties gaining ground.
And Moscow badly needs a European politician who can stand in front of voters tomorrow and say: see these new refugees? See the bill? Maybe we have helped Ukraine enough. Maybe it is time to make a deal with Putin. That’s also why Kyiv is being hit. And against that background, listen to what they are already allowing themselves to say inside Russia.

State Duma deputy Alexei Zhuravlyov is calling for tactical nuclear weapons to be used against Ukraine. State Duma deputy speaker Pyotr Tolstoy is talking about striking cities in order to frighten the population and force it to surrender.
And the thing that interests me least right now is the comforting mantra: “Oh, it is only some MP talking.” No. The question is that a nuclear strike is already being discussed as a normal political instrument. And one of the senior figures in the Russian parliament is barely even hiding the logic of terrorising civilians.
That’s how the line moves.

As long as Putin sees escalation producing results, he is not looking for a reason to stop. He is looking for the next weak spot.