Liz Cookman
@liz_cookman
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Correspondent, Ukraine | Best Print and Best Specialist Journalist - Freelance Journalism Awards | @Amnesty Gaby Rado award 2023 | Past: Turkey, Middle East
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Incredibly proud to say my story for
@1843mag
documenting Russia’s brutal siege of Mariupol’s Azovstal steel works is a finalist for this year’s Bayeax Calvados Award for War Correspondents.
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GRAPHIC CONTENT: Today I watched as Ukraine began exhuming more than 440 bodies found in a mass burial site on the edge of liberated city Izium, Kharkiv region.
At least 1 civilian showed signs of torture, while I saw two bodies (believed to be soldiers) with their hands tied.
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The mass burial site was set up next to an existing cemetery. Many of the dead were killed by shelling/bombs, with their bodies moved by the Russians.
However, several bodies showed signs of having been tied. Police said it will take 6 days to exhume fully & investigate.
#Izium
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This is Andriy and his family, who I met at Kyiv’s Okhmadyt children’s hospital yesterday.
He is 9, disabled and recovering from surgery. Russia hit the hospital with a missile and they had to wait 5 hours in the ruins, in shock and in the dark, for safe evacuation.
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I spoke with
@legion_svoboda
to confirm the operation to “liberate” Russia’s
#Belgorod
. They said they’re working independently of Ukraine & have taken three villages so far and are now fighting for Grayvoron.
They claim the surprise left Russian troops “fleeing in panic” 1/3
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On Monday, Russia steals sunflower oil from Ukraine. On Tuesday, Russia donates sunflower oil to Nicaragua.
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I am supposed to be getting married.
HOWEVER: I’m British & my fiancé is Turkish. I’m banned from Turkey because of my journalism. Under new UK rules, I have to earn £38,700+ & pay £5k for a 2.5 year visa for him. We will always have to live abroad 👇
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No Ukrainians would be able to get a visa.
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There were a lot of tears this morning at Ukrainian Orthodox mass in Dnipro.
“I hope we will win and God will help us,” said one church goer.
#Ukraine
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Ukrainian older people are an inspiration. Every weekend they meet in a Kyiv subway to dance, just for the fun of it.
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We pulled back from Mariupol, eastern
#Ukriane
, as it’s now surrounded by Russian troops. The fighting was getting too intense - residents in city’s east were evacuated today due to incessant attacks.
We were able to leave but a Ukrainian of fighting age said he was refused.
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“If the Russian miltary is weak, we may get Belgorod itself,”
@iponomarev
told me. “If they are able to regroup, we can hold. If they redirect significant forces, we may retreat. The situation is developing.” 2/3
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The
#Belgorod
operation has “symbolic significance and the hope that is being spread among Russian elites and diaspora cannot be overestimated.”
@iponomarev
3/3
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I interviewed Shaun Pinner, the British soldier in the Ukrainian army who has been handed the death sentence in a sham trial, in February. He said he came to Ukraine after getting “fed up with working 16 hour days and commuting around London”. A thread 🧵
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Terrified children screaming and running through the street after the first of a series of explosions in Kyiv this morning. Falling debris fell nearby afterwards, in the Podil district, causing a small fire.
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Gaziantep castle, constructed by the Romans and rebuilt extensively by the Seljuks, collapsed.
#deprem
#TurkeyEarthquake
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@Stephjd420
@elonmusk
Because we create the content. For free. The companies you mentioned invest millions in developing content. Twitter is a communication tool not a streaming service. There are other ways to monetise it and people will just stop producing content you want to read.
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Travelling from Mariupol to Dnipro, we saw soldiers digging trenches around every city we passed though, preparing to defend.
In Zaporizhzhia, the operation looked particularly urgent, with Russian troops reportedly trying to take the nuclear power plant as we passed.
#Ukraine
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Friend still in Mariupol messaged me this: “Russian aircrafts destroyed electricity lines, the whole city center and most districts are with no electricity now. Damn. City council promised to fix it tomorrow. I can't imagine them doing that in such conditions.”
#Ukraine
Mariupol will likely be one the biggest stories over the next couple of days. It appears Ukrainian forces there are surrounded by Russian forces coming from the Donbas and Crimea. It could be a very ugly urban fight.
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In Mariupol, 400 are dying unnecessarily a week due to a lack of access to medical care, while Melitopol now has more Russian residents than Ukrainians. 5% of the population of Kherson has been detained. A look inside occupied Ukraine - my longread.
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Millennial journalists on their careers: I got a degree, masters, worked for free for experience and then took a huge risk to freelance in dangerous places with no support before anyone would hire me.
Boomer journalists: I existed so someone gave me a job.
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Now we are in Dnipro, which had been less affected but the situation is changing here. We arrived in the afternoon - miltary vehicles dash across the city, the air raid sirens have sounded five times so far.
Nowhere is safe in this war, everywhere is the front line.
#ukraine
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A Ukrainian grandmother is reunited with her young grandson after he was kept in Russian-occupied Crimea for six months.
12 mothers took a daring journey through Russia to rescue 31 children, who were mostly taken to holiday camps from Kherson in October and never returned.
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Jeremy Clarkson’s awful rant is a damning indictment of British journalism. He’s paid lots to just make people angry - anger sells.
I report on crises and wars. Some outlets barely pay £300 per story, even though I could get killed. These journalistic values are all wrong.
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Shaun Pinner is a brave and funny man who loved his adopted country and was due to retire in December. Instead, he has been pushed to plead guilty to false charges and faces possible death so that Russia can pressurise the UK.
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GRAPHIC CONTENT: Most civilians discovered in the
#izium
burial site were buried in solo graves, but 17 bodies of what are thought to be soldiers were found in one mass grave. Details not fully clear as investigations are ongoing.
This man was found with his hands tied.
GRAPHIC CONTENT: Today I watched as Ukraine began exhuming more than 440 bodies found in a mass burial site on the edge of liberated city Izium, Kharkiv region.
At least 1 civilian showed signs of torture, while I saw two bodies (believed to be soldiers) with their hands tied.
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Currently that place is Ukraine.
When a newly married couple has to stay living full time in a war zone for the foreseeable future because they can’t live in either of their home countries or the EU, something is broken.
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There was just a mad pile in at London’s Victoria station as Michael Gove appeared, for some bizarre reason, in the middle of a sit in protest for Palestine. He was greeted with screams of “shame on you!”.
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I just visited the site of 6am strikes in Ukraine’s Dnipro. The factory was still burning, local residents boarding up smashed windows (some fleeing altogether).
Air raids sirens kept sounding - even firefighters were forced to run for shelter in a nearby metro station twice.
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I feel like we can all learn a lot from this guy running head first into a blizzard in Kyiv today.
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Kyiv is protesting to mark two years since the Mariupol drama theatre attack, outside the capital’s opera theatre. They’ve written ‘children’ on the ground, recreating the site of the cruel attack, which killed 100s of sheltering civilians.
Every car honks in solidarity.
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This is 2-week old Misha. He was born in a bomb shelter to the sound of gunfire in Ukraine’s Tokmak (now Russia controlled).
There were no drs, & complications led to a neurological disability. He is now being cared for by Zaporizhzhia children’s hospital. Story for
@AFP
later.
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This is not an easy decision, but, as I have always said,
#Mariupol
is not just its streets and houses. Mariupol is its inhabitants - it is you and me” - Mayor Vadym Boychenko
#Ukraine
The evacuation of civilians from Ukraine’s Mariupol begins at 11, according to the regional miltary administration, and will run until 4pm. They are heading for Zaporozhye.
The city has come under days of bombardment. Mayor’s statement suggests he’s leaving too.
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*open to writing about this, and to job offers of over £38,700
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The day after the invasion, Shaun messaged that they “barely got out alive yesterday” and just before comms were cut in Mariupol that he could “murder a burger” after days of fighting.
Here’s an emotional video he sent of a colleague playing piano in a bombed out school.
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But he loves Ukraine in the summer.
“Good beaches,fresh fruit and good food. There is a freedom here that's lacking in the UK. I can fish, light a fire on the beach, park for free, there isn't a camera at every intersection and summers are hot.”
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Children practicing school safety procedures in a Mariupol school on the eve of Russia’s full scale invasion last year.
The shelling had already started in this part of the city - the school was hit a few days later.
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He married a Ukrainian woman and adopted Mariupol as his home.
“I feel I a need to protect the Ukrainian way of life even though I'm not Ukrainian,” Pinner said.
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He wanted to travel again and had friends in Ukraine so in 2018 joined the marines. He was not a mercenary, volunteer or spy.
“They put me through parachute school very quickly. Within 6 months I was promoted and completed the Marine Beret test at 46 years old.”
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The evacuation of civilians from Ukraine’s Mariupol begins at 11, according to the regional miltary administration, and will run until 4pm. They are heading for Zaporozhye.
The city has come under days of bombardment. Mayor’s statement suggests he’s leaving too.
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Stumbled on an incredibly heartwarming scene in the centre of Ukraine’s Kharkiv - a group of older residents dancing in the park to celebrate liberation.
“We’ve been indoors since day 1 of the war. Now Balakliya, Izium, the region is liberated, what’s not to dance about!”
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Orphan Bohdan Yermokhin survived the Mariupol siege, only to be deported to Moscow by Russian forces. Fostered by a gov worker, he spent 1.5 years in enemy territory and even received a military summons before escaping last year.
He told me his story:
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Just heard an explosion. Security ejecting us from British embassy bar in Ankara. No internet after this
#turkey
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But even before the invasion, conditions on the front were “grim”, especially in winter in temperatures pf -30 and 4ft of snow.
Separatists came at night, laying traps, mines or tripwires along trench walkways. Shaun sent me pictures of his trenches.
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The head of Ukraine’s occupied/illegally annexed Luhansk region has called for residents to leave the area ahead of a counter-offensive and stay away due to winter - there’s too much damage to infrastructure for there to be heating and it gets bitterly, dangerously cold.
Soon, we will ask people to leave major cities of
#Luhansk
region for other localities where they can wait out the counteroffensive. After liberation, we will not allow people to enter major cities. It is impossible to start the heating season there; everything is broken
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Central Odesa has internet and electricity again for the first time in more than 24 hours after a rocket hit. Even the traffic lights were out.
Bars/restaurants with generators were still packed though - the only people pissed off by it were journalist trying to file stories.
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🚨 After more than a week of attempts to evacuated besieged Mariupol, about 20,000 people left in a humanitarian corridor in private cars today. The council say 570 have made it safely to Zaporozhye, where I met them - exhausted, jumpy, still terrified.
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It’s heartbreaking to see lost, dishevelled, confused dogs wondering all around the edges of Kherson’s flood waters. You can hear desperate barking from all across the submerged areas still, where only roofs are still visible.
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Kherson was the first city to fall to Russia and the only regional capital. This is one of the most significant Russian retreats of the war.
Russian forces have been ordered to withdraw from the right bank of the Dnieper (Kherson)
#Ukraine
️
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Perhaps 10s of 1000s of Ukrainian women have lost their partners since Russia invaded. They’ve become sole providers, the lone heads of traumatised households - here are some of their stories, unsung tales of courage & resilience: me for
@ForeignPolicy
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My story for
@Telegraph
on the Russian strike on Kyiv’s Okhmadyt children’s hospital.
It cannot be stressed enough what a tragedy this is.
These people already had a very difficult life, children sick with cancer and other life-inhibiting conditions.
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A Ukrainian soldier cries as he sees his wife and children for the first time in weeks after they make it out of Russian occupied Berdiansk to Zaporizhzhia.
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👏 Ukraine’s president Zelensky is awarding the title of Hero City to besieged/heavily bombarded Mariupol, Volnovakha, Kharkiv, Gostomel, Chernihiv and Kherson, as well as other honours to regional heads and mayors.
Video sent to me by a family who fled Volnovakha.
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It’s not all war and sadness in Ukraine - this man just stopped a street dance show in Kyiv to propose to his girlfriend in front of several hundred people. The devastating news cycle makes the happy times seem so much more precious.
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The tied hands of what is thought to be a Ukrainian soldier - a heartbreaking clue to his death and what he must have endured in his final hours.
His body was found in a mass grave for 17 people among a temporary burial site in Kharkiv’s
#Izium
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@caitlinmoran
I’m a British journalist reporting from Ukraine, witnessing terrified people abandon everything they have to seek safety after days trapped in bunkers with no electricity or food - it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s utterly shameful.
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Vitali’s friend told me he was the most positive man he knew.
Even after he lost his legs, he said “life will be easier because my feet won’t get cold in winter and I don’t need to cut my nails anymore.” RIP
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Ukriane troops in Mariupol went to a school that was destroyed by Russian attacks. A soldier named Dima found a piano.
The key port city is being stormed from all directions and now has little electricity or heating. Nearby cities are thought to already be under occupation.
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I can’t believe I am writing this but I have won TWO Freelance Journalism Awards for my work in Ukraine - Best Print Journalist and Best Specialist Journalist.
I am so proud, and it’s wonderful to read these nice words about my work. Thank you so much
@freelancingfor
.
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🚨 A convoy of buses carrying evacuees from Mariupol (collected from Berdiansk) and occupied Melitopol has just arrived in Zaporizhzhia, fronted by ambulances police say are carrying injured people.
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Power cuts are such a normal part of life in Ukraine now that I just travelled almost 700km from Odesa to Dnipro, and still the lights are out.
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The centre of Mariupol, a Ukrainian city under siege for nine days. There is no heat, water, electricity or communications.
I left just as Russian troops surrounded last week - I’ve not been able to reach anyone there since Wednesday.
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A last baptism at Nagorno-Karabakh’s Dadivank monastery before the land around it ceases to be controlled by Armenians.
The church has been cleared of its relics and the priest has decided to stay, no matter the consequences.
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Russia killed our husbands. We want the right to bear their children.
My story on the battle for posthumous conception rights in Ukraine - the law is slowly changing to allow women to conceive using the frozen sperm of fallen soldiers. For
@thetimes
.
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Russian soldiers carved swastikas into the foreheads of Ukrainian captives - a war crime. “I am cutting deep so your children know you’re fascist,” they said. “So it’s visible on your bones.”
My story on the scars of war & the people trying to treat them:
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At just 19, Arman Salmanyan’s entire body is bandaged & after 2 months treatment he’s not getting any better – this is the effect of incendiary weapon white phosphorus.
Me for
@Independent
from the Yerevan burns unit treating Nagorno-Karabakh’s soldiers
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I just found out an Azov fighter inside Mariupol’s Azovstal, who I’d been speaking with, died two days ago.
Vitali lost both legs in an explosion in Donbas in 2019, but carried on fighting. He lead a sniper unit, which evolved to destroying Russian tanks - he said they got 10.
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Pictures shared on a Mariupol Facebook group claim to show DPR clearing the ruins of Mariupol’s drama theatre, where hundreds were killed by Russian bombs.
Advisor to the mayor claims bodies are taken to Manhush and dumped in a trench.
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🆕 Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia is bringing in a full weekend curfew starting from 4pm today until Monday after nine people were killed and 17 wounded by shelling on the outskirts, according to the mayor.
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I visited Ukraine’s bomb-shattered Kharkiv.
Thousands, unable to find a safe passage out, are sleeping in the metro. Many more are surviving in squalid shelters. People showed me videos of the mangled bodies of those who dashed out to get supplies.
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Life is not easy for those left in Nagorno-Karabakh. For the last few days there’ve been no phones, internet, hot water, and little food other than bread or instant noodles. Nothing is open and it’s very cold.
But things are improving and the displaced are beginning to return.
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Armenian Yuri Asryan, 82, lived alone on a small farm in southern Nagorno-Karabakh before he was taken prisoner by Azerbaijani forces.
He was beheaded on video, and it is one of 22 verified clips that show possible war crimes from both sides.
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This morning we were at an evacuation point in Kherson as rescuers brought in elderly & disabled people (and pets) who’d been stranded by the flood.
Just now the Russians targeted it with rockets.
Left 📷 is a still from a video I took this morning, right is from Telegram.
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I bumped into Lucky at a Kyiv protest. I told his incredible story last year - at just 21, he survived the sieges of Mariupol & Azovstal, Russian captivity, & Bakhmut. He lost most of his friends.
Today be told me he also survived a month in Avdiivka.
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@IAPonomarenko
The UN and everyone else are calling for recognition of a humanitarian catastrophe, not support for Hamas. It is possible to be on the side of human beings - to condemn Hamas and the siege of millions of civilians.
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So proud of this story - almost a year of work.
Originally from Georgia, the Meskhetian Turks were deported by the Soviets and divided arbitrarily between Russia & Ukraine.
Now they’re fighting their own families in the biggest war in Europe since WW2.
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The latest from the mass burial site from police in
#Izium
today: around 160 civilian bodies have been exhumed so far from the 440 or so graves, and among them investigators have found 10 cases of torture.
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Twins Veronika and Darina, 13, from Mariupol arrived on Ukrainian-controlled territory this morning carrying their cats in their arms.
It took two weeks and five failed attempts to get here - this is why the success of humanitarian corridors is so vital.
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🆕 Ukrainian Railways has managed to keep the trains running - a vital lifeline to those trying to flee violence. Last night, a train carrying refugees in Donbas (near Brusyn station) on its way to collect 100 children from Lyman was hit, killing one conductor, wounding another.
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This is a video I took of Mariupol’s skyline from a repurposed water tower in the city’s south in mid-February. 1/2
#Ukraine
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A lot discussed in recent days about soldiers & foreign weapons on Ukraine’s Donbas front, but life for civilians trapped there has been less talked about.
I visited the city of Vuhledar recently, close to the line of contact with Russian occupied territory. A thread 🧵
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🆕 Mariupol’s emergency services HQ destroyed by Russia, says Ukrainian social media. Second big attack disabling critical infrastructure in two days if true.
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Ukrainian villagers on the road yesterday taking down road signs so Russian tanks don’t know for sure where they are or where they’re going.
#Ukraine
📸
@emre_caylak_
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💥It’s almost one hour later and the explosions are still ongoing. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has called the attack “massive”, smoke rising in the air.
💥Multiple explosions hit Kyiv again, a city already weary from an overnight barrage last night and one in the middle of the day. This time it seems to be drones being targeted by air defence.
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💥Turkey has unbelievably just suffered another strong earthquake, of 6.4. It’s 2 weeks since 10 cities in the south were completely devastated. The epicentre was Hatay, according to
@AFADBaskanlik
.
Friends in Adana say buildings are collapsing again.
#deprem
#turkeyearthquake
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“Lie down on the floor or we will start throwing grenades at you,” staff at Mariupol’s main intensive care hospital heard while sheltering in a basement.
After that, they were working for Russians. Mindblowing account told to me for
@guardian
🧵
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🆕 Russia have mobilised a large number of troops from villages and towns near Kyiv to attempt to occupy the capital, according to Ukrainian media.
A key battle in the Russia-Ukraine war is expected to take place in the coming days.
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Having a cheap-to-produce, easy-to-click-on opinion has become king. Newspapers are filled with it. Social media rewards it over fact sharing. But this is costly to social cohesion - would be great to see the British media take responsibility for itself and its priorities.
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Incredible rainbow over Ukraine’s Kyiv this afternoon. Every single colour popping.
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One of the tragic ironies of the Ukraine war that I learned recently:
Bakhmut used to be a centre for gypsum mines.
Prosthetics clinics use gypsum to cast sockets for new limbs.
The majority of patients clinics help now lost their limbs fighting for Bakhmut.
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The skies over Kyiv right now. Lots of bangs after the sound of drones.
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Rescue operations, including canine units, are still underway in
#Dnipro
after yesterday’s attack. The death toll has risen to 21.
Around 40 people are still missing, and some at the scene say voices can still be heard calling out. This woman was pulled out alive this morning.
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