As of this recording, the most intense areas of conflict in the Russo-Ukrainian war are the cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka,
and Marinka. Bakhmut has been all over the Russian media for many weeks.
Avdiivka is mentioned less often. Marinka only occasionally makes the headlines.
This week, however, a piece from state-run news agency RIA about Marinka unexpectedly
made the top-5 news on Yandex’s main page: “Ukrainian military in Marinka frightened, Russian fighter says.”
Today, we’ll have a more in-depth discussion of Marinka.
THE MYTH OF EIGHT YEARS
Marinka is located in the Pokrovsk district of the Donetsk Region of Ukraine.
Before the full-scale invasion began, it was home to nearly 10,000 people.
The city’s geographical and spiritual heart was the Youth Art Center, nestled between two streets:
one bearing the name of composer Sergei Prokofiev and the other of writer Taras Shevchenko.
Prokofiev Street also housed a music school. Shevchenko Street had the local cultural center.
Concerts, exhibitions, sporting events, art classes for children and adults, extracurricular activities in schools.
New Year and May 9 celebrations in Victoria, the city’s youth club.
This was the social life and media coverage of Marinka for many years before February 2022.
Unfortunately, cultural events made up only half of the newsfeed in Marinka.
Every other piece reported the city being shelled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
Artillery, mortars, grenade launchers, sometimes even rifles were used — that’s how close the line of contact was.
A rifle bullet can kill a person from a distance of several miles.
Of course, it won’t hit a particular target, but it’s bound to reach something in town.
As Feb. 24, 2022 came closer, the shelling became more frequent, with more Marinka residents getting hit.
Russian state-run TV never reported this.
After all, according to the official myth, Ukrainian killing squads were the only ones indiscriminately shelling
the rebellious Donetsk to exact their revenge on the freedom-loving people of the Donbas.
But where was Russian state-run TV crews during those 8 years when the DPR forces were shelling
those same people of the Donbas in Avdiivka, Krasnohorivka, Marinka, and other towns on the DPR border?
What had the pro-war reporters been doing for 8 years? Constructing a myth.
On one side stand the warriors of light, defenders of Russians. On the other side are Nazis who shoot at Russians.
Just like that, for no reason. And always unilaterally.
It made no sense for propagandists to report the artillery fights between Ukraine and the DPR instead of telling tales
of unprovoked shelling of the freedom-loving “people’s republic.”
It would’ve given rise to simple but very troublesome questions. Who was the first? Who provoked this or that artillery duel?
Even worse, if for 8 years, Russian viewers had seen the shells flying in both directions,
it would’ve begged the following sensible questions.
“Isn’t it time to lay off these strange projects, the DPR and LPR? Maybe we should disarm the “people’s militias”
instead of arming them?
Whichever side a shell lands on — the people of the Donbas will suffer.
Why not give the Ukrainian regions back to Ukraine in full then?
Even if Ukraine is the baddie, at least within one state nobody will be shooting at each other.”
But we digress. Back to Marinka. Let’s watch a local news story from Sep. 1, 2015.
This year, local authorities initially planned to open only one school due to regular shelling,
but later decided that both schools must open to make it easier for students to get to school.
Windows in School No. 2 were partly damaged during fighting this June.
The school administration assures that, should the situation on the frontlines escalate,
the teachers and students will be able to hide in the basement which is to be furnished with cots.
Let me remind you that Marinka was under the control of the official Ukrainian authorities.
It was inhabited by the same people as Donetsk.
But this didn’t bother the self-styled “defenders of Donetsk” who were shelling Marinka.
This year, a teacher and a 9-year-old schoolboy died when the school was shelled.
We lost one child this year, 9-year-old Konstantin Krishtopa. It was a bitter loss.
Our P. E. teacher, Nikolai Kravchenko, was also killed. We’ve felt the pain and the loss like nobody else.
What matters is for everyone to be alive and well, for the sun to shine.
Today, students, parents, and teachers hope that the new school year will be like its opening day, quiet and peaceful.
In the interview, Lyudmila Panchenko, principal of School No. 2, mentions 9-year-old Konstantin Krishtopa,
who was killed in the shelling of Marinka. His last name isn’t very common, so it’s easy to look up online.
For example, here’s a Twitter post from an account with a portrait of Putin as their main picture and the caption
“Proud of my president.”
They write: “On Jan. 22, 2015, Konstantin Krishtopa, a student of Marinka School No.2,
was killed as a result of a direct hit on his house.”
The author discreetly fails to mention the perpetrators.
Who shelled the town, which at the time was under the control of the Ukrainian military?
Here’s another post — from the VK group called Angels of Donbass (spelled in Russian).
“Konstantin Krishtopa was killed during shelling. His older brother Dmitri (born 2001) was wounded.”
Again, we aren’t told who shot at who.
Finally, we arrive at the Alley of Angels website.
The “Alley of Angels” is a memorial site in Donetsk as well as an online project of the DPR dedicated
to children killed in Donbas.
Many children have died in the Donetsk Region as a result of the hostilities that unfolded in 2014.
They would’ve been alive if Russia hadn’t meddled in Ukrainian affairs.
Had there been no external military intervention, the domestic civil conflict in Ukraine wouldn’t have escalated.
It would’ve gradually subsided and moved into the political mainstream, as it happened, for example, in Kharkiv,
where Russia failed to create a “Kharkiv People’s Republic”. All these “Alleys of Angels” could’ve been avoided.
However, the “Alley of Angels” is the pro-war camp’s main holy shrine.
And one of their top justifications for the invasion of Ukraine.
There’s a page about Konstantin Krishtopa on their website.
It reads: “9 y.o. Konstantin Krishtopa died in Ukrainian nationalist-occupied Marinka on Jan. 22, 2015,
when a shell hit a residential block. His grandmother Svetlana and older brother Dmitri suffered shrapnel wounds”.
According to the project creators, "he was killed in Marinka occupied by Ukrainian nationalists
as the shell hit the residence."
We won’t quibble over the word “occupied”.
From the DPR’s point of view, it’s not them who’ve occupied Donetsk and its suburbs,
but Ukraine that has occupied the rest of the Donetsk Region.
That much is clear. But here’s what’s unclear: if Marinka was “occupied” by Ukrainian troops all this time,
then who launched the shells that killed Konstantin? And all the other ones?
Here’s a local TV bit from November 2017.
We’re very scared after it all happened.
The family of Natalia Krishtopa from Marinka has failed to escape the combat area and lives almost on the frontlines.
Every day, they hide in the basement, find bullets outside their house, and live in fear that death might come at any moment.
There’s bullets and shrapnel all over the place.
Yes, this is the family of Konstantin Krishtopa.
It’s been over 2 years since his death, yet his mother and brother still have to go down to the basement regularly
to hide from shells and bullets.
But why? Marinka is under the control of the Kyiv government, not of the DPR. So who’s shooting at it?
During shelling one day, when the whole family was at home, the worst happened.
It happened on Jan. 22, 2015, at 1:30PM. We’d had no electricity for three days.
That day, Marinka was being shelled again since morning.
We first went down to the basement, then returned into the house because everything was quiet.
We were at home: me, Dima, Kostya, Natasha, and Volodya, the son-in-law.
Grandma and Kostya were talking. Daddy went out to handle the coals.
We were talking about making food, thumbing through a book — and it came all of a sudden.
Without any sound, three shells hit the house.
I was sitting at the table, and the shock wave threw me 10 feet bacj. I got up, couldn’t understand anything.
The story goes on to say that Konstantin’s older brother Dmitri nearly lost his left arm but was saved by Ukrainian doctors.
He then underwent a lengthy recovery at a medical center in Sloviansk,
which was under the control of the “Kyiv regime” at the time.
What does that mean? A Russian-speaking boy, a perfect fit for the definition of “our people in the Donbas”
that ostensibly need protecting, lost his brother and — almost — his arm at the hand of the very same “our people.”
And the “Kyiv regime,” the alleged oppressor of Russians, saved him from getting a disability.
And not only him, but also his grandmother, who had to have shrapnel removed in a laborious surgery.
Here’s another story from 2017. The Semenchenko family were ordinary Russian-speaking people living in Marinka,
in no way persecuted by the Kyiv authorities.
Their lives were nearly destroyed by a shell fired from the DPR.
Fortunately, nobody was killed, but a small girl and her father were seriously injured.
We’re on the demarcation line now. In Marinka, the shooting goes on day and night.
Those who live on its outskirts suffer the most.
Even being in your own yard isn’t safe. We just want for it all to stop. Frightening discoveries await at every corner.
This is probably the scariest one. It lay outside the front yard.
LEAVE RUSSIANS ALONE
We already mentioned Marinka on this channel a few months ago.
It was part of a series of videos about how Ukrainian towns in the Donbas lived before the war.
How they improved under the presidential urban development program.
How ordinary Soviet schools and cultural centers were transformed into places
where a child would want to spend half a day 5 days a week.
In our Marinka story, we tried to show the contrast between the recent peaceful life in a small cozy town
and the footage of the current war, which has razed Marinka to the ground, reducing it to a scorched wasteland.
For the sake of this contrast, we’d omitted an important detail.
The renovation of the schools and cultural centers; local festivals, social and sporting events,
Victory Day celebrations — even before Feb. 24,
all of this was constantly being interrupted by shelling from the east.
From the alleged “people’s republic” ostensibly defending Russian people in Ukraine.
Back in 2016, 6 years before the full-scale invasion, a separate organization had to be created in Marinka for the rehabilitation
of war-hit children. There wasn’t yet a real war between Russia and Ukraine. But there already were children of war.
For 8 years, a Russian-speaking city in Donbas suffered from uninvited defenders of the “Russian people.”
In 2022, the “defenders” became unwelcome “liberators.” And they wiped the city off the map.
See you tomorrow!
I want for there to be peace everywhere. I want the war to end quickly.
I want for there to never be any wars in the world. I want us to live and not to kill Marinka.