Sometimes a picture grabs your attention, instantly sums up an event with absolute clarity.
This is such a picture.
Through a shrapnel hole in a window, we gaze upon the shattered remains of Ukraine’s Donetsk city airport in eastern Ukraine. Peering through this same window in early 2014, we’d have seen a totally rebuilt international airport; one which brought people, trade and large numbers of local jobs to the Donetsk region.
The picture gives us a sense of the prolonged deluge of Russian artillery fire which rained down upon it. Month after month, shells punctured the concrete walls and the entire structure became riddled with shrapnel. In 2014 and early 2015, Russia’s forces turned this International airport into nothing more than a ghostly ruin. Stained with the blood of the valiant Ukrainian soldiers who defended it, in 2020 it remains a ruin. Now, the only ones working there are rats.
