#libkos

On 25 October, Russia attacked Kyiv with drones. As a result of the attack, a residential building was damaged and a fire broke out in one of the apartments. The living area from the 17th to the 21st floor was affected. 5 people were injured. A girl born in 2009 was killed. Every night, Russia launches attack drones to destroy Ukrainian cities and kills civilian people. #LetUkraineStrikeBack to stop this terror. —Ukraine.ua

One of the Ukrainian photographers I’ve been following, who goes by Libkos on Instagram (he encourages free sharing of his work). He has a great eye.

Translation of the captions on the last two:

And it united us all. The one general and right thing: stand up for yourself. And each of us does something to contribute. And each of us has our own weapons.

. . . . . .

—Kostia Liberov, Ukrainian war photographer

Remnants of Kharkiv's Soniachnyi Stadium stands will be showcased at the Paris Olympics. The stadium is one of more than 500 sports facilities destroyed by Russia's war and aggression. This count of destroyed sports facilities includes 15 Olympic training bases.

Promoted by former professional football player and manager Andrii Shevchenko, the exhibit will be there to remind visitors of the toll and impact Russia's war, brutality, and aggression has on sports and life in Ukraine.

Previoiusly, this exhibit was showcased at Euro 2024.

Photo credit: libkos; UAF

Libkos does on the ground reporting and photography in the Ukrainian city of Toretsk. Their brief descriptions are intense. Accompanied with their photos, it shows the state of the city and that conditions of the war there have outgrown the word hell.

I wish them and their colleagues safety.

Below you will find his tweet thread.

We are entering the city in two separate groups. I am with the military, and Vlada is with the legendary Ukrainian volunteer Denis Khrystov we have long wanted to meet, and his team.

The city greets us with smog, making it hard to breathe. Toretsk is burning, every part of it. The city is scorched in entire blocks, and entering and moving around is a gamble because the artillery doesn’t cease, and KABs (guided bombs) hit the city almost every hour.

As we enter Toretsk, I see smoke rising from two such bombs. At that time, I don’t yet know that they fell just 150 meters from Vlada and Denis, who are gathering people and animals for evacuation.

Many people want to leave, but there are also those who are afraid to go because they are disillusioned (the majority), as well as those who are obviously "waiting."

Both groups stay in the basements, as it is dangerous to come out, and besides, they have nowhere to go — their apartments and houses have long been destroyed by Russian artillery.

Now a bit about logistics and moving around the city. All the main streets of Toretsk are nearly 24/7 controlled by enemy FPV drones, creating so-called "roads of death,"

full of burned-out cars. Meanwhile, the parallel alleys and alternative routes through the yards are so destroyed by artillery that fallen trees and debris also almost make passage impossible.

So you either risk losing a wheel by hitting a nail or shrapnel, or you must travel on the main arteries and hope that the electronic warfare (EW) will work.

Denis’s EW worked. It saved the life of the driver waiting for Denis and Vlada in the white evacuation van, but it could have cost Vlada dearly, who was just a meter from the impact and miraculously managed to run into a concrete bunker during the deadly dive.

Toretsk has blackened and smells of death. Dead birds and animal remains are scattered along the deserted streets. According to Uncle Vitya, a local whom Denis’s group evacuated along with five parrots, two cats, and a shepherd dog named Bada

locals who die from the shelling are buried in their own yards, if they can be buried at all.

Our military holds the city, but it takes tremendous effort. In Ukraine, the word “hell” has long lost its sacred meaning: mythical hell is not frightening when you have seen the real one with your own eyes so many times.