<
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/23/ukraine-donetsk-putin-territorial-demands>
"In a branch of the Ukrainian coffee chain Lviv Croissants in the frontline
city of Kramatorsk, there is a noticeboard where people leave coloured Post-it
notes with simple hand-drawn messages. One just says “Kramatorsk”, with red
hearts below and a yellow and blue semi-circular fan above, the colours of
Ukraine.
Among those looking at the notes is Bohdan, a 26-year-old, who has been serving
in the army for the past three years. The soldier, now in logistics, has chosen
to spend his one day off in Kramatorsk with his dog Arnold to photograph for
himself recent Russian bombing on a city where he was based for 18 months.
“I have a history with this place,” he says. “It is part of my destiny and my
puzzle.”
Kramatorsk is the core of the 30% of Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast that its military
still holds in the face of a grinding Russian advance. This week, the region
was the subject of what appears to have been a failed negotiation between
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The Russian president demanded all of Donetsk
– which together with Luhansk oblast makes up the Donbas region – as part of a
peace deal, a proposal that Trump seemed to have briefly endorsed even though
Ukraine rejected it.
Russia’s arguments change, but in Putin’s eyes, Donetsk, traditionally a
Russian-speaking industrial region in Ukraine’s east, is culturally closer to
Moscow than Kyiv. People who live there, however, have a very different view.
They show no interest in seeing the land of Donetsk given up; it is their land
after all."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
