War and Spring: Donbass – Year 2023

Spring exposes, emphasizes and adds color to the battle landscape. The land of Donbass is dotted with Ukrainian tanks

Spring has begun to paint its whimsical life patterns in Donbass, filling with color the contrasts of military existence. Leaves are blossoming, and green shoots of grass are sprouting. The spoil tips of Donbass are also turning green, their gray surface is covered with spring sprouts.

Spoil tips of Donbass. On the approach to Lugansk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency
Spoil tips of Donbass. Lisichansk
Spoil tips of Donbass. Lisichansk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Somewhere staggered buildings amid the surrounding bloom look distrustfully with dark, half-glazed windows at the foam of the gardens.

View of the "Belgian building" in Lisichansk
View of the “Belgian building” in Lisichansk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Fauna wakes up – animals, birds, insects…

Angels of Spring. Swan on the “Pure Lake” in Severodonetsk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency
A little deer in the steppes of Donbass (LPR)
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency
Fauna is awakening. A dor beetle
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Spring exposes, emphasizes and adds color to the battle landscape. The land of Donbass is dotted with Ukrainian tanks

Destroyed Ukrainian tank near Severodonetsk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Through the grass, we can see the products of the winter harvest of destroyed Ukrainian equipment – these snowdrops of war.

Snowdrops of war. A muzzle of a destroyed Ukrainian artillery. LPR
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

The melted snow no longer hides the broken Ukrainian dugouts. Now their musty emptiness is exposed.

Ukrainian Nazi dugout. Spring sprouts
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

The war in Donbass is in its ninth year. The tragedy in Odessa on May 2, 2014 turned the territory of Donbass into a space of war. Russia’s special military operation has been going on for more than a year.

Shoots of war and spring. Cross at the entrance to the destroyed village of Zhelobok
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

The fire spared no one and nothing. But the burnt oaks have survived and are welcoming their spring.

Shoots of war. Burnt trees near Novotoshkovka
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Tulips are blossoming in the city’s flowerbeds.

House of Culture “Khimik” in Severodonetsk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

The iron birds continue to fly in the sky.

MI-24 over Belogorovka
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Donbass has unexpectedly become a key point of Russian existence. It holds a glorious past.

“We will not forget, we will not forgive” memorial in Lugansk
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

The memory of such a past is being strenuously restored in the present. The price of this memory is now getting higher and higher.

Preparations for the restoration of the monument in Lugansk at the “Ostry Grave”
Vyacheslav Yakovenko © Rossa Primavera News Agency

Donbass is the Russian present, and the future will depend on actions in the present. It is in Donbass that the future of Russia will be determined.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency