The Ritual and the Desert
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Blahodatne – As in Hitler’s bunker, the ritual of the Russian imperial liturgy will outlast reality for a little longer: then reality will come knocking again, and it will do so ever closer.
While we were filming the clip below, a “SuperCam” reconnaissance drone started operating between this location and the nearby villages of Muzykivka and Bohdanivka, after other Russian multirotors had dropped flyers shaped like 200 hryvnia bills, which invited people to scan a QR code to receive real money in exchange for useful information on how to break through Ukrainian defensive barriers. Other flyers also displayed the hammer and sickle symbol and messages of brotherhood among peoples, which the so-called “Victory Day” would commemorate on May 9th: «Our grandfathers fought together in the trenches». «History has separated us, but victory will unite us». «Who is the real Zelensky and why should we be proud of him?», to name just a few.
Shortly thereafter, the Russian occupiers launched a brutal attack with FPV drones, which swarmed this and other villages like Darivka, targeting anyone within visual range of the remote killers hired by the Moscow regime who were piloting them. That strike was followed by a second, launched shortly after from the opposite bank of the Dnipro with multiple rocket launchers against the communities of Tiahynka and Beryslav. Then “KAB” glide bombs rained down on the Korabel neighborhood, and at least five “Shahed/Gerbera/Geran’” flew toward the center of Kherson and its districts of Shumen and Tavria, then toward Mykolaiv, passing through Kyselivka and Posad-Pokrovske. An FPV drone in idle mode – effectively an ‘active mine’ capable of attaching itself to its victim as it passes – got stuck on the road right at the entrance to nearby Shevchenkove, in the Beryslav district. Using other quadcopters, Russian drone operators scattered the Ostrovsky Highway and the area around the bridge over the Kosheva River with “Pryanik” (or “Plushka”) anti-personnel mines, while using high-explosive UAVs they then targeted other bridges and civilian rail convoys to and from the center of Kherson. Two warships have moved from the Kinburn Peninsula toward Oleksandrivka and, as of the time of this report, are ready to launch. More “Shahed/Geran’” UAVs have just taken off from Hvardiyske Airport – illegally occupied by Russian forces in Crimea – against our positions.
This is the truce that, according to Vladimir Putin, Ukraine should accept without question so that the May 9th parade can take place in Moscow in an atmosphere already grotesque due to Russia’s bitter defeats.
No armored vehicles will parade on Red Square: in Ukraine, rashist troops burned nearly 12,000 tanks, 25,000 troop transport vehicles, 42,000 mobile artillery systems, 1.4,000 air defense systems, 1.8,000 MLRS, nearly a thousand planes and helicopters, as well as 33 ships, 2 submarines, over 4,000 pieces of special equipment, and more than 1.3 million men.
Those veterans, whose chests Putin will adorn with a Z made of St. George’s ribbon, will evoke images of the boys of the Hitler Youth decorated in the Führer’s garden during his final propaganda ritual, when the Reich had already suffered military defeat.
The flyers shaped like banknotes that rained down on us point to the same logical conclusion: a regime at the end of its rope trying to gather intelligence cheaply, watching from above and then venting its blind rage against a people it failed to subjugate.
The Russian May 9th celebration no longer aims to commemorate the victory over Nazism but to hijack it, even manipulating nostalgia.
In 1945, even Nazism displayed decorations, symbols, and young men in uniform, while its strategic space had already collapsed. Eighty-one years later, the Kremlin is demanding a truce to preserve the spectacle of May 9th, even as the war it started has drained that celebration of its original meaning.
Two hundred hryvnias is a modest, easily spent denomination – like the young men Moscow sends to their deaths today, just to prolong its own suffering.
The parade Putin envisions, filled with military music, is the stage of a power that no longer controls the reality it claims to represent because war – his war – is so embedded in the ceremony that it distorts its meaning, exposes its fear, and destroys its myth.
It is the empire that celebrates its walls even as the desert has entered the fortress. It is the Masque of the Red Death: the plague entering a prince’s hall, hosting a feast to keep it at bay.
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仪式与荒漠
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道
布拉霍达特内 —— 就像希特勒地堡里的情景一样，俄罗斯帝国礼仪的仪式会比现实多苟延残喘片刻：然后现实会再次来敲门，而且会越来越近。
当我们拍摄下方视频时，一架“超级摄像”侦察无人机开始在此地与附近的穆齐基夫卡和博赫达尼夫卡村庄之间活动，此前其他俄罗斯多旋翼无人机散发了形似200格里夫纳纸币的传单，邀请人们扫描二维码以换取现金，条件是提供有关如何突破乌克兰防御工事的有用情报。其他传单还印有镰刀与铁锤的标志以及“民族之间的兄弟情”之类的信息，宣称所谓的“胜利日”将在5月9日纪念：“我们的祖父曾在战壕里并肩作战”。“历史把我们分开，但胜利会把我们团结起来”。“谁才是真正的泽连斯基，我们为什么要为他自豪？”诸如此类。
（视频：Alla和我在乌克兰布拉霍达特内录制了这些影像 ——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
（图：类似本文提到的那种传单）
不久之后，俄占者发起了一次残酷的FPV无人机袭击，这类无人机如蜂群般掠过包括达里夫卡在内的村庄，针对任何进入被莫斯科政权雇用的远程操控者视野范围内的人实施打击。随后不久，从第聂伯河对岸又发动了第二次打击，使用多管火箭向蒂亚金卡和别里斯拉夫社区发射。随后“KAB”滑翔炸弹倾泻在科拉贝尔街区，至少有五枚“沙赫德/格尔贝拉/格兰”向赫尔松市中心及其舒门区和塔夫里亚区飞去，随后飞向尼古拉耶夫，经过基塞利夫卡和波萨德—波克罗夫斯克。一架处于待命模式的FPV无人机——实质上是一枚能够在飞过时粘附受害者的“主动地雷”——在通往附近舍甫琴科沃别里斯拉夫区入口的道路上卡住了。俄方操作者又用其他四旋翼无人机在奥斯特罗夫斯基公路及科舍瓦河桥周边散布了“Pryanik”（或称“Plushka”）反人员地雷，同时俄军用高爆型UAV袭击了通往赫尔松市中心的其他桥梁和民用铁路车队。两艘军舰已从金本角半岛向奧列克桑德里夫卡移动，截至本报道发出时，已做好发射准备。更多“沙赫德/格兰”无人机刚从被俄军非法占领的克里米亚赫瓦尔迪伊斯克机场起飞，正飞向我们的阵地。
这是普京所说的停火，乌克兰应当无条件接受，以便5月9日在莫斯科举行的阅兵能够在一种由于俄罗斯惨败而显得荒诞的氛围中进行。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰赫尔松被俄联邦摧毁的加油站前报道 ——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
红场上不会有装甲车游行：在乌克兰，“侵略者”军队几乎损失了1.2万辆坦克、2.5万辆装甲运输车、4.2万辆机动炮兵系统、1.4万套防空系统、1.8万套多管火箭系统、近千架飞机和直升机，以及33艘军舰、2艘潜艇、超过4,000件特种装备和逾130万名人员。
那些普京将授予用圣乔治丝带拼成“Z”标装饰胸章的老兵，会令人想起希特勒最后宣传仪式中元首花园中希特勒青年团少年的记忆，那时帝国已然遭受军事失败。
那雨点般落下、形如纸币的传单指向同一逻辑结论：一个走到尽头的政权，试图用廉价手段收集情报，从上方窥视，然后将盲目的愤怒发泄到它未能征服的人民身上。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰赫尔松布拉霍达特内废墟中并行 ——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
俄罗斯的5月9日庆典不再旨在纪念战胜纳粹，而是在劫持那段历史，甚至操纵怀旧情绪。
1945年，即便纳粹还在展示徽章、标志和着制服的青年，其战略空间也已崩溃。八十一年后，克里姆林宫要求停火以保全5月9日的表演，即便这场它发动的战争已耗尽了该庆典的本意。
两百格里夫纳是一种面额不大、易于花掉的纸币——就像莫斯科今天派去送死的青年，只为延续其自身的苦难。
普京所设想的阅兵，充满军事音乐，是一个已无法掌控其所声称代表的现实的权力舞台，因为战争，普京的战争，已深嵌于仪式之中，扭曲了它的意义，暴露了它的恐惧，摧毁了它的神话。
那是一个在庆祝城墙的帝国，而荒漠已进入了堡垒。那是“红死病的假面舞会”的现实写照：瘟疫闯入王子的大厅，而王子却在举办盛宴以图驱逐它。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰赫尔松布拉霍达特内为本文报道——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
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