Beyond the Line: Russia’s War on Life in Novohryhorivka
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Novohryhorivka, Mykolaiv – Along the dirt road connecting the settlement we write from to others that wind along the administrative border between Mykolaiv and Kherson oblasts, around this time in 2022, lay the line of contact between Russian troops advancing from Crimea toward Odesa and the Ukrainian troops defending.
Returning today to the places where the Russian occupiers were stopped feels like history only to a certain extent, because it is still here, along these rough paths, that opposing forces face off.
The intensity of the clash has changed because, once, artillery tore holes in building facades and the ground; now, drones have elevated terror to a new level. Throughout the entire time we were filming, we had to pay close attention to the sky and the ground, as Russian drones fly their deadly patterns targeting both civilians and military personnel, and dropping even more mines on top of those already there for four years.
Juggling improbable gymkhanas, tractor, and even truck drivers feverishly scan the sky and ground to transport food, basic necessities, and seeds so that the fields made impassable by the russkij mir can sprout life again.
The Russian army continues to mercilessly target any form of life with various weapons systems that have turned these places into a kill zone for four years.
Carcasses of destroyed cars, animals torn to pieces by direct hits and shrapnel, farmhouses, and farm vehicles gutted. The Russian remote killers – calling them soldiers would be tantamount to an unearned investiture – have demolished everything. Even those Soviet-era monuments that the regime recruiting them pretends to ideologically restore back home.
A sea of red and white sticks planted in the ground warns of the presence of mines. There are so many that it makes one think of the sunflowers that would have bloomed in those same fields this month.
Even here in Novohryhorivka – and further southeast, up to the Dnipro – the front no longer follows a clear line but has become a widespread death zone where even basic activities like driving a tractor, transporting seeds, or traveling along a road are acts exposed to constant threats from technology.
We have shifted from clashes between artillery lines to relentless persecution of living space through drones, mines, and territory saturation.
Our presence in these areas, which are incompatible with life, challenges a common misconception: that when no major advances are visible, the war is over.
The images we’ve shared on “La Ragione’s” YouTube channel reveal the opposite: war can remain nearly static on a map, yet worsen at the experiential, civic, and anthropological levels. So much so that it’s no longer just soldiers who need to move tactically, but everyone who, fighting to survive, is forced to change their behavior, constantly on alert.
We’ve filmed graves and monuments dedicated to the heroes of the Second World War, now shattered into a thousand pieces. The rashist regime’s imperial rhetoric calls it the «Great Patriotic War» – invoking a symbolic meaning and legitimizing continuity with the Soviet past – but on the ground, its violence is so nihilistic that it devastates even its own relics.
It uses memory as a tool of domination, yet in practice, it destroys everything. Even those it claims to venerate.
Even the agricultural cycle ends in a parody of nature. Life, death, seasons, memory, occupation, and liberation. Everything today is condensed into the metaphysics of a violated landscape where there should be sunflowers – that is, energy, rebirth, summer, harvest, and continuity – but instead there are signs of death, mutilation, and danger.
Finding ourselves here, between life trying to regrow and the technology of death that continues its pursuit, makes us witnesses to a form of violence that produces colonization through fear, even without formal occupation.
By observing ourselves, we realize that it’s no longer sufficient to ask where the frontline is, but rather where the ability to deny life extends.
We are doing our best to provide genuine, first-hand reports from zones where almost no press dares to go. This means living constantly in a kill zone. We take the risk, but without your invaluable support, our voices would remain unheard and silent. Without brave people sharing our articles from afar, they would remain unread. Our reports would go unseen, and our efforts would be lost. There’s still a lot of work to do here, as the people around us are also in no better situation.
We’re renewing our fundraising campaign and thanking everyone who joins us in helping to restore what Russia is destroying. Moving forward with only a small reimbursement for each article from a brave newspaper that believes in us is extremely challenging. That’s why we are grateful to all the kind people who support us and trust in our mission.
Even a small donation helps.
We’ll keep you updated on developments.
Thank you all, dear friends
超越界线：俄罗斯在诺沃赫里霍里夫卡对生命的战争
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道
诺沃赫里霍里夫卡，尼古拉耶夫州——连接我们所在聚居点与其他村落的土路，沿尼古拉耶夫州与赫尔松州行政边界蜿蜒，2022年此时，这里曾是从克里米亚向敖德萨推进的俄军与防守的乌军之间的接触线。
（图：我与Alla在赫尔松诺沃赫里霍里夫卡附近、被重新收复的乌克兰聚居点废墟中报道——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
今日重返当年阻止俄军的那些地方，虽似历史，却又依然现实，因为对抗仍然就在这些崎岖小路上持续。
冲突的强度发生了变化：过去是炮火撕裂建筑立面与土地；如今，无人机把恐怖提升到了一个新层次。在整个拍摄过程中，我们不得不对天空和地面都高度警惕，俄制无人机在头顶盘旋，瞄准平民与军人，并在四年来已布满的地雷上再投下更多爆炸物。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰诺沃赫里霍里夫卡录制的影像——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在这种不可能的障碍赛中，拖拉机和卡车司机拼命扫视天际与地面，运输食物、日用品和种子，试图让被“俄罗斯世界”变成死地的田地再度发芽。
四年来，俄军继续用各类武器系统无情地袭击一切生命，使这些地方在变成了“杀戮区”。
被摧毁的汽车残骸、被直接命中或弹片撕裂的动物、被掏空的农舍与农用车辆——这些俄罗斯远程杀手——称之为士兵无异于对“士兵”一词的谬用——已毁灭一切，甚至包括那些苏联时代纪念碑——俄政权用来伪装为“意识形态性复兴”的象征。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰尼古拉耶夫与赫尔松交界的一处雷区报道——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
遍地插着的红白标杆警示着地雷的存在。数量之多让人联想到本月本应在那些田野里盛开的向日葵。
即便在诺沃赫里霍里夫卡，以及更向东南直到第聂伯河的区域，前线已不再是一条清晰的线，而是一片更广泛的死亡地带，连耕田、运种子或在路上行驶这些基本活动，都暴露在技术化杀戮的持续威胁之下。
我们已从炮火对射，转向通过无人机、地雷和区域饱和式攻击所构成的对生活空间的无休止迫害。
我们在这些不适合生命生存的区域出现，挑战了一种常见的误解：即当地图上看不到大规模推进时，战争就结束了。
（图：Alla与我在赫尔松一处乌克兰士兵为保家卫国而牺牲的检查点报道——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
我们在《La Ragione》YouTube频道上分享的影像显示相反的事实：战争在地图上或许近乎静止，但在人们的体验、社会结构和人性层面却在恶化。以至于不再只是士兵需要做战术移动，而是所有为生存而战的人都被迫改变行为，时刻保持警惕。
我们拍到的还有被炸成碎片的二战英雄墓碑与纪念碑。沙文主义政权的帝国叙事称其为“伟大的卫国战争”——借此赋予象征意义并塑造与苏联过往的连续性——但在现实中，其暴力如此虚无，以至于连它声称尊崇的遗迹也被摧毁。
它把记忆作为统治的工具，然而在实际行动中却毁灭一切，甚至包括那些它自称崇敬的东西。
（图：我身后是位于乌克兰赫尔松被俄军摧毁的苏联时代纪念碑遗迹 ——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
连农业周期也滑入了对自然的讽刺。生命、死亡、季节、记忆、占领与解放——如今一切被压缩进一个被亵渎的景观形而上学：本该是向日葵的地方——象征能量、重生、夏天、收获与延续——却只留下死亡、残缺与危险的迹象。
置身于试图重生的生命与持续追猎的死亡技术之间，我们成为一种暴力的见证者，这种暴力无需形式上的占领，就可通过恐惧实施殖民。
观察自身处境时，我们意识到问题已不再是前线在哪里，而是剥夺生命能力的边界延伸到了何处。
（图：我在乌克兰诺沃赫里霍里夫卡为本文现场报道——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
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