<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/19/ukrainian-farmers-improvise-to-clear-their-land-of-mines>
"In the weeks during which Russian troops occupied the Husarivka dairy farm,
almost all of its 2,500 cattle were killed in artillery fire or for target
practice. When the farm was liberated, the carcasses covered the land as far as
you could see.
Those that were not blown up or gunned down starved. They were so hungry, they
ate each other’s tails. The survivors standing at the trough in one of the
farm’s wrecked sheds have stubs where their tails once were.
“The cows are terrified after what they went through,” said Serhii Vorobyov,
the farm’s deputy manager. “They are just like soldiers who’ve been on the
frontline. They are scared if you just go near them.”
The surviving farm workers in this village near Balakliia, in Kharkiv oblast,
are every bit as damaged. When the Russians – a motorised rifle regiment all
the way from Kaliningrad and another from just across the border in Valuiki –
first took over the farm on 3 March last year, relations between occupiers and
occupied were initially terse but civil. All that changed after the Russians
took heavy losses in an engagement with Ukrainian forces.
“They looked like the same people but they behaved totally differently. You can
see madness in their eyes,” said Yurii Vovchenko, the farm manager. “They were
shooting at people on the streets, yelling and screaming, so people were scared
and stayed at home after that.”
The Russian soldiers, most of them teenagers, invited some of the farm workers
to milk the cows, and six of the labourers never returned. Their remains have
not yet been found."
Via Doug Senko, who wrote "Great story on the ever resourceful Ukrainian
farmers."
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
