The Putin sponsored war against Ukraine goes on uninterrupted, while the OSCE cease-fire observers - nicknamed the "deaf, dumb and blind" by locals - limit their weak presence to banking hours:
AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As the afternoon shadows grow long, nocturnal creatures begin to stir. A stray cat rises from a nap, stretches and trots off to hunt. Overhead, swallows swoop and screech in the deepening twilight.
Soon, the human inhabitants of this town in eastern Ukraine set about their evening rituals.
Green-clad soldiers strap on their helmets and load their guns, while white-clad European cease-fire observers pocket their notebooks, climb into their cars and drive away. And then the fighting starts.
This improbable routine between soldiers and monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plays out nightly, illustrating the glum quagmire of the Ukraine war, now entering its third year.
“I never see them here at night,” said Tatyana Petrova, whose apartment looks over a parking lot that is a frequent listening post for the monitors. “In the evening, I look out and they are gone, and then the concert starts.”
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“We call them deaf, dumb and blind,” said the Ukrainian military nurse who ordered the observers out of her field hospital. She offered only her nickname, Romashka, a typical practice for soldiers here. “They know nothing. They see nothing. They are too soft.”
“We call them deaf, dumb and blind,” said the Ukrainian military nurse who ordered the observers out of her field hospital. She offered only her nickname, Romashka, a typical practice for soldiers here. “They know nothing. They see nothing. They are too soft.”
On a recent afternoon in Avdiivka, whose prewar population of 35,000 people has decreased by about half, monitors wrapped up at the close of business at 5 p.m., as usual. By and large confined to their hotels after dark, monitors say they pass the time watching television, surfing the internet or chatting with colleagues. They can listen for violations from inside the hotels.
The Russians even have forbidden the "deaf, dumb and blind" to use binoculars! :
Emblematic of the group’s weak hand, one key mission of observers stationed at two crossing posts on the Russian-Ukrainian border has conceded to Russian pressure not to use binoculars, lest the observers observe too much.
Read the entire New York Times article here.
Emblematic of the group’s weak hand, one key mission of observers stationed at two crossing posts on the Russian-Ukrainian border has conceded to Russian pressure not to use binoculars, lest the observers observe too much.
Read the entire New York Times article here.
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