Unsparing images of a war at the 100-day mark
How many buildings have been obliterated in Ukraine? How many limbs lost, children brutalized, refugees put to flight? How many mothers and fathers, sons and daughters killed?
- World
- Published Date: 10:36 | 02 June 2022
- Modified Date: 10:45 | 02 June 2022
How many dreams have been destroyed?
There is no accounting of a war that launched in late winter, continued through spring, reaches the 100-day mark on Friday and is likely to drag on for seasons to come. The conflict unleashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin defies statistics. It is a story best told in unsparing images of human suffering and resilience.
Associated Press photographers have captured the terror -- people diving to the floor of a Mariupol hospital as bombs fall around them; a mob of refugees, huddled under a bridge. They have captured the tears of grieving survivors, and of families separated by the war.
They have shown us the playfulness of a soldier, lightheartedly kicking a ball amid the carnage; of another soldier, leading an impromptu chorale. They have shown us a chilling view of a car driving down a highway, through the sight of a Ukrainian sniper. They have shown us a landscape littered with buildings in ruins and the carcasses of Russian tanks.
And so many bodies. Bodies in trenches and half-buried in hillsides and arrayed on pavements and lying in pools of blood and carried in coffins. A soldier spread out like a statue in a Christ-like pose on a metal barrier. An arm extended in the dirt.
This is a country that has been transformed in the blink of an eye. A hundred days ago, a bathtub was for bathing; now, it is a place where a little girl and her dog hide from bombs.
What will it be like, 100 days from now?