MARIUPOL, Ukraine — While his children played a popular Russian card game called “Fool” on a sand-flecked blanket, the towering cranes of the port pushing above the unseasonably warm beachfront beside a razor-wire fence warning “Do Not Enter — Mines,” Sergei Sovyak reflected on what has become of his battered, seaside city.
Earlier this year, a fierce separatist offensive, backed by Moscow, threatened to overrun the city and create a land bridge connecting Russia with the Crimean Peninsula it seized last year.
Emergency meetings discussed air raid sirens and evacuation plans.
[…] with shelling reduced to a distant annoyance for most residents, fewer …read more
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
