"KYIV, Ukraine — They exploded with dull thuds on the outskirts of towns and detonated in the center of cities with deafening booms. Strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, left cars burning and splatters of blood on the sidewalks. Throughout this week, the Russian military fired its most intensive barrage of missiles at Ukraine since the start of the war in February, killing three dozen civilians, knocking out electricity and overwhelming air defenses. One thing the missiles did not do was change the course of the ground war. Fought mostly in trenches, with the most intense combat now in an area of rolling hills and pine forests in the east and on the open plains in the south, these battles are where control of territory is decided — and where Russia’s military continued to lose ground, despite its missile strikes. ...”
A dream job Sergei secured at the National Library of Russia kept him from leaving Russia. He finally escaped to Georgia, after Putin’s mobilization notice. “Some of the Georgians do call us racist slurs and they might kick Russian emigrants out,” he says. “We deserve it, but I hope it won’t come to that.”
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