Ukraine Situation Report: Russian Invasion: Day: 294 Poem by Gert Strydom

1
It's hard to move weapons and equipment
while in Ukraine it's muddy all over the place,
where people do a terrible winter face,
wait on generators and food in a great shipment:

are afraid to face a kind of abandonment:
in some US Republicans lacking is empathy and grace,
(the global village from thoughts they do erase)
while in Russian atrocities there are no abatement

and civilians try with daily lives to go on,
most men to the core brave have to fight to survive,
where houses, apartments and businesses are gone,
some females on the front-lines are still alive,
as howitzers they man, their training long foregone,

2
it's chilly especially in the long dark nights,
not so cold that the ground has frozen to be passable,
the hope that Russians will be held accountable,
simple things, a smile, encouraging words delights,

heartfelt feelings between a couple excites
and as the guns go faint anything seems achievable,
as these people are forced to live lives that are adaptable
and on rages the war, death existence overwrites,

most people are thankful, do believe and pray,
some have lost so much that rage and revenge remains,
where there is no answer to the question why,
as if life is meaningless as they face another day,
with men as canon-fodder Russia pressure maintains,
and Ukrainian soldiers do on each other rely.

3
From Kupiansk to Svatove Ukraine do control
the crucial highway as they do severally attack
both Svatove and Kremina but tanks cannot forward roll,
and with huge numbers Russians drive back.

East of Lyman for weeks Russians are slaughtered,
as in this region back and forth things go,
to be passable too much the earth have been watered,
but that they will win Ukrainians in their hearts know.

They attack on a frontline that do 130 Kilometres run,
smite overwhelming numbers of Russians as they come,
almost continuing blazing is each field-gun
and these battles are bloody and far past gruesome.

Russians do not remove bodies that fields fill,
forward are driven more their own blood to spill.

4
At Bahkmut Russians are past the river and lakes,
as they attack from the east into the suburbs,
from cover Ukraine defends, do draw them into mistakes,
with mortars, shells and rockets the intrusion curbs

and with outnumbering artillery Russians do destroy
every building, as canon-fodder do use recruits,
do from the south more Wagner troops employ,
that something must give Prigozhin computes,

while all trained mercenaries are already gone,
like zombies raw recruits are forced to move on.

5
Without success in Bahkmutska and Solidar
Russians attack at Yakovlivka to surround
from the north but Yakovlivka is too far,
with miles of a killing-field of open ground,

the bridge near Krasna Nova is destroyed,
and even to take of Bahkmut the half,
from equipment and strategy Russians are devoid
and untrained criminals fight on Prigozhin's behalf.

At Yakovlivka and at Novoselivske back
the Russians have withdrawn under heavy shelling,
as dead Ukraine has stopped their vector of attack,
any hopes of surrounding dispelling,

where Wagner, the Chechens and Rosvgardia are at a lost,
as these attacks do the lives of too many recruits cost.

6
According to Forbes to Melitopol from the north
a counter-offensive will be to cut supplies,
to attack and destroy Russians in Crimea thenceforth,
where Russia as a set off on that Oblast relies

as a hub for soldiers, command, aviation and its navy,
and at several barracks in it, Ukraine has hit,
where to withdraw from it might the best for Russians be,
than after total destruction of defeat to admit.

The Russian Cosmos-2560 military spy satellite
two months after its launch fell out of orbit,
as if in reconnaissance something did it down smite,
it did burn up over Guam, did not to deceleration commit,

destruction of Cosmos-2555 and 2551 was just as violent,
about what did go wrong the Russians are silent.
© Gert Strydom