Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Matthew Kaminski: Contending with Putin’s hand in Ukraine’s badlands
‘No need to hurry,” says the man clad in camouflage, his face hidden by a balaclava, “they won’t run away.”
On Tuesday morning, inside the Kalinin hospital morgue, a dozen bodies are stacked in a pile. Across the corridor lies a headless male. A corpse on an autopsy table had an arm blown off. The personal effects of these separatist fighters killed in the previous night’s battle with the Ukrainian army at the Donetsk airport—at least 33 died—are laid out on the street nearby: the black-orange ribbons of St. George (the Russian nationalist symbol), German army-issue first-aid kits, a couple of knives, piles of cigarettes.