I remembered this photo of Ivan Antipenko in the first week of June. Blooming lilac and a fighter with a smoke block. Antipenko took this photo back in April. In the Kherson region. In the south, lilac blooms faster. Strawberries and cherries ripen faster. Russian air bombs arrive faster. And many more things in the south are happening faster. But I don't know how to use the word “faster” when describing the path to the Hola Marina or the Oleshkov Sands.
Antipenko filmed training of soldiers of a separate brigade of marines in the Kherson region. He filmed how fighters with experience of real combat operations, in particular those who advance the armed forces to the Kherson left bank, practice assault and defense. They work towards automatism, they work to move faster. The call sign of the soldier in the photo “Spade”, he holds a smoke stick in his right hand. He has already pulled out the safety check and taken a step back. Turned the body and swung. In a moment Shpalya throws a checker, it makes an arc in the air and hides in the white pyrotechnic smoke a fighter, uncut green grass and blooming lilacs. Checkers are training, so there will be no melee. The smoke curtain will become a wall, but the enemy is not here, and it will not affect the accuracy of fire, except teach it to lower it. If the smoke screen remains transparent, it will simply be a learning error and, by tearing the check from the next smoke checker, Skeel will correct this mistake without risking either himself or anyone else. It seems that this is not a war, but its imprint, suddenly alien and distant, like the left bank of the Kherson region. But the smell of pyrotechnic smoke and the smell of blooming lilac, to which this photograph cannot give any access, mix and layer in my imagination. The fresh honey aroma of lilac intermittently cuts through the pungent smell of white pyrotechnic smoke. Photography becomes a presence without a presence. It seems that there is no war here. It seems that there is no spring here. But the approach of spring and war depends on the strength of my gaze, on my intention not to forget even in June that April is the “cruel month”, but it is he who “evokes the fallen lilac from the dead earth”, it is he who “awakens the frozen roots with rains”. And also memories and desires. It wakes up everywhere: where strawberries and cherries ripen so quickly, where Russian air bombs arrive so quickly, where training and real combat operations continue, where the Gola Marina and the Oleshkov Sands are going on.
Olena Huseynova— Ukrainian writer, radio host, radio producer. Since 2016, he has been working on Radio Culture (Social). She is currently the editor-in-chief of the Editorial Radio Theater and Literary Programs. From February 26, 2022, Elena worked as a live host of the 24-hour information radio marathon on Ukrainian Radio (Social). Author of two poetry books “Open Rider” (2012), “Superheroes” (2016). He writes essays and small prose.
Ivan Antipenko— Ukrainian journalist, photographer and videographer who covers the Russian-Ukrainian war in Southern Ukraine. Cooperates with Ukrainian and international media: “Radio Svoboda”, “Grunt”, Reuters, Hromadske, “MOST”, “BBC Ukraine” and others.
Read also: “In every arrival, I try to find a target.” Photo with the story through the eyes of Elena Guseinova
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