Streets of shattered houses and twisted, burnt-out cars; a desolate landscape of rubble, broken glass and acrid black smoke rising from pools of flames. “Welcome to hell,” says the soldier at the checkpoint, pointing to the scene of devastation at Makariv.
There are other towns and cities in Ukraine that have suffered more killed and injured, that have also been the targets of pounding airstrikes and artillery barrages. But as this brutal and unexpected war reached its first monthly anniversary, this town 32 miles from Kyiv has become of great strategic and symbolic significance.
