Facts of abduction, torture and murder of Ukrainians by the Russian occupation force in the Donbas are well established. Occupiers can detain you for many different reasons big and small: for saying positive things about Ukraine, for being of a non-Russian Orthodox faith, for criticizing the occupiers, to steal your flat or a car liked by an occupying soldier, or just because your former boyfriend or girlfriend denounced you as a “Ukrainian sympathizer.” The criminals that came to power under Putin’s marionette regime in Donbas are not concerned with fairness or even with an appearance of legality. In this environment, anything goes. Torture and death is a high price to pay for your convictions. That’s why the bravery of people who live under those conditions and still display their love for their country is so extraordinary.
Remarkably, such a display was shown in the city of Donetsk, the largest city in the Russia-occupied territory of Ukraine, where anonymous patriots painted a children’s playground in the national colors of the Ukrainian flag: blue and yellow, as reported by the Donetsk news outlet 62.ua.
