World War II has been an ideological battlefield in today’s war in Ukraine, and it is cropping up on the actual battlefield as well.
Clambering over boulders, past old tires and shellfish-encrusted scrap metal, Oleksandr Shkalikov ventured onto the dry bed of a vast reservoir.
Out in this wasteland rested a haunting reminder of long-ago battles on this same swath of southern Ukraine: a swastika, chipped into a rock, had emerged from the receding water. The year “1942’’ was written next to it.
“History is repeating itself,” Mr. Shkalikov, a tank driver on leave from the Ukrainian army, said of the World War II-era carving. He noted the timing: The Swastika had become visible because of more recent act of war, the explosion at the Kakhovka dam in June that drained a reservoir the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
#Ukraine: A Russian 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled mortar was destroyed by Ukrainian forces in Verkhnokamyanka, #Luhansk Oblast- including with multiple FPV loitering munitions. pic.twitter.com/svPwMihGfF
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 17, 2023
