Apparently, the conflict in Ukraine is picking up according to most news sources, and from indications, the Russians are going for the highest leveling-effect of urban explosions while seemingly aiming for civilian areas — beat the Ukrainians into dust, people, buildings, all of it.

A horrid trend:

Over the last 100 hours or so, Russia has seriously reduced engaging Ukrainian military targets.
Most of its attacks, primarily in terms of air strikes, are being clearly delivered against civilian population and infrastructure.
Russians are not even trying to justify anything.

— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 9, 2022

If you can’t beat them, destroy them with indiscriminate firepower: Mariupol is in southeastern Ukraine, situated on the north coast of the Sea of Azov; the Russians have been pounding it for a week — Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergiy Orlov (the Guardian this afternoon):

“They have used aviation, artillery, multiple rocket launchers, grads and other types of weapons we don’t even know about. This isn’t simply treacherous. It’s a war crime and pure genocide,” he said.
He added: “Vladimir Putin means to capture Mariupol whatever the human cost.”

By way of evidence, Orlov reeled off a list of civilian targets he said had so far been “annihilated.” They included numerous residential houses, Mariupol’s 600-bed maternity hospital No 9, the main administration service building, and the city’s giant Avostal metallurgical factory — once the workplace for 11,000 people.

He said 1,170 people had been killed.
On Wednesday, municipal workers buried 47 victims in a mass grave.

“We couldn’t identify all of them,” Orlov said. The message from Moscow was chillingly clear, he suggested: “Putin intends to destroy Ukraine so he can have Ukraine without Ukrainians.”

Putin’s goals, he said, were proceeding at a terrifying pace. The city has spent the last eight days without heat, power, gas, or electricity.
Russians parked up in tanks and armoured vehicles on Mariupol’s coastal outskirts had bombed all 15 power lines, Orlov said.
On Monday, they blew up the gas connection.

“We sent a team of workers to repair the line. The Russians immediately shelled them. They had to leave,” he said.

Consequently, the city’s 400,000 residents were living in freezing “medieval conditions,” unthinkable in what was until two weeks ago a modern and “flourishing” city, with busy cafes and restaurants.

“The only way civilians can cook now is on open fires. People are fighting over firewood. They are happy that it’s cold and snowing. Snow means they have something to drink.”

“A six-year-old girl died of dehydration,” Orlov continued bitterly.
“This is Europe, in 2022. How can that happen?”
He added: “A lot of districts are devastated. They are dropping half-tonne bombs from the sky.”

Further taste of the situation:

Writing on Facebook, Mariupol resident Angela Timchenko said there was “no electricity, no communication, no gas, no medical care and no food. Looting is on the rise. There are crazy mums looking for food and nappies. Let’s help each other whenever possible.”

She added: “Yesterday I was in the city. There were bonfires burning near all the houses and food was being prepared … to all who left our children to die, burn in hell. I heard a little boy ask his mum: ‘Will the rockets spark today?’”
Timchenko said she had lost 3.5kg and was running back and forth from her apartment on the eighth floor of a Mariupol block, where she lived with her family.
“The baby understands if you raise your voice a little we need to run for cover,” she wrote poignantly.

This story will only get worse. Putin has no off-ramp and no way to turn except keep going forward, as Sergiy said, until there’s a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

In the horrible context of Putin’s influence on the T-Rump  — an insight into the cruel shock that’s the T-Rump, who if allowed and could get away with it, would become a horrifying, vicious monster, though, one who was really at heart a moronic chickenshit — apt impression from Vanity Fair yesterday:

Asked about Trump’s relationship with Putin during an interview with The View on Tuesday, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said: “I think [Trump] feared [Putin]. I think he was afraid of him. I think that the man intimidated him. Because Putin is a scary man, just frankly, I think he was afraid of him. I also think he admired him, greatly, I think he wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him. So I think it was a lot of that. In my experience with him, he loved the dictators, he loved the people who could kill anyone, including the press.”
She added: “And I will say this, just in watching all of this with [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, Donald Trump would be 57 feet below ground hiding. And Zelenskyy has been out there fighting for his country.”

We need a ‘shine‘ upon the dark:

And once again, here we are…

(Illustration out front: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Agonizing Horse,’ found here)