A grim new normal dawns in Ukraine.
By Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
Yuri is a 52-year-old Ukrainian who runs a market stall in Kherson, not far from the front line. Yesterday, he was sorting through vegetables when he heard the loud, distinctive buzz of a Russian drone. As he later told the journalist Zarina Zabrisky, he had nothing more than a couple of garlic bulbs in his hands, and no weapons. “Not even a phone.” He gestured at his tomatoes and peppers, so that the drone operator, whoever and wherever he might be, could see that he wasn’t a soldier.
The drone kept following him. Police footage shows it chasing Yuri around his truck. He hides under the umbrella that covers the stand, runs from one side to the other, gestures at the vegetables. Then the drone dives beside him and explodes. Miraculously, Yuri survived, with just cuts and a concussion. Zabrisky interviewed him in the hospital, where he was lucid, and surprisingly sane.
