Love in the Time of Cholera

A woman walks outside a shopping mall as black smoke rises over an oil refinery in the south-eastern suburbs of Moscow, Russia. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

Handstand

A painting of a gymnast doing a handstand has popped up on the wall of a destroyed building in Borodyanka, Bucha Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, and appears to be a work of British street artist Banksy. Photo: Andrew Kravchenko/AP.

Actually Factually

In a talk show interview on Rete 4, Under-Secretary of the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for the security of the Republic, Franco Gabrielli, gave his impression on the Bucha killings (as far as it is known so far): “Doubtless it was a massacre, but we have to be very cautious about responsibilities. In such cases, one needs to strip away self-confidence and Manichaeism”. Such words, coming from a high-profile official, do suggest one should be careful not to jump to hasty conclusions. “Also because if there are situations that can be represented in different ways, the damage to the credibility of a narrative may be devastating”, Gabrielli says. “Let’s stick to facts, let’s stick to satellite analysis, let’s stick to eyewitness accounts, always bearing in mind that wars bring with them forms of degeneration and mystification. I’m always suspicious of easy, simple answers to complex problems”, especially when such answers are dictated by “prejudice in favour of one rather than another”.

Demarcation line

Avdiivka, Ukraine: A tank from the Ukrainian forces is stationed outside a building in the flashpoint eastern town of Avdiivka, just north of the pro-Russian rebels’ de facto capital of Donetsk. The Trump administration severely criticised Russia for the first time with its newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, lambasting Moscow for its military intervention in Ukraine. Photo: Alexey Filippov/AFP/Getty Images.