East of Bakhmut

There is a field of corpses so dense that it has become a carpet for the Wagnerites who each day send new waves of attacks against the Ukrainian lines.  Making allowances for changes in military gear and dress, it is reminiscent of Antietam or of the ground under the "high water mark of the Confederacy" on Day Three of Gettysburg, of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the morning light, after the final, night time suicidal samurai charges.

It is about 300 miles from Bakhmut to what is now called Volgograd.  There, just outside the city, each spring there is a new harvest of German bones poking out of the soil.

Just what end is this 21st century carnage supposed to serve?  I guess for an answer we have to ask the little man behind the Big Wall.

As shorthand for the center of power, we have "the White House," the South Koreans have "the Blue House," the Brits have "10 Downing Street."  For the Russians, it is simply "the Fortress."  Never breached, it holds out the rules of reason as well as it has held out the invaders, over centuries.