No, sweetie.
Donetsk was a city of a million roses when its own Ukrainian flag flew above it.
Back then, it was also the fastest-growing and most rapidly prospering city in Ukraine -- home to what was the finest regional airport in Eastern Europe, one of the world's best football stadiums, a state-of-the-art railway terminal, and one of the cleanest, best-maintained cities in the region.
Its elites were running Kyiv, and every time I visited Donetsk as a student, riding the famous trolleybus Route No. 2 through the city, I was amazed by how many new office buildings were appearing, how much money was flowing into the city, and how many international companies were opening their doors there.
Fifteen years ago, to us kids from Donbas, Donetsk felt like the center of the universe because it had everything one could possibly dream of. It was a young city of universities and libraries, where the overwhelming majority of boys and girls from across Donbas went to study, including those from my own small hometown an hour away by bus.
Names like Liverpool or Detroit Rock City may mean nothing to you, but our Ukrainian Donetsk was a city of great rock clubs and unforgettable concerts. We traveled there to see Western bands perform.
We bought rock merchandise at the legendary Right House store near Krytyi Market. Scorpions, Rihanna, and Beyoncé performed at the famous Donbass Arena. Schoolchildren from across Donbas were bused in to watch Shakhtar Donetsk matches. The city even had a famous monument to The Beatles.
It was a city where we sang songs on guitars in its beautifully maintained parks and along the Kalmius embankment before heading out to buy the famous "green Donetsk burgers." Our older friends moved there after graduation, formed rock bands, recorded full albums, and held wedding celebrations in the squares around Donbas Arena. We traveled there to visit the legendary Radio Market in search of films, music, and books.
And then you arrived.
And you turned the wealthiest, most prosperous Ukrainian city into a piece of shit.
You deceived many of its people with sweet promises of Russian oil-fueled prosperity broadcast from television screens, but what you brought instead was war.
You transformed a thriving city into a criminal wasteland ruled by ethnic gangs from Russia, into a kingdom of Stalinist terror straight out of the 1930s, complete with torture chambers in the infamous Izolyatsia prison camp. You turned the magnificent Donetsk Airport into lifeless gray rubble, while the vast stands of Donbas Arena have spent a second decade slowly being reclaimed by weeds instead of hosting Champions League finals and Metallica concerts.
You swept away an entire generation of the city's men through your forced mobilization and threw them against Ukrainian machine guns until there were barely enough people left to keep basic municipal services running. Because of you, prosperous Donetsk became a withered desert without reliable water, because your war destroyed the canal system that carried water from the Siverskyi Donets River into Donbas. For years now, people have lived with chronic water shortages and have been reduced shitting into plastic bags forever.
You dragged Donetsk back like seventy years in time. You turned it into a depressed backwater, devoid of hope and future. Even ten years ago, tens of thousands of people, the most active, the most talented, the most entrepreneurial, fled the city and found refuge in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine. Many of them still remember our Donetsk with tears in their eyes, the Donetsk that existed before the arrival of the "Russian World."
You transformed it into something that even my pro-Russian acquaintances are shocked to see when they return after years of occupation.
It was you who trampled the million roses of our Ukrainian Donetsk into shit beneath the tracks of your tanks and the boots of your death troops, turning them into a foul swamp of death and despair.
And that stain will forever remain on the conscience of fascist Russia, which brings nothing but destruction, decay, and death wherever it goes.
Nem uma única bola rolou no gramado até agora e este é o quadro da COPA 2026:
• As equipes do Senegal e do Uzbequistão foram tratadas na chegada como criminosos, com buscas completas em seus orifícios.
• O melhor árbitro da África foi enviado de volta à Somália, apesar de seu passaporte diplomático.
• O Fotógrafo da equipe do Iraque foi impedido de entrar mesmo com visto válido.
• Foi negada a entrada nos EUA de 90% dos fãs marroquinos com ingressos já adquiridos.
• Foram recusados vistos a 14 membros da equipe de apoio do Irã.
• Foi negada a entrada no país do principal atacante da Suíça, o camaronês Breel Embolo. A equipe viajou sem ele. Após a forte repercussão, o visto foi enfim concedido.
• A equipe iraniana, cujos jogos serão todos nos EUA, foi proibida de pernoitar no país. Imediatamente a após cada partida, os atletas voarão de volta ao México, onde se hospedam.
- Qual é o sentido de sediar a Copa do Mundo se não pretendem que o MUNDO faça parte dela???
⚡️ Danish PM Frederiksen: Ukraine needs Europe, and just as important, Europe now needs Ukraine.
"In my opinion it is quite simple. Europe cannot rearm effectively without Ukraine, and our support to Ukraine is not charity, it is self-defense."
ZELENSKYY: Russia attacks us with more than 650 drones and 35 to 100 missiles per day. We respond with 300 to 350 drones, it’s not a competitive number. But, when we will have 600-plus drones and missiles, Russians will feel this war the way we do, but they will feel it at home.
Ukrainian student Iryna Zabudko died in a hospital today.
She was severely injured during Russian attack on Kyiv on June 2nd.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Europe is strongest when Europeans act together, not separately. This is what we are achieving in all our formats. On Sunday, we had the Ukraine–E3 format. Today, it is Ukraine–NB8. And we stay in regular contact with the United States. We are preparing together for the upcoming EU and NATO summits, as well as the G7 summit meetings. All of this can bring real results.
Європа найсильніша, коли європейці діють разом, а не окремо. Саме цього ми досягаємо в усіх наших форматах. У неділю відбулася зустріч у форматі Україна – E3. Сьогодні – Україна – NB8. Крім того, ми підтримуємо постійний контакт зі Сполученими Штатами. Ми разом готуємося до майбутніх самітів ЄС і НАТО, а також до зустрічей у рамках саміту G7. Усе це може забезпечити реальні результати.
I thank Estonia and @KristenMichalPM personally for supporting Ukraine. This truly means a great deal to us. During our meeting, I presented the Prime Minister with the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, II Class.
And today, our countries took a critical step forward—we signed the Joint Declaration on Enhanced Security and Defense Cooperation. This important document formalizes areas such as exchange of experience, defense industrial cooperation, and air defense. We also continue to work on an agreement in the Drone Deal format.
We value all of Estonia’s contributions to the PURL initiative. We count on further support, and I outlined our needs. We also discussed increasing sanctions pressure on Russia and Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.