Protection of the monument to the Duke of Richelieu in Odessa

A short trip I did to Ukraine eight months ago has ended up with unexpected resonances, just like the memory of a summer spent in Yemen forty years ago has been altered by the combats that are shaking the country today. The neighborhoods of Kyiv and Kharkov on which shells, rockets, and missiles have rained since 24 February are precisely those I visited, discovering sites and buildings of great historical importance.

The attacks of 1 March that temporarily interrupted television broadcasts were directed at a group of constructions raised in the 1980s in the at once monumental and brutalist language of telecommunications buildings that was typical of Soviet public programs; an ensemble led by a tower erected in 1973. Without mustering the elegance of the legendary Komintern antenna built in Moscow by the brilliant engineer Vladimir Shukhov, the steel lattice structure held up by three supports is one of the most visible icons of the Ukrainian capital...[+]