'You See, Touch The War With Fingers': Ukraine War Gets Its Own Museum Show

The wounds are still fresh. The devastation in Ukraine has left grieving hearts longing for closure. The dust hasn't even settled yet.?

Russian troops were marching to Kyiv not long ago, and today the tale of the heartbreaking invasion is being retold in the form of a museum exhibition.

Reuters

Ukrainians are flocking to a new exhibition in Kyiv, which displays objects found after the Russian army was forced to withdraw from areas it captured around the capital, even as war rages elsewhere in the country.

REUTERS

The exhibition, titled "Ukraine—Crucifixion," is housed in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.

Missiles, food rations, helmets, and other objects abandoned in the region north of Kyiv are in the exhibition at a World War II museum—known as the "Great Patriotic War" in Ukraine.

REUTERS

Personal notes and credit cards of Russian soldiers killed on the front line are exhibited in glass cabinets, providing an essential early record of the carnage. Their passports indicate how young they were at the time.

Reuters

There are jars of halal borscht soup that were supplied to Muslim Chechen fighters appointed by their commander, Ramzan Kadyrov, an ardent Vladimir Putin supporter. Some came from far away, as shown by a shattered Siberian license plate.

Ukraine War/reuters

Curator Yuriy Savchuk said he wanted "to respond to Russian propaganda," adding that Moscow has set up its own show "on the so-called fascism that should be fought in Ukraine.?"You can see and touch the war with your fingertips here," he added.?"That's also the point: to shock people into realizing what's going on."

It may appear bizarre that Ukrainians want a reminder of a war they are still witnessing. However, not everyone in Ukraine had seen the battle firsthand, and many people wanted to know what unfolded.

"It's actually really hard to look at this," said 26-year-old visitor Zoya Didok.?"It's a good thing I didn't live in one of those villages when the Russians were there."

?A reconstruction of a makeshift shelter from Hostomel near Kyiv's airport can be seen in one of the museum's cellars.

Ukraine War/reuters

For 37 days, the original sheltered dozens of people, including children and a six-month-old baby. However, in the humid, unsanitary conditions, two people succumbed.

On a screen on the wall, a baby's mother could be seen giving a chilling video testimony.?

A church gate ripped through by shrapnel on the first floor of the museum opens to reveal a room filled with artwork inspired by the conflict. To show their grief, Ukrainian artists have repurposed materials from Russia's invasion.

Ukraine

A grenade hidden under a toy in a sandpit tells the horrid tale of how the childhood of millions of young Ukrainians was lost.?

Reuters

The exhibition also contains a broken World War II memorial from Hostomel, drawing a powerful parallel between the two conflicts.?All the war artifacts in the exhibition were collected between April 4 and May 5.?The Ukrainian army and government supported in the show's quick start on May 8.

(With AFP inputs)?

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