THE DEATH BELL TOLLS AS PUTIN BOMBS HEMINGWAY’S UKRAINE PUB

Putin’s rugged, chest-baring manly image, it is suggested, comes from his fascination with macho writers like Ernest Hemingway.

Many who know Putin say hard-man American icons of popular culture shaped his view of himself as a lone wolf, a hero … a man against the world.

Anyway, Vlad, the news is bad! Your troops have blown up Ernie’s pub in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Even worse, two people died in the attack. They lived in the apartments above the bar.

So now Vlad, for whom does the bell toll?

For those who wage an illegal, inhuman, devastating war against an untidy neighbour? For the victims who one morning awoke to what appeared to be a normal day, then faced death in the afternoon?

Or for the hard man on horseback@

Hem’s was popular with artists and writers and Serhiy Zhadan, one of Ukraine’s best known poets, would often drink there. He would perform too.

Hem’s was history, respect, creativity, a place to chat, show off, read, listen to music…

Now it is gone.

You’ll Never Drink Alone hung above the bar and a statue of the legendary American writer stood gruffly at the door.

The bar’s owner, Kostiantyn Kuts, said they had already stopped selling beer and turned into a makeshift bomb shelter.

Kostiantyn said: “We did not completely believe in what was happening and hoped that soon the bar would work. But the illusions were destroyed with the first bombs on residential buildings,” he said in a message.

In the early days of the invasion, Kharkiv fought back a Russian armoured column. Since then, it has suffered nightly Russian airstrikes and shelling, with dozens of civilians killed and hundreds injured.

Some of President Putin’s ‘macho friends’ include Steven Seagal, disgraced Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Gerard Depardieu and Mickey Rourke.

And then, of course, there is Donald Trump who often has good things to say about President Putin …

#PUTIN #HEMINGWAY #UKRAINE #WAR