Wicked remains indicate that sanctions have not yet stopped Russia

Ever since Russia launched its full -scale invasion of Ukraine, Western countries have imposed distant sanctions on the aggressor in an attempt to stimulate their military efforts.

But on Earth here in Ukraine, these sanctions seem to have a limited impact.

Just beyond Harkiev, in a secret place, there is a collection of twisted metal remains of attacks in and around the city. This is a scrap of diversion – the remains of many Russian bombs, rockets, rockets and drones used to hit in and around Harkiv over the last three and a half years.

“This is the essential proof that we, as prosecutors, will prove Russia’s guilt in war crimes,” Dimro Chubenko tells me the prosecutor’s office of the Harciv region. Each piece of rocket and drone here is carefully collected and analyzed.

DMYTRO shows me one of the latest editions – the Russian version of the Iranian Shahid drone. Recently, Russia shoots hundreds of these kamikaze drones in the cities and cities of Ukraine. They are relatively cheap to prepare, he tells me – about $ 20,000 ($ 15,000) each.

He points to the nearby corpse of a Russian cruise rocket. He says these cost millions.

But these weapons are not completely Russian – they contain “many components from the Western countries,” Dmitro says. “It is possible (for Russia) to bypass sanctions, but nothing is not an option,” he adds.

Donald Trump seems to have lost patience with President Vladimir Putin. After early efforts to rapprochement between the US and Russia, the US president has now threatened to strengthen sanctions against the Kremlin, unless Russia has agreed to end its fire in Ukraine until this Friday.

Trump said Secondary sanctions will also come into force This day affecting any country that trades with Russia. He has already imposed an additional 25% tariff for India to buy Russian oil. American Messenger Steve Vicoff met Putin in Moscow on Wednesday for conversations before the deadline.

So, if President Trump decides to impose more sanctions on the Kremlin, would it be enough to force Russia to change the course in this war? Dymtro believes that hitting Russian oil and gas exports can have a significant economic impact.

“We won’t be able to stop it by clicking our fingers, but we have to do it, we have to act,” he says. There is hope for President Trump to act.

Harciv, just 30 kilometers from the Russian border, has carried the main weight of many strikes throughout the war. Thousands of buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Almost 3,000 civilians have been killed in the region, 97 of them children.

The police colonel Sergius Bolvinov shows me the burned -out sheath of the police staff in which he worked. A Russian strike in 2022 killed three of his officers as well as six civilians. He points to the gaping hole in the wall where the rockets entered. The Russian tactics, according to him, have not changed. “Russia is trying to hit and kill as many civilians as possible.”

Colonel Bolvinov’s work is to investigate every civil death. It does not leave a stone overturned. He has 1000 men and women working for him, now they have been scattered in the basement -aparts right around the city. They carry out a thorough forensic work to build a criminal case against the responsible.

Photos of Russian military officers who have been tied to specific attacks are plastered through the wall – the request.

In another building, investigators from the crime scene carry out DNA tests to identify the most casualties – Ukrainian civilians killed in a Russian missile attack as they were queued to collect water. Colonel Bolvinov shows me Strike footage – unrecognizable charred bodies lie on the ground.

“It is difficult to do this job, but this is a very important job for future justice for us, for the Ukrainian people,” he says. It shows me a three -dimensional computer image of a mass grave in Eyum, where more than 400 bodies were found. “Some cases leave a mark on all of us and we will never forget this trauma,” he says.

Colonel Bolvinov says he wants to see an end to this war. He hopes President Trump’s increasing pressure on President Putin to work. But the police chief does not want peace at any price. “Peace without justice is not really peace,” he says. Even if the cessation of fire can be agreed, it will not yet cope with the wounds of most Ukrainian people.

A cemetery outside Harkiv is another reminder of the price of war: the ever -growing ranks of the dead Ukrainian soldiers. Each grave is marked by the blue and gold of the national flag. The silence here is only broken by the sound of them, which is thrown into the wind.

Nearby, in the civilian section of the cemetery, the mother and her family put flowers on their daughter’s grave. Sofia was only 14 years old when a Russian sliding bomb took its life last year. She was sitting on a bench in the park in Harciv, enjoying the warm summer afternoon with a friend.

I ask her mother Julia if President Trump’s increasing pressure on Russia can bring some comfort, but she is not optimistic.

“These conversations have been going on for too long,” she tells me.

“But so far there are no results … Hope fades.”