The complete destruction of Donetsk airport shows just how bad it's gotten in Ukraine
Originally built in the 1940's and renovated multiple times over the decades, the Donetsk airport was once an impressive complex.
Most recently, it was improved for a reported $1 billion in preparation for the UEFA soccer championships hosted in Ukraine in 2012.
Now, after 10 months of intense fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia rebels, the airport has been decimated to rubble.
The entire city of Donetsk has become one of the most contested and violent areas in all of Ukraine because of its strategic location to Ukraine and Russia.
The airport is of special interest to both sides due to it's potential to be used for airlifting supplies, especially deliveries from Russia to it's rebel counterparts in Ukraine.
The entire airport is perfect for a military stronghold, as well. Soldiers utilize both its communication towers and its massive network of underground tunnels which allow them to travel and move supplies without risk of being fired upon.
On a broader level, the airport is seen as a symbol of the larger conflict. When fighting for the airport, "I am sure that we are defending there the whole of Ukraine," Pertro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine, said in January.
Until recently, the airport was controlled by Ukrainian troops who took fire and shelling from rebel troops at all hours of the day and night.
Clearly, ten months of attacks have taken their toll on the facility.
Gutted cars litter the area.
The destroyed bodies of planes are there, too.
Even some tanks.
Debris and rubble are everywhere you look. There's even reports of trees being completely stripped of their branches due to shrapnel from shelling attacks.
The death toll estimates the total deaths in the conflict between Ukrainian and rebel forces since April of 2014 to now be more than 6,000, according to a United Nations Human Rights Office report earlier this month.
The report estimates multiple hundreds of casualties at Donetsk airport and the surrounding area .
“Should this trend continue, this would represent a new and very deadly chapter in this conflict, expanding the areas where the rule of law and the protection of human rights are effectively absent,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.
And it seems that things are becoming worse. After a lull in conflict in December, the UN reports that violence has ramped up in January and February, with an increased death toll due to "indiscriminate shelling."
So far, all attempts at cease fires have failed.
In mid-January, pro-Russian rebels staged a major attack on the airport, finally seizing complete control of whart was left of the airport's terminals from the government forces who previously occupied it.
Those Ukrainian soldiers who were not killed were kept as captives and were given the gruesome task of finding the dead bodies of their fellow fighters beneath the rubble of the devastated buildings.
One separatist commander told Reuters, "It's not our job to look for dead bodies. It's our job to make them."
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