MARIUPOL, Ukraine—Thunderstorms hovering over the Sea of Azov caught the setting sun, turning orange and then pink. A cool end-of-day breeze kicked up.
Later Sunday night in downtown Mariupol when the artillery started, the booms and flashing lights over the rooftops looked like lightning and sounded like thunder.
To the trained ear, however, the sounds of artillery are easily distinguished from those of thunder. Artillery rumbles in shorter, higher treble pulses. After living with war on their doorstep for more than a year, the citizens of Mariupol—an industrial city of 500,000 on the Sea of Azov—can easily detect the difference.
