DISPOSABLE SOLDIER (diary of a RU mobik) - TOUR 1
(translation courtesy of cofi anon)

The original can be found here: https://endchan.net/.media/523c1e63e16c9ca9a21c77a2960065ab-applicationpdf.pdf



Chapter 1. Distribution. Moscow-City of V. Autumn '22


We gathered at our Moscow recruitment office and found ourselves in the assembly hall, waiting for further instructions. Rows of chairs filled the hall, and we settled in. Some browsed the internet, some dozed, others simply waited. A few started getting acquainted, and someone even produced a bottle of something strong. This waiting game in the recruitment office hall dragged on for hours. During the day, they issued us uniforms and handed out humanitarian aid bags from the Moscow mayor, containing all sorts of small items: a toiletry kit with disposable razors, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, underwear, t-shirts, socks, and other such necessities. The bag itself was sturdy and spacious, much larger than the old Soviet-era kitbag. Back then, we didn't yet understand how much a person could carry while wearing armour and carrying a weapon.

Midday, a nun from a monastery appeared at the recruitment office to see us off. She spoke to us as if we were heroes going to defend our Motherland from the enemy. The nun blessed anyone who wished and distributed amulets: icons, belts, and other monastery souvenirs that were supposed to protect us from injury and death. Many of us were believers, so even a year later, I would still see these amulet belts on soldiers from various units.

Closer to evening, they finally started loading us onto a vehicle. A priest joined the nun, and together they sprinkled holy water on our formation. Relatives gathered at the gate: some cried, some waved. Everyone saw us off as heroes, heading to war.

Inside the vehicle, a commotion slowly began. One of our passengers had already managed to get drunk and started promoting patriotic ideas. As we drove from the recruitment office, he plied the other passengers with alcohol. Every time we passed a liquor store, the entire vehicle pleaded with the driver to stop and buy more. The driver and escort, naturally, refused. But stopping the drinking was beyond their control. Patriotism hung thick in the air. The drunken bravado of the crowd merged into an endless stream of patriotic slogans: "Our guys have been fighting there for six months already! They're absolutely exhausted from this mess! We must replace them! And then in six months, someone will replace us! Death to the pigs! Time to smash the enemy!"

Along the way, we stopped to pick up a group from another recruitment office, and during the stop, we replenished our supply of strong spirits at a nearby store. Once everyone was assembled, we were transferred to large buses and finally driven out of Moscow in an unknown direction. The entire journey, we speculated: where exactly are we going? No one could answer this question. Neither the senior officer nor the driver knew. It turned out there was no place for us anywhere. We arrived at one assembly point, and called them – no room. We went to another, called – no room there either. Finally, upon reaching City of V, we learned our location.

We were at the gates of the Strategic Missile Forces Academy. Numerous buses and a crowd of mobilized men from different recruitment offices surrounded us. A horde of green figures waited for accommodation and assignment to military positions. This process took a very long time, so the mobilized men had to wait by the checkpoint for hours, some for over a day. Some slept in the buses. Luckily, we were allowed to walk along the nearby street, which had a few shops: a supermarket, a hardware store, and, of course, a Krasnoe & Beloe (Russian liquor store chain). This was the most popular shop for the green brotherhood. New arrivals quickly stocked up on the necessary "ammunition" in this store, and the revelry began.

Several hundred men near the gates of the Academy roared, shouted, and got drunk. Naturally, I was among them. Discussions went around about who served where during their conscription; who held what rank, position, and specialty; what awaited us next; how we would defeat all the enemies; and, most importantly – that we'd be "home soon." Everyone was convinced that the "Special Military Operation" wouldn't last long, and we'd be celebrating New Year's at home.

One guy from our bus got into a fight with the local military police. An investigation started, but he wasn't severely punished. He remained fundamentally dissatisfied and yelled at everyone: "I don't want to serve with these bastards! Take me to another unit! My buddies are waiting for me! I want to serve there!" This wasn't an isolated incident, and such rowdiness was treated with understanding. They took him away, and we didn't see him again. Whether he reached his buddies or not, I never found out.

After five hours of waiting and drinking in the open air, we were finally invited into the assembly hall for data collection. War movies and action films played on a screen. We happened to catch a screening of the latest "Fast and Furious." Some were already dozing off as they called us up one by one to record our details and clothing sizes. When this process finished, we moved on to the next stage of our journey: the role assignment hall. It was a spacious gymnasium converted into a giant "office" where cadets and officers sat, again recording our details and offering us various military positions.

Many among us were signalmen: their military IDs listed "Radiotelegraphist" as their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). However, we were all offered positions as "riflemen." Many refused – but there were no vacancies for signalmen at this distribution point. To my surprise, those who refused were given a chance: they were sent to another distribution point to try their luck. Perhaps, having arrived somewhere else, they eventually found signalmen vacancies, but I'll never know.

Although I served in a signals regiment during my conscription, my military ID listed "rifleman" as my MOS. So, I had no grounds to claim any other position. A rifleman is a rifleman. Thus, I was registered as a rifleman in my battalion.

By now, it was around 4 a.m. My group was shrinking. Before being sent to the barracks, for some reason, we were herded into a small tent with gas masks. A cadet explained that, according to regulations, we had to practice putting them on.
-"But I couldn't care less about all this, so just grab your gas masks and get out!" he grumbled wearily. "Just sign my sheet for safety procedures and confirm you've put them on."

When they finally led us to the barracks, only myself and another guy remained from our recruitment office. Everyone else had been dispersed. At five in the morning, we entered the completely packed barracks, and a Kazakh cadet pointed to our beds. We had one hour left to sleep.


Chapter 2: Training. City of V. Autumn of '22


A new day, new acquaintances. After an hour of sleep, I found the company clerk, who finally explained to me which battalion, company, platoon, and squad I was in. He led me to my squad leader, whose call sign was “Shayba” (Puck), and I finally met him. We exchanged phone numbers, but both of us had only brought old push-button phones to the war, leaving our smartphones at home (which was a mistake). His last name was too long to fit in my contact list, so I saved him as "Shayba." My own last name was too long for his phone, so he saved me as “Kompas” (Compass).

I stuck close to Shayba and relied on him to get around. For formation, I tried to stay near him; for meals, I tried to stay near him. I didn’t feel comfortable. Based on my previous military service, I expected that conscripts would hate each other and be ready to insult, fight, or betray each other at any moment—just as it had been in my previous experience. To my surprise, I found that people were generally decent to each other. In our platoon, no one insulted anyone, no one tried to set anyone up, and there were no fights. Still, I felt a wall between us—and, in part, I put it there myself. I decided to keep my distance from these comrades-in-misfortune, but at the same time, to be friendly and polite with everyone. That’s just who I am—a lone wolf.

We had no platoon commander (platoon leader) or company commander. They simply weren’t assigned yet. Instead, we had an assistant platoon leader, “Nefrit” (Jade), and a company sergeant major, “Vishnya” (Cherry), both of whom seemed like good guys.

Eating in the army is its own art form—in a bad way. In my humble opinion, the food wasn’t bad. Actually, it was pretty good. But there was another problem. The dining hall could hold several hundred people at once, but there were thousands of us on base: cadets, officers, and conscripts. Our battalion lined up for meals, and platoon leaders would take their groups to breakfast one by one. Nefrit took us to the dining hall at the scheduled breakfast time. That was a mistake. There was a line of 300 people outside the dining hall, standing in the rain in October.

After waiting about forty minutes, we got inside and realized something needed to change. Nefrit came up with a plan. We would go to lunch ten minutes earlier than scheduled, without waiting for the official lineup. It helped a bit, but there were still about two hundred people in front of us. For dinner, we went twenty minutes early, which reduced the line to about a hundred people. Finally, through trial and error, Nefrit figured out the ideal time: we’d go thirty to forty minutes before the scheduled time, which allowed us to eat without standing in line in the rain.

Soon, many of us stopped going to the dining hall altogether. In the evenings, we were allowed to go into town. All you had to do was inform the squad leader and platoon leader, sign out at the duty desk, and get a pass. The guards at the checkpoint let us go without any hassle. Soon, almost everyone in our platoon was going to town in the evenings. We had only a few hours, but it was enough to shop or meet with family. Within a few days, our barracks were filled with pastries, grilled chicken, shawarma, kebabs, fast food from McDonald's and Burger King, soda, and energy drinks. And, of course, stronger stuff. Once, I managed to sneak four bottles of whiskey under my coat through the checkpoint—the guards just pretended not to notice.

At one of these drinking parties, our platoon came up with a name for itself: “Pyatnashka” (the Fifteen), in line with the company and platoon number. The name stuck, and it was used in formations and radio communications.

What were we actually learning at this academy? All sorts of things. We were issued weapons and made to go to the shooting range with them. Our backs got used to carrying the weight of our gear. On the range, we practised marching in columns, learning who should be in the front guard, the rear guard, and the side guard. We crawled through bushes, fields, and trenches, split into two teams, and “fought” each other, pretending to shoot—“bang-bang.” None of us knew which tactics were actually useful and which weren’t. We never figured it out, even by the end.

Many of our classes were theoretical. For example, we had communications lessons. They showed us massive radio stations, as ancient as the Soviet Union, and explained how to use them. We never actually saw these radios in real conditions. Instead, we used modern Chinese walkie-talkies—mostly “Baofeng” or “TYT” models—which were simple to use. While we were still in City of V, we ordered plenty of walkie-talkies for ourselves, and almost everyone got one.

The problem was that we were using open channels, with no encryption or security. In reality, we continued using open channels in the field. It was a problem, but no one wanted to deal with it. Eventually, I learned that our walkie-talkies actually had built-in encryption, but no one listened when I brought it up. Nobody wanted to bother with the setup, and everyone had different models with various encryption options, so no one took the time to figure it out. We stayed on open channels until the very end.

Engineering classes were even more useless. They just showed us displays with various types of mines and talked about them. If we were lucky, we’d see a practice mine. But no one was trying to turn us into actual sappers—we were, after all, just riflemen. So we learned nothing useful from these classes.

The tactical medicine classes weren’t much better. There was too little practice. The instructor showed us how to apply a tourniquet on limbs and even on the neck. We learned about painkillers like Promedol, where and when to use it. We looked at what was in a standard first-aid kit. We practiced applying tourniquets a couple of times, and that was about it. Theoretically, we knew what a pneumothorax was and how to treat it. Theoretically, we could identify arterial bleeding. Theoretically.

Over the month in City of V, we had a few live-fire sessions, using up the state-issued ammunition on targets to get used to the weapon's recoil. Once or twice, we were even allowed to get close to the targets to see where we’d hit. Neither the instructors nor we cared much about accuracy. We never figured out how to shoot down air targets or sight our weapons properly. We only learned some of these things on the front line, and even then, not everyone did. I, for one, never really did learn—and honestly, I didn’t need to.

Apart from this, we had other, less notable activities: physical training, hand-to-hand combat, grenade throwing, field orientation, and preparing for combat. Sometimes, we’d spend two hours straight just preparing for combat—standing, kneeling, lying down, running, kneeling, lying down.

And then, one day, officers arrived in our company. We got a platoon leader, “Stopor” (Stopper), a company commander, “Lineyka” (Ruler), and a political officer, “Veslo” (Oar). People said Veslo was a bit of a “softie” and not suited for military service, let alone as a political officer for a whole company. He was shy, and reserved, with a weak voice and absolutely no authority. Anyone could put him in his place, but he couldn’t do the same to anyone else. I understood him completely—I was the same, only a rifleman.

After the officers arrived, our battalion set out on a training march. In body armour, helmets, and with weapons, we had to walk about ten kilometres there and back, with various training commands along the way: getting ready for combat, flash from behind, grenade, chemical alert. We kept dropping to the ground, preparing for combat, and putting on gas masks. In the end, almost everyone made it through the march.

On another occasion, we had a “training battle.” We went out to a field that the local governor had kindly provided, divided into two teams, dug shallow “trenches,” and began “shooting” at each other with blank rounds, one at a time. During these exercises, some of us performed “genius” tactical moves, flanking the enemy. Our guys played as if they were a recon-sabotage group, sneaking into enemy lines and “taking down” a few soldiers. It was all easy, simple, and fun. There was no real danger to life.

How foolish we must have looked then.

After a couple of hours of this "firefight," both sides decided it was time for lunch! A field kitchen was brought to the field, where they prepared buckwheat with stew and tea. Both sides of the conflict happily devoured this lunch, sitting on the grass. And after lunch, a song and dance ensemble performed patriotic songs from different eras and popular hits from twenty years ago. About a hundred people gathered in a huge circle around the ensemble and sang along loudly, off-key. Everyone was happy and cheerful: it felt like we were on a picnic. We were all convinced then that we wouldn't actually face the enemy, but would be in "territorial defense." That is, we would be stationed in the rear, and nothing dangerous would happen to us. And we'd be home for New Year's!

After lunch, we gathered again on the field and decided it was time to attack. No, not like that: "Chaaarge!" Everyone climbed out of the trenches and, with rifles at the ready, ran towards the enemy shouting "Hurrah!", and firing the remaining blank rounds into the air. The enemy soldiers did the same, running towards us with smiles on their faces. Upon meeting, the opponents hugged and joked.

Even an epidemic in our barracks didn't dampen our spirits. When more than a hundred people live in the same room, any sneeze spreads to everyone. And as soon as one of us caught a cold, within a few days the whole company was sneezing and coughing. Actually, it was a blessing. We all got through the cold, some worse than others, while in City V. And everyone eventually recovered. However, my cold developed into bronchitis, and I was out of training for a few days: I was transferred to the infirmary.

The infirmary was quite… peculiar. It was another barrack where they brought people with acute illnesses. There weren't many of them. When I arrived at the infirmary, it looked like an abandoned hospital from a horror movie: dim lighting, many empty beds, and a few people in the depths of the dark hall. They were sleeping. And not a single doctor, nurse, or attendant in sight. We were on our own. Once a day, they brought us food, and once a day, a doctor came and asked about our well-being. Then a tired orderly appeared – a mobilized soldier like us. He took our temperature and lived with us in the infirmary. Sometimes he handed out cough pills with the amazing name: "Cough Pills." Couldn't argue with that.

During the doctor's visit, I complained about wheezing in my upper airways. The doctor listened to me and gave me some potent antibiotics that were supposed to help in three days – and they did! After a few days in this infirmary, I realized I definitely wouldn't recover there, so I told the orderly I felt better and simply went AWOL back to my barracks. The treatment methods in the Russian army turned out to be quite effective.

We also experienced the usual army drill idiocy. There was a large parade ground in front of our barracks, where we were regularly lined up for all sorts of reasons, or for no reason at all. For example, for uniform inspections. Or announcements from various generals.

A general would arrive – the political officer of the academy or some other district – and his song would begin: "Comrades! You are soldiers, brave warriors of our great Motherland! You are the future of Russia! You must crush the enemy who desires our annihilation! And a soldier of the Russian Army must look presentable! Uniforms and boots must be clean! Belt buckles must shine!" – Even then, it was clear what was going on in this comrade's head and what priorities he had established in this speech. – "And, most importantly, a soldier of the Russian Army must, in all his actions, be worthy of our great Motherland! A soldier must maintain discipline! Obey the orders of commanders and do nothing that would discredit the military honour of our army! And what do I see instead? Huh!? Every evening: a huge, green line! At the Krasnoe & Beloe liquor store!"

There, in City of V, I also tried operating a quadcopter. We called drones "birds." Many were convinced that a drone could see everything happening on the ground and that every other drone was equipped with night vision or thermal imaging. However, this turned out to be completely untrue. The drone I operated was an inexpensive civilian version, and its camera didn't show that much. In reality, against the backdrop of a field or forest, it's indeed possible to see a group of moving people. However, if a person is alone and standing still under a tree, you'll never spot them from a drone! A camouflaged soldier can indeed hide from a drone in vegetation – it works! I pointed the camera at a stationary person from a height of forty meters, but couldn't find him. Of course, a lot depends on the camera quality, the operator's attentiveness, and the density of the vegetation above the person's head. But I realized then that drones aren't all-powerful.

The next day, we were assembled on the parade ground to see off a neighboring battalion to the war. They were being deployed before us, and before their departure, they decided to make them march. The actual departure was scheduled for the following day, so this was more of a ceremony. A ceremony with TV crews, officials, and priests. We were ordered to form up, and we did. Our only task was to shout "Hurrah!" and clap for the comrades marching past. Meanwhile, the departing battalion marched past us across the parade ground. An orchestra played "Farewell of Slavianka," banners with the face of Jesus Christ fluttered over the parade ground, priests blessed the soldiers with holy water, generously sprinkling it over the formation. TV crews filmed the whole thing, officials and generals observed. Many parting words were spoken: about bravery, honor, glory, and other "blah-blah-blah." But we sincerely wished our neighbors good luck, sincerely clapped for them, and shouted "Hurrah!"

Soon, we too were informed that we would be leaving for our positions the next day. A final, fierce drinking spree began throughout the entire battalion.


Chapter 3: Departure. City of V - Ukraine. Autumn 22.


That night almost no one slept. Nefrit, who had barely drunk before, got completely hammered and started playing old familiar songs on his guitar. But he didn't finish any of them, constantly losing the thread and starting something else. A soldier with the call sign "Shal" (Shawl) got into a fight with our company commander and was forcibly put to bed. Groups of mobilized men sat on their bunks, sharing stories and joking about our fate.

Half-drunk, we packed our things – and there were a lot of them. We didn't know what exactly we would need at the front, so each of us had several large duffel bags with belongings. Many squads pooled their money to buy communal supplies, hoping to end up in the same positions near each other. Our battalion even had four large generators, which the battalion commander (ComBat) sold to us (yes, sold). Our ComBat, aptly nicknamed "Shprits" (Syringe), was a resourceful man. Over time, we started hearing more and more rumours about him trading humanitarian aid and military equipment.

In the pre-dawn darkness, we started hauling all our gear out of the barracks and loading it onto vehicles. The vehicles transported most of our belongings and weapons to the train station. The chaos began right then. Loading and unloading in the army is a special kind of art form, too. The point is to cram as much as possible into the smallest possible volume. There aren't enough vehicles, and there's no time to make multiple trips. So, we stuffed things up to the ceiling of the trucks and stomped them down with our feet.

The same situation applied to transporting people. They were going to take us to the train station in buses, but there weren't enough for everyone. Even though the ride was only twenty minutes, it caused problems. Remember, we were all completely plastered. At one point, the ComBat gave the order to split our platoon and distribute people among other buses because there wasn't enough room for Pyatnashka (Fifteen) on one bus. Everyone started protesting:

"How's that?"
"Why are they splitting us up?"
"We've spent a month together, and you're dividing us!"
"We won't go on other buses! Load the whole platoon onto one!"

Nefrit yelled: "Pyatnashka, stay together! Hold the line! Don't abandon your positions!"

Another of our comrades, nicknamed "Pes" (Dog), started "reasoning" with Shprits: "Who do you take us for, I don't understand? Are we some kind of conscripts to you? Have you completely lost it? There's no bus for us? We're going to war, and you're mocking us! I've been with these guys for a month, everyone here has each other's backs! Let's settle this like men, I'll take you down! Or are you not a man?!"

All this was to no avail. We stood there, going nowhere. Slowly, people started squeezing onto the buses. Well, squeezing – the seats on the buses were taken. We just climbed inside and packed ourselves in tight. With great difficulty, our unit finally departed from the academy. A crowd of locals gathered at the exit, seeing us off as if we were their relatives. Women waved handkerchiefs, children shouted "Hurrah!", and men gave us the fist bump, as if to say, "Hang in there, brothers." Drivers honked at our buses from the parking lot, sending us on our way.

But as soon as the buses disappeared around the bend, many of those seeing us off finally breathed a sigh of relief. Because "those damn mobilized men" (meaning us) had been a constant headache for the locals. Fights, drunkenness, lines at the stores, liquor theft, harassing women, and other delights of close proximity to military personnel.

Arriving at the railway, we found a train waiting for us, set apart from the station. Our belongings were loaded onto unheated freight cars, and we began settling into the passenger cars. During the loading process, a small shop was discovered near the tracks where we could stock up on essential supplies for the train journey. Although we had been given rations – enough MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) – we didn't yet understand their true value and started opening them right away.

The train started moving, and we, like experienced connoisseurs, began sampling the different dishes: beef stew, rice porridge with meat, meatballs, vegetable stew, applesauce, bacon, crackers with pâté, tea, coffee, chocolate, chewing gum. Different MREs contained different dishes, and we shared with each other, trying a little bit of everything. Within a few days on the train, all the MREs were gone. How we regretted that later.

Besides the MREs, we also ate our own food supplies: sandwiches with various cheeses and sausages for snacks, grilled chicken, and, of course, strong drinks!

There was enough alcohol to last us a couple of days on the train, so many of us only sobered up at our destination. Throughout the journey, we could hear Nefrit playing his guitar and singing old favourites, which he, as usual, never finished; discussions about how awful the "Ukrops" (a derogatory term for Ukrainians) were and how we would defeat them all; conversations about life and God, and history.

"Do you believe in God?" Tush (Ink), a soldier who considered himself Orthodox, asked me.

"No," I replied.

"Good heavens, and I'm going to war with this man! How can you not believe in God? Are you even Russian?"

"And what about Ofis?" I asked, pointing to a stocky guy with an Asian face on the next bunk. "He's Muslim. Doesn't he bother you?"

"Well, even though he's Muslim, he believes in God! But you don't! " Tush, full of indignation, strained to raise his voice. "What do you believe in, then?"

One of us, a comrade nicknamed "Mort" (Death), had brought weed onto the train. Mort was generally "in the know," unlike me, and smoked anything he could get his hands on at any opportunity. So, on the train, he started packing his pipe with weed and offered me some. Even though I wasn't "in the know," I agreed. Why not? I was already halfway to the grave.

I didn't smoke much: just a couple of puffs and stopped. I liked it – I liked it a lot. It relaxed me almost immediately, and the feeling lasted for about half an hour. It was a pleasant sensation, but I didn't want to overdo it. Mort, however, continued to get high every day as long as he had something to smoke.

At another drinking session, the reconnaissance scouts of our battalion joined us. Our ComBat, Shprits, wanted to somehow interfere with our daily drinking sessions, and he also held a grudge against our platoon, Pyatnashka, because Pes had cursed at him while we were being loaded onto the buses.

The scouts showed up with rifles and balaclavas, so no one could see their faces. Finding Nefrit completely drunk, they started a conversation with him and smashed him in the face with a rifle butt. A brawl began, if you could call it that.

Nefrit demanded retribution. The scouts retreated to a narrow passageway. No one understood who was right or wrong. There was a struggle and commotion in the narrow passage. It was unclear who was fighting whom. Shmel (Bumblebee) butted heads with a scout. Grusha (Pear) climbed onto the luggage rack and was about to jump on one of them. Remen (Belt) tried unsuccessfully to calm Nefrit, but he, without lowering his tone, shouted orders to the platoon: "Pyatnashka, hold your positions! Ukrop forward recon has infiltrated the train! We're fighting back! Put them face down on the floor and disarm them!"

Vata (Cotton Wool) and I were stuck in the narrow passageway, waiting for our company commander, Lineika (Ruler), to arrive. When Lineika finally showed up (also drunk as a skunk), he sent the scouts back to Shprits and went to deal with the situation himself.

But no one ever really figured out what happened. Whose order was it to hit Nefrit in the eye? Did he provoke it or not? We spent the whole evening drinking and arguing about "principles," but the whole situation remained utterly senseless.

A few days later, we reached the border town of A. Actually, we could have gotten from City V to City A faster, but we spent a long time waiting on sidings, letting other trains pass so as not to interfere with civilian rail traffic.

Getting off the train near the station early in the morning, before sunrise, we unloaded our belongings from the freight car. How to proceed further – no one knew. Where we were going – no one knew either. But several trucks – Urals and Kamazes – were waiting near the train, and we headed towards them.

Our belongings were to be transported first, so the hellish game of Tetris began anew. Bags were crammed deeper and tighter into the trucks. One soldier, clinging to the roof of an Ural, used both legs to push bags into the cargo bed. Chaos reigned; no one knew which truck was going where or where our things would be unloaded. Luckily, we had labeled most of the bags with unit numbers and call signs. But that didn't always help. Miraculously, everything was crammed into the trucks, and they set off for the front. Where exactly – no one knew.

While the drivers were transporting our belongings, we started receiving ammunition and Promedol (a strong painkiller). Crates and ammo cans were pried open somehow, and the horde of mobilized men began loading their magazines. For most, this was routine, but we found a soldier among us who had never done this before – Shesternya (Gear). He was an "Alyoshenka" – he never understood what was going on, and army service was incredibly stressful for him. He didn't know how to load magazines. We showed him an example, and he began to struggle on his own. It took him about an hour to load four magazines for his rifle.

Our machine gunner, Dubina (Cudgel), along with his comrade Shinel (Overcoat), experienced similar struggles. The reason, as might be assumed from their telling nicknames, was not their inexperience but the sheer volume of work. Dubina and Shinel had already fought in the war twice as volunteers in the armies of the unrecognized republics. Now they had volunteered again, only this time for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, alongside the mobilized troops. They had combat experience, so Dubina was assigned as a machine gunner with a PKM (Kalashnikov modernized machine gun). Unlike our riflemen, he had not magazines but boxes with belts of ammunition. Understandably, his machine gun required far more rounds than ours. So, he and Shinel spent a full hour loading his belts while Shesternya loaded his four magazines.

We waited for several hours. A few more trucks were allocated for transporting people. And that's when I truly understood what it was like to travel in an Ural. When we were training in City V, we had short rides in these rickety vehicles, but they didn't last long: half an hour or an hour. That didn't count. Now we faced a nine-hour journey in an Ural. The Ural's cargo bed contained a couple of narrow benches – if you were lucky. And thirty men were supposed to fit in this cargo bed. Our entire Pyatnashka squad squeezed into one Ural. We felt like those bags that had been mercilessly crammed in just a few hours earlier.

Making any extra movement in the Ural was a big problem. Standing up was a problem, changing seats was a problem, getting cigarettes out of your pocket was a problem. If your leg or backside went numb, that was a problem. If you needed to use the bathroom, that was a problem. The best solution you could come up with during a journey in an Ural was to try to sleep sitting up.

The scenery outside slowly changed. I like sitting near the side of a truck and observing what's happening outside. Russian and Ukrainian nature are similar, but the infrastructure was noticeably different. At first, we saw the well-maintained and civilized areas of the Russian provinces: paved roads and highways, small towns, shops, cafes, hotels, numerous road signs and indicators, bus stops, and other signs of urban life. This continued until we crossed the border and entered the territory of the "people's republics."

Here, in general, things looked similar, but it was evident that civilization was much weaker here. Buildings increasingly resembled Soviet architecture, bus stops were made of thick concrete, road signs became fewer and farther between, roads deteriorated, and consumer establishments like cafes and shops gradually disappeared.

At some point, we realized we had passed another checkpoint at the border and entered the front-line rural area. The asphalt ended, and we began moving along dirt roads. We were very lucky with the weather – there was no rain, and the ground was relatively dry. Nevertheless, the trucks moved much slower than on asphalt. Deep ruts, carved by numerous trucks that had traveled this route before, scarred the roads. The trucks constantly drove into and out of these ruts, the cargo bed tilting left and right. The jolting woke everyone who had been sleeping. The time for strong drinks was over; now everyone was sober. Tree branches scraped against the tarp like giant claws. As we passed under some branches, I thought something fell onto the tarp of our Ural. A bomb? No, thankfully, it wasn't.

Our column began to split up. The entire battalion had to be billeted somewhere, and there was no single place to put everyone. Even a single company couldn't be accommodated in one building. So, the Urals dispersed along the road, each going to its assigned location.

After a couple of hours of driving through mud, fields, and hills, the lead driver suddenly realized we were lost. The order was given to stop.

One of the soldiers, nicknamed "Shar" (Ball), had been wanting to use the bathroom the entire journey. As soon as the opportunity arose, he hopped over the tailgate of the truck, walked over to the bushes by the road, unzipped his fly, and started to relieve himself.

And then thunder struck.


Chapter 4: Village of U. Frontline. Autumn '22.


At that time, we didn't understand that war was about artillery. We didn't understand where our side was and where the enemy was. We didn't understand how far away the shots were coming from; we couldn't even distinguish outgoing fire from incoming fire by sound. We didn't understand anything at all. No one explained any of this to us. We understood only one thing: we couldn't do anything about it.

The column started moving almost immediately. Shar, in a panic, ran after our Ural, grabbed the side of the truck, scrambled inside, and only then started buttoning his pants.

We had never heard the sounds of artillery before. So, we were convinced that they were shooting directly at us! The believers among us prayed. That day, many of us had the thought for the first time: "Maybe I did something wrong in this life? Maybe I shouldn't have taken that damn draft notice and gone to the recruitment office? What a fool I am..."

Only later did we realize that it was Russian artillery firing near us. But we didn't see them. "Near" meant within a kilometre of us. What we considered incoming rounds were actually outgoing fire. But back then, we were sure of the opposite.

Our cheerful journey transformed into sheer terror. We arrived "somewhere," in the middle of nowhere. On one side – sunflowers; on the other – a field. Beyond that – another field. None of the fields had been cultivated since the beginning of the war, and between them was a tree line.

"Unload!" the driver commanded.

"Pyatnashka, take positions, find yourselves some trenches!" Stopor, our platoon commander, added.

It was already getting dark. We dispersed along the tree line, spreading out as much as possible. Shaiba assigned me as an observer for our squad. I took a position under a tree and began… observing.

It was difficult to call it a "position" – there was no cover dug there. And there was nothing to observe either. Someone shouted to me, "The enemy is over there!" and pointed to the field. So, I started looking in that direction. A village was visible beyond the field, with trucks constantly driving through it. To the right, there was some kind of lake and the slope of a hill, with a dirt road winding along it. Something was moving along that road, too.

Artillery shells and flares regularly flew over our heads, and sometimes drones. Back then, we reacted to every stimulus.

"Incoming!"

Every minute someone would yell, "Incoming!" Everyone would drop to the ground and wait for the alarm to pass. But the alarm never ends. Anyone could shout "Incoming!" as soon as they heard or saw something they considered dangerous. But no one ever shouted "All clear!", because no one ever knew when the danger had passed. Everyone got up from the ground at their own discretion. At first, we waited for a minute. Then for half a minute. Then for ten seconds. Then it gradually dawned on us that they weren't actually shooting at us. And some of us stopped hitting the dirt. An hour later, I fell asleep sitting under that tree.

When Shaiba woke me up, he found a replacement for me and told me to find a place to sleep. Many things had been dug in this tree line, but nothing had been completed. Someone had dug trenches before us – but they were shallow, and there were too few of them. Someone had dug dugouts before us – but they weren't covered. Essentially, we had neither combat nor living shelters. In complete darkness, struggling to find our belongings, we began settling in for the night under the open sky. I was lucky – my sleeping bag was lying in a pile of things almost at the surface. I chose a spot in an open dugout. The others settled wherever they could.

Even though I didn't have a roof over my head, I was still below ground level. To this day, I believe it's better to live and sleep underground.

The next day, the situation started to become clearer. A contract soldier artilleryman, Kaplya (Drop), came to visit us, and he told us the following.

“We’re near Village U. You can see it over there, beyond the field. You’re the third line of defence. There are two more lines of our soldiers between you and the Ukrops. We, the artillery, are positioned behind you, behind the sunflowers. Everyone around here is on our side. Essentially, nothing threatens you here, as long as you’re careful and don’t attract attention.”

This was a huge relief for us. We started walking around the tree line, inspecting the positions. Each squad chose a dugout and started setting it up. Actually, we were very lazy about setting up our dugouts. We didn’t even bother covering them with logs – we just stretched tarps over them and piled our belongings underneath. We built a few tents on the surface, lit several fires to make coffee and tea. The squad leaders set up posts for night duty. Now we were only afraid of the legendary DRGs – enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups – and were convinced that they would sneak up on us at night.

Company First Sergeant Vishnya paid us a visit and organized a field kitchen. Two platoons were stationed in our tree line: ours and the neighboring one. Vishnya and the supply guys stayed a bit further away, preparing food and bringing the field kitchen to feed us. Company Commander Lineika also visited us a couple of days later, inspected the positions, and stayed with us.

In the process, it turned out that not all of our belongings had reached their destination. Some of the duffel bags that we had crammed into the trucks in the City of A ended up with our neighbours in another company and were lying there in a big pile. The same thing happened with their bags – they were brought to us. So, we ended up with a bunch of someone else's stuff, while our things were somewhere with another company. The most unlucky one was a mobilized soldier nicknamed "Tuz" (Ace) – this poor guy was left without a sleeping bag. My God, he slept without a sleeping bag out in the open and somehow didn't freeze to death – and it was already late autumn, and the temperature dropped to freezing at night. We were lucky there was no rain or snow.

We got used to the artillery fire, got used to living outdoors. In the evenings, we watched the horizon, trying to make out where our artillery was firing. And on the second or third night, Dubina started firing.

Dubina, Shinel, and another soldier nicknamed "Kolobok" (Gingerbread Man) had occupied one trench together and were trying to set it up. They agreed on duty shifts as follows: Dubina and Shinel would take turns at night, and Kolobok would be on duty during the day. Having stood watch all day, the still inexperienced Kolobok lay down to sleep, unaware of any trouble. At that time, Dubina noticed something in the fog on the other side of the field…

And Dubina opened fire! From his machine gun!

Let me remind you that we were in the third line of defence, meaning everyone around us was on our side! Dubina thought that enemy saboteurs were crawling towards us across the field, and opened fire.

Kolobok woke up to the sound of a Kalashnikov machine gun firing bursts right next to his ear, and hot shell casings raining down on his sleeping bag. Waking up like that is an adventure in itself. Kolobok hadn't even fully opened his eyes when Dubina yelled in his ear:

“Change positions!”

And the whole brave trio dashed to a neighbouring trench to take up a new position there.

At that moment, everyone was roused by the alarm. I was so reluctant to get out of my sleeping bag, but I knew I had to. Although, honestly, I felt that this alarm was false. We dispersed to our positions and peered into the fog over the field for an hour – but saw nothing. We didn't want to fire unnecessarily.

The next day, after this incident, our company commander Lineika decided to go and see where Dubina had actually been shooting. Maybe there were enemy bodies left there, struck down by the bullets of our brave machine gunner?

Lineika inspected Village U and the field in the sector that Dubina had fired upon, but found nothing. However, Lineika encountered a Kamaz driver from another battalion, who told him a frightening story: "I was driving, you see, last night through Village U, as usual, with my headlights off. I stopped, you see, by an abandoned house to rummage through it a bit. And suddenly a machine gun opens fire on me! From where? Unclear! Why? Who? Unclear! There shouldn't be any Ukrops here, it's all our guys!"

From then on, jokes circulated about Dubina, the madman, the lunatic, who had shot up a "Kamaz." And not a Ukrop Kamaz, but one of ours. During regular service, he would have been chewed out for this. But ours wasn't regular service – ours was war. They didn’t scold Dubina too harshly for this; they understood that if a real enemy DRG had been in place of that Kamaz, he really would have needed to shoot.

On the fifth day of our stay in Village U, I had the idea to build a latrine. I honestly dug a hole among the sunflowers, set up stumps of the right size for comfort. A piece of plywood with a hole made an excellent seat. Not like at home, of course, but not bad at all. The human body reacts to stressful situations in different ways. And for me, stress means constipation. Constipation can last up to a week. The body tries to absorb all the nutrients it can and not waste anything unnecessarily. That's why I really wanted to make a comfortable toilet, so I could finally feel human again. It was all for nought. I never got to use it.

We were given the order to pack up and leave our settled position.


Chapter 5: Villages P and Z. Front Line. Autumn '22


Our platoon was the first to move to the new location. We arrived in some forest, already in darkness. We spent a long time lugging our belongings from place to place before finally settling down for the night under the open sky. We didn't find any housing, and we only started exploring the surroundings in the morning. That morning, the temperature dropped just below freezing, and my sleeping bag was lightly covered with frost. When I crawled out of it, it softly crunched. Beautiful, simply beautiful! Ah, if only this were a vacation in nature – it would have been just perfect! But alas, it's only perfect when you can always return home, to civilization.

After wandering around the area, we discovered a couple of covered dugouts – they were ready for habitation, but there wouldn't have been enough space for everyone. There were also a couple of open dugouts that needed to be finished, requiring roofs made of logs (called "nakat"). Our platoon deputy, Stopor, announced to us all: "We're deep in the rear! We're surrounded by our own! Nothing threatens us here, we just need to sit tight and keep a low profile! We're incredibly lucky to have ended up in this place. Let's prepare the dugouts for living in!"

But we had already figured out that there wouldn't be enough space for everyone in the dugouts: we needed to occupy houses!

It was wonderful. After living outdoors, we finally returned to a warm and dry place. We rested and slept for a couple of days.

We washed ourselves for the first time in a week! The houses had small rooms with drains where you could wash yourself from a bucket. We heated the water on the stove – pure bliss! Not far from the houses was a small lake where we washed our clothes. The water was cold – it was late autumn – but it was water!

Tuz, who had been sleeping without a sleeping bag all this time, having recovered by the stove, was back to life. A couple of soldiers, Suleiman and Kryuk (Hook), went fishing in the lake and even caught a couple of fish. A kilometre from our houses, we discovered a spring where the locals collected clean water, and we started going there too.

There was no noise around. No artillery fire nearby. We were stationed far behind the artillery, and nothing bothered us. For the show, we set up observation posts to control the road and observe the village from the hill – but these posts were completely useless because there was nothing to observe.

In the evenings, we played cards and listened to Ukrainian radio on our radios. Life was getting better, and we firmly decided to spend the winter in Village P. Just sit there, keep the stove warm, and collect your pay.

But we were very quickly driven out of this Eden. A few days later, Lineika arrived and gave the order to move to new positions again: “We’re going there for a couple of days! Take only the essentials! It will be dangerous there, the Ukrops will be less than a kilometre away: there will be no time to mess with your belongings!”

And again, the loading of belongings, again the Ural, crammed full of duffel bags and people in body armor and helmets, with rifles. Again, we were going "nowhere." We took only the most necessary things with us, leaving one person to guard everything else in Village P – the most useless comrade from the army's point of view – Shesternya. He had enough firewood and food to survive alone. But even then, many laughed at him. He couldn't light a stove by himself, couldn't maintain the fire, couldn't cook food. I'm not exactly a survival expert either, but compared to him, I was Bear Grylls.

As for us, we left Village P. again towards evening and arrived at a transit point in Village Z. We were told we would spend the night here and move on the next day. The first collective decision: Occupy the houses! Each squad found an abandoned house. Walking along the nearest street of the village, we encountered soldiers from other units.

"Hey, guys! Are you mobiks?" (mobilized soldiers)

"Nah, we're contract soldiers."

"Where are you from?"

"Nizhnegorskaya."

The name "Nizhnegorskaya" meant nothing to us. We didn't know anyone here besides the soldiers from our own battalion.

"Listen, guys, what kind of village is this?"

"Village Z."

"Is there a store here or something like that?"

"There is, a village store further down the street, but there's almost nothing there. And there's a dealer beyond the ravine, he has a lot of stuff."

Disappointed with the selection, we went to the dealer on the other side of the ravine. The dealer had a completely different approach to trade. He didn't have a building with shelves of goods. Instead, customers would approach the gate, and the seller, Vityok (Victor), would come out. Always in a black jacket and always with a headlamp on his forehead. We asked Vityok what he had and how much it cost. Vityok wrote down our order on a piece of paper but didn't name the prices for the goods, saying he couldn't remember. After that, he would go into the house, gather the order into bags, bring them out, and only then announce the final price. Take it or leave it. In most cases, everyone agreed – there was nowhere else to buy.

And the dealer's assortment was much wider than in the village store. Soda, sausage, cheese, vegetables, flashlights, wires, batteries, cigarettes, bread to order, mayonnaise, ketchup, headphones, sweets, waffles, and so on. The dealer himself went to Russia to stock up every few days, his wife looked after the house and the warehouse, and his son, also Vityok, traded with the customers. It was clear that the business was well-established. This dealer had beaten the village store in the competition and cornered the entire market in the surrounding area. Soldiers from all nearby positions and residents from other villages came to the dealer in Z. For us, this dealer became the only thread connecting us to civilization for a long time.

Having stocked up on cigarettes and snacks, we returned to our houses and stayed the night in Z. And then I realized something terrible – I had forgotten my sleeping bag in Village of P! I had forgotten to take it with me! A fatal mistake. I slept in my clothes, and my feet were completely numb after an hour, let alone by morning. Now I had to experience the plight of poor Tuz.

The next morning, we went to the meeting point and realized that our luck with the weather had run out. It was raining. Rain during wartime is a terrible thing. If you have a roof over your head, you’re lucky. But even then, you can’t stay indoors all the time. You constantly have to do something outside. So, there we were, trudging through the rain to the loading area, knowing deep down that we wouldn’t be able to dry off.

At the loading area, we waited a long time for our transport. And, luckily, we found shelter from the rain—a huge piece of tarp lying nearby. After somehow spreading it out, a crowd of thirty men huddled underneath. Those standing at the edges held the ends of the tarp. We resembled a flock of penguins trying to keep each other warm. A couple of hours later, another Ural arrived and took us to some obscure tree line. In this tree line, there was absolutely nothing: no dugouts, no trenches, no paths. We just stood among the trees, not knowing what to do next. And the rain kept pouring down.

Some of our guys started complaining to the command.

“They dumped us in the middle of the forest!”
“No positions, no shelter, nothing!”
“Where are we, anyway?”
“When will they bring food?”
“This is fucked up!”

All the stones were thrown at our platoon commander. He lost control of the men. Everyone was dissatisfied. We spent the whole day like this. Just standing in the middle of the tree line, waiting for what would happen next. And finally, in the evening, something did happen.

Our presence in this tree line wasn't needed by anyone. The command sent a new truck to take us to an apiary near Village of I. At that time, it was under enemy control. We didn't know if there was fighting going on there or some kind of offensive. We didn't know anything. No one told us or explained anything to us. Our guys didn't want to go. But if we didn't go, it was also unclear what would happen next and what to do. So, half of the platoon declared their unwillingness to follow orders, but nevertheless, everyone boarded the truck and we left. By nightfall, we arrived at the apiary near Village of I.


Chapter 6: Arrival at the Apiary near Village of I. Front Line. Autumn '22


We jumped off the Ural near the apiary. Unloaded our belongings and piled them in the mud by the roadside. We were met by contract soldiers who lived there in the small house belonging to the apiary's owner. We were in luck with these contract soldiers: they showed us where we could settle in. Besides the main house, there were several other structures on the apiary grounds: a banya (sauna), a barn, garages with equipment, a spacious cellar for beehives, and a few sheds. Luckily, there was enough room for everyone. We settled into the beehive cellar, pulled the straw from the barn and spread it on the floor for comfortable sleeping. This cellar served as both our sleeping quarters and a shelter in case of artillery shelling. We stored our belongings in the garages to protect them from the rain.

There was a small potbelly stove in the cellar, which we immediately put to use. We ruthlessly broke apart the beehive frames and spent the first week heating the stove with them. It was heartbreaking. Someone calculated that each frame was worth about a hundred rubles. The apiary's owner had spent years diligently crafting these frames, and now they were being used as firewood. We were heating the stove with money and the beekeeper's labour. And there were a lot of frames and beehives: about a hundred hives, with a dozen frames for each hive. Nevertheless, it was still very cold at night.

Every night I cursed myself for not bringing a sleeping bag.

The contract soldiers told us that the enemy was a little over half a kilometre away. Only later did we realize that they were just trying to scare us. We set up posts for observation and security of our positions. Between us and the enemy was a road, a field, and some hills. Our vehicles drove along the road, and the field was mined. Tree lines were visible on the hills where the enemy was positioned, but they were actually more than a kilometre and a half away. We didn’t see any enemy soldiers. But the posts had to be set up just in case.

My squad set up a post in the middle – closest to our living quarters. It was only a three-minute walk to the post: a real treat. But you had to stand guard around the clock; we divided the time so that each of us stood for an average of three hours during the day and three hours at night. Not too much, not too little. There was time to sleep and to take care of chores. Things were calm. On the third night, it started to snow.

Not just snow, but a blizzard. In the middle of the night, we went out on duty in our ponchos and discovered that the blizzard was blowing right in our faces. Standing guard for those three hours was unbearable; the snow stung our eyes, the cold was bitter, and we couldn't see a thing. After standing like this for about half an hour, we, without conferring, turned our backs to the enemy and simply stood there with our backs to them. Perhaps, if they had decided to attack that night, we wouldn't have seen anything at all! We endured those miserable three hours and went back to sleep.

In the morning, Stopor, our platoon commander, woke us all up, wished us good morning, and said:

"There’s a surprise waiting for you all outside!”

"Yeah, a surprise only for you. You weren’t standing guard last night, freeloader," we grumbled under our breath, so he wouldn't hear.

The snow didn't last long. There were only a few snowfalls in November and December, and each time the snow stayed on the ground for a couple of days before melting.


Chapter 7: Quiet Life at the Apiary near Village of U. Frontline. Autumn '22


We gradually started settling in at the apiary. It was very cramped in the cellar; thirty men lived in sixty square meters, and over time, we got tired of it. Some people moved from the cellar to the surface, into the garages. In my opinion, this was dangerous, so I stayed put in the cellar until the very end. But all our belongings were moved to the garage. Our living space was cramped, but over time, it became cosier.

The most important thing was the stove. We tried different options, and the most reliable turned out to be a barrel. A large rain barrel was turned upside down, and placed on bricks, with a grate inserted at the bottom. Kryuk and I used a bayonet and bricks to make holes in the barrel. At the bottom, many holes for airflow and a door for firewood. At the top – an opening for the pipe. We managed to find two elbow joints and a couple of metal sheets. We slowly and painstakingly fastened the metal together with wire, and it turned into a hideous but functional stovepipe. Kryuk, our master stove-maker, sealed the entire structure with a potent mixture of clay and cow dung.

The barrel stove turned out monstrous. After several days of unholy rituals of makeshift production and dances with a tambourine, hammer, and cow dung, this infernal contraption was born. A hellish spawn. Ugly, terrifying, leaky, smeared with shit – a Frankensteinian monster. But reliable and fully functional. We made it ourselves, and that was good. While we lived at the apiary, this stove reliably heated our garage; sometimes it even got too hot, like in a sauna.

The beehives and planks made excellent bunks. Many of the hives were empty, and we took them apart for parts. Disassemble one hive, lay down the planks, put foam padding and a sleeping bag on top – and the bunk is ready. That's how three people from the cellar moved into our garage.

Soon, our remaining belongings arrived. Finally, all the missing items were recovered, and everyone had a sleeping bag and spare warm clothes. My sleeping bag also arrived, and I could finally sleep like a human being again!

I made my bed in the cellar out of huge bricks. Whether they were salt licks for cows or construction blocks, I don't know – I carried them into the cellar and arranged them in the hive rack, laid straw on top, then foam padding and my sleeping bag. I even made a bedside table out of another brick – a real fairytale. Hive racks were installed along the entire cellar, and all the soldiers eventually adapted them for furniture. These racks were transformed into beds, shelves, clothes dryers, kitchen tables, and bedside tables. Thankfully, there were enough planks for all of this. Essentially, we lived like homeless people, but it was a quiet and good life.

Our company commander, Lineika, would sometimes visit us. He had acquired an SUV and occasionally drove around the positions. Soon, he brought us a generator, which was installed in one of the sheds. There weren't many outlets, but over time we managed to run electricity to the cellar and the garages. Most importantly, this generator allowed us to charge our radios, flashlights, and power banks.

We were also very lucky with water: the apiary had a well with an electric pump. Once a day, we turned on the pump and filled all our bottles with clean water. Luckily, we had plenty of them – a batch of bottled drinking water had been delivered to us. We drank this water as is, and the well water was boiled and used for tea, coffee, and cooking. We could even heat the banya and wash ourselves and our clothes – there was always plenty of water.

The same couldn't be said about food. Food deliveries were very irregular. The road from the rear to us was under enemy artillery fire, and the drivers were afraid to drive to us – and the supply officers were reluctant to lose vehicles. At first, there was a constant food shortage. We were living hand-to-mouth, and a man was assigned to our squad to be in charge of food. This was Tush – he would portion out the food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and he gave out very little. For example, lunch at first might consist of a single packet of instant noodles, one slice of bread with butter, and one piece of candy.

Disheartened by this state of affairs, we tried to find a solution. Kot (Cat), Vratar (Goalkeeper), and I made several trips on foot to the neighbouring Village of Z, to our now-familiar dealer. It was a long walk there – several kilometres – and the road was difficult. A tractor track led uphill across a field, the mud underfoot squelching and hindering our progress, not a soul or a passing vehicle around, and on both sides of the track – a minefield. Only near the village did the road turn into smooth asphalt, where we could catch a ride and ask for a lift. Besides, the three of us couldn't carry much food for thirty people.

On one of these trips, we noticed soldiers from another unit butchering a cow. We didn’t know these guys, but Shar asked them to share some meat, and they readily treated us. They cut off a piece of a cow’s leg, which I dutifully carried on my back all the way to the apiary. This was enough to feed the entire platoon for a whole day.

But this couldn't go on forever, so we made the only possible decision – to start hunting for our own game. The brave adventurers Grusha and Shmel lured one of the wandering cows, threw a noose around its neck, and led it closer to the apiary. Its death was swift, and the knives got to work. Without much hesitation, we quickly butchered the cow and distributed the meat among the squads. The temperature outside was just above freezing, so we simply stored the meat in empty beehives, where it kept well, as if in a refrigerator.

That same evening, we started grilling shashlik. We found a rusty grill somewhere and started cooking the divine dish right there in the open. Everyone was happy, everyone finally had their fill. There was enough for everyone.

We were standing outside in a group, chatting, smoking, and eating shashlik. That evening, Lineika came by and was indignant at such blatant disregard for appearances: “What do you think you’re doing here, having a vacation or something? Soldiers have come to fight a war, dammit! They’re standing here grilling shashlik in the open!” His face turned noticeably red. “Maybe I should bring you some beer, vodka, and some women, too? The Ukrops will look at you through their binoculars and be stunned! Chilling out in the open like they're at home!”

In general, he was right, we were attracting too much attention to ourselves. The enemy was closely watching what was happening from the hills, and our idyllic life wasn’t destined to last forever.


Chapter 8: Shooting at the Apiary near Village of I. Front Line. Winter '22


One fine day, we attracted attention. Grusha and Shmel were returning from their evening post. It was winter and it got dark early, so everything happened at dusk.

Suddenly, the cold air was ripped apart by automatic gunfire. No one understood who was shooting or from where. Perhaps it was enemy saboteurs. Grusha and Shmel immediately threw themselves to the ground in the nearest ditch and lay flat. Against the grey sky, they saw a lone silhouette flash across the road in the direction of the enemy, and then there was no more movement or fire. After lying low for a few minutes and making sure the road was clear, Grusha and Shmel ran back to us and reported what had happened. We poured out of the buildings and took up positions, but there were no more incidents that night.

That’s when we started digging deeper trenches.

A few days later, enemy drones began flying over us. Not many, just once every couple of hours someone would come to take a look at us. The next day, one of us spotted something suspicious through binoculars on a hill half a kilometre away. Something that looked like a hut. For some reason, we thought that enemy saboteurs were launching drones from this hut.

The decision was made to fire on this hut from all barrels. Lineika himself gave the go-ahead, personally participated, and brought his close associates to shoot as well. We took our positions and started firing all together. Rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers – all at once. There was no reaction: no movement, no return fire. But with this foolish act, we attracted even more attention to ourselves and let the enemy know that we were still there.

We started digging the trenches even deeper, and at each of the three posts, we began digging larger shelters – "observation points."

I also saw something myself. Standing alone at my post, against the backdrop of the setting sun, I saw two figures concealed by shadows, descending the hill towards me. Without hesitation, I reported this over the radio and fired a burst from my rifle in the direction where I had seen them. No reaction. To this day, I don't know if they were people or animals, or if I had just imagined it. But after that, we started digging even more trenches.

After a while, one of our soldiers spotted several more figures disappearing into a small wooded area in the middle of the field. On the commander's orders, we took up positions and started firing again. The problem was that no one understood where to shoot. I didn't shoot because I didn't see a target. But the guys from the third post seemed to be shooting in the right direction. Because after a few bursts, a red flare rose from the wooded area. Whether it was some kind of signal from enemy saboteurs, we never found out. No one wanted to go into that wooded area and check. The "observation points" were dug deeper and turned into warming points.

Besides all these silhouettes, animals constantly roamed the area. Cows, roe deer, and sometimes even wild boars. There was a huge cattle farm in this area, and hundreds of cows were left without an owner. Some cows lay dead in the field, others walked on three legs – the area was littered with anti-personnel mines.

We heard a tragicomic story about roe deer from one of the soldiers of a neighbouring unit: “One day, we shot a roe deer in the field. We were hungry, there wasn't much food. One of our guys went to get the roe deer. Boom! Stepped on a mine, and lost his leg. They took him away for evacuation. The guys thought, it’s a shame to waste the meat, we need to retrieve it. A second guy went for the roe deer. Boom! Also stepped on a mine, and lost his leg. They took him away. The guys thought, well, there can't be any more mines left now, the third time's the charm. A third guy went for the roe deer. Boom! Also stepped on a mine, lost his leg."

And once, we personally saw a wild boar. Not just a boar, but a huge boar! Fresh snow had just fallen, covering the hillside, and there it was – a massive boar running through the undergrowth, clearly visible. Well, we didn’t bother it – we weren’t about to go after it across a minefield anyway.

We spent half a month in such a nervous atmosphere. And then, one fine day, we attracted enough attention from the enemy for him to remind us: this is war, not a resort.


Chapter 9: Shelling and Deserters at the Apiary near Village of U. Frontline. Winter '22


We were busy with another distribution of supplies that Lineika had brought us. Instant noodles, grains, water, and other things. Tuz was dividing everything among the squads, and I took a box of zucchini caviar to carry it to the cellar. I had just taken my first step when a whistling sound passed over our heads. Half a second later – a booming explosion. We called this a "prilyot" (arrival/incoming).

Tuz bolted from the spot instantly. He ran to the cellar as fast as his legs could carry him. Like a fool, I ran after him, still clutching the box. Only halfway to the cellar did it finally dawn on me that zucchini caviar wasn't that important in this situation, so I carefully placed the box on the ground and continued on my way.

All the soldiers who had been caught on the surface by the enemy shelling ran to the cellar. We gathered downstairs and waited for the shelling to end. I never understood whether they were firing at us from a mortar or a tank. Our experienced warrior Dubina had been through this before, and he turned on the music:

A y нac жapa, кaк нa Бopa-Бopa!
Я бepy тeбя y бapa, бyдтo ты - виcки-кoлa!
«A y вac тaкoй жapы нe былo» - ты гoвopишь!
A y нac жapa тaкaя, чтo ты вcя гopишь, иo! Пoшлa жapa!
Пoшлa жapa!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=TBRIZRD2bYE - "I assume this is the track that he turned on" (translator's note))
Approx. translation:

It's hot here, like in Bora Bora!
I'm picking you up from the bar like you're whiskey and cola!
"You haven't had this kind of heat," you say!
It's so hot here that you're burning up, yo!
The heat is on!
The heat is on!

It was a hell of a party in the cellar under shelling!

Luckily, none of us were injured. We were extremely fortunate at the apiary. When it was all over, about half an hour later, we went outside and started assessing the damage. Food was scattered everywhere around the apiary. People had dropped what they were carrying in panic: bread, cans, instant noodles, and water. Packages lay on the ground, some of them punctured by shrapnel. Several small new holes appeared in the house. And a few craters appeared in the garden.

At first, the shelling occurred about once a week. Since the drivers were afraid to deliver food to us, Lineika took on this task. He brought supplies directly to our apiary in his SUV, risking being spotted and coming under fire. But thanks to him, we had enough food.

With full bellies and due to stress, we started brewing braga (a homemade alcoholic beverage). We had a twenty-five-litre water container, and we could buy yeast and sugar from the dealer in Village Z in sufficient quantities. So, our resourceful comrades quickly started brewing the magic potion. Water, sugar, and yeast, plus honey and/or apples to taste. We had tons of honey; we scooped it out of the empty hives by the jarful.

The braga was placed near the stove and left to ferment for a couple of days. And finally, the moment of uncorking arrived. Twenty-five litres of braga would be consumed by the platoon in a single evening. The braga was magical and long-lasting. You drink a mug – nothing, you drink a second – nothing, you drink a third, a fourth. And then, after half an hour, it hits you!

The first time, we indulged and almost everyone overdid it. But luckily, we drank in our squads. At least one squad stayed sober each day, just in case something bad happened. That's how we coped with the stress of the shelling.

The first post – the post of the first squad – was most often hit by the initial shelling. The first incoming round is the scariest because you don’t expect it. You’re standing on the surface, looking out at the field – and then boom! And only after the first hit do you run for cover underground. And the guys from the first post were terrified of dying because the first round always landed right on them. At some point, conversations started about how we didn’t want to die.

During one of Lineika's visits, the first squad raised the question of "rotation" – this legendary phenomenon involves sending soldiers to the rear for rest after some time on the front line. I never seriously believed in this rotation. But to my surprise, Lineika agreed. He offered everyone who wanted to leave the apiary and move to the rear, to a safer place. Almost the entire first squad was delighted. Our Tush was also thrilled, and the next day, a good half of our platoon left for the rear, to Village P. The platoon commander, Stopor, also left. We cursed him for this act: essentially, he had abandoned half of his platoon under fire. Only Nefrit and Shar remained from the first squad.

Why didn’t we all go to the rear? Why did I refuse to go to the rear? There were several reasons for that:

First, at the apiary, I felt like I was "doing something useful." I had a task: to stand guard and watch the field so that the enemy wouldn't approach unnoticed. There was only a minefield between us and the enemy, so we were fulfilling a "combat mission" (though in reality, we were worthless as fighters). I understood that if we went to the rear, they would find some other task for us.

Second, the further to the rear you go, the more army bullshit there is. Officers drive around in the rear. And officers fuck with your head. Don't go there, don't go here. Stand at attention. Address your commander according to regulations. Phones are prohibited. I can't stand this bullshit. But at the front, officers and commanders almost never appear because they're afraid for their lives (and rightly so). At the front, communication between people is much simpler and more human.

Third, I didn't want to abandon my squad. Our entire second squad, except for Tuz, decided to stay, and I wanted to stay with them.

Thus, we started calling everyone who had gone to the rear "five-hundredths" (five-hundredths are deserters). Only much, much later did we realize how wrong we were.


Chapter 10: Even More Shelling at the Apiary near Village of U. Frontline. Winter '22


The shelling became more and more frequent. Now we were being shelled every couple of days. I often found myself under fire right at my post. The warming point had already been dug deep: it could accommodate two people below ground level, and now it had turned into a proper bomb shelter.

One day, Tuz was caught in the shelling at his post. This poor fellow reported it over the radio, and our squad leader gave him the order to run to the cellar immediately. This was a mistake. As soon as Tuz started running across the garden towards the cellar, the shelling resumed: a second incoming round, a third. Miraculously, he remained safe and sound and made it to the cellar, although the shells were landing just a few dozen meters away. But after this incident, we decided to change our tactics.

In the event of shelling, under no circumstances should you run from your post to the cellar: those three minutes could be fatal. Instead, you should take cover in the shelter, lie as low as possible, and don't move. Of course, the shelter wouldn’t withstand a direct hit: the roof was made of branches and a tarp. But if a mortar round landed ten meters or further away, this shelter would protect you from shrapnel. In reality, most deaths and injuries in this war were caused by shrapnel. The deeper in the ground, the better. A shovel is a soldier’s best friend.

Day after day, Kryuk and I would hide in the shelter at our post and listen to the incoming rounds. One hundred meters, fifty meters, thirty meters away. One incoming, two, six. We would sit there, smoke, and pray to fate that we would be spared. For some reason, we all believed that after six incoming rounds, the shelling should stop – and it often did. Someone said that a mortar crew only carries six rounds. They fire them off and then move to a different position.

However, this rule didn't always work. Sometimes a tank, not a mortar, would fire on us. Sometimes there were fewer incoming rounds. Sometimes more. Once, we counted thirty incoming rounds.

And one day, the enemy artillery reached our structures. Our latrine became the heroic victim of a mortar round. The soldiers mourned its loss: "The latrine's been bombed! Now we have nowhere to shit!"

The latrine was blown away like it was nothing: the planks, splintered into small pieces, were scattered around the apiary, leaving only the cesspit, which had turned into a crater.

Lineika was very displeased with the destruction of the latrine, and a plan was developed to install a new one. Not far from the apiary was a house by the lake where Lineika had been living with his close associates. He dismantled the latrine there, loaded it onto his vehicle, and transported it whole to our apiary. A new cesspit was dug for it, and thus a new officer latrine appeared. Luckily, the prudent owner of the apiary had built a spare one among the trees some distance away long before these events. After the destruction of the first latrine, we quickly discovered the second one, and now we had two whole latrines: the officer’s one and our spare one.

Meanwhile, we weren't the only ones attracting attention. We had neighbours. On one flank, we had the "Starovartovskye" (likely a unit from Nizhnevartovsk), and on the other flank, we had the Village of U. In both places, there were guys from other battalions, and they often walked past us on their way to their posts.

The soldiers from U. walked past our second post every day, and it quickly acquired the name "Gudzon" (Hudson). This was more convenient than "Second Post," and now the sentry on duty would identify himself as "Gudzon" on the radio. Once, Shar got drunk and started calling himself on the radio: "Gudzon, answer Shar, Gudzon, answer Shar."

Our neighbours would occasionally take cover from shelling in our trenches and dugouts. Sometimes we heard their radio chatter, sometimes they fired towards the enemy. All this attracted attention to both them and us.

Sometimes drones would drop grenades. Once, Suleiman spotted this through his binoculars and yelled into the radio: "Bird is dropping a VOG!" Luckily, the VOG (fragmentation grenade launched from a grenade launcher) didn't land near us but near the neighbouring post, and everyone there survived unharmed.

Some shells didn't explode on impact. Either they were duds or the fuse didn't detonate – they just lay there on the ground. We tried to avoid such surprises. But not Kryuk. He wanted to play a joke on us and dug up one of the mortar rounds. At one point, one of the guys went to the latrine – and there was a mine. It was scary, but of course, the shell couldn't detonate just from someone taking a shit on it.

Between shelling, Kryuk and I would have all sorts of conversations at our post:

"- Russia is sending its people to their deaths to seize the territory of another country."

"- You see, this is our land. It has always been ours. These cities were built by our people, by the Russian tsars! We're just taking back what has always belonged to us. It was stolen from us – and we're taking it back."

"- People live on this land who have chosen their own path – a different path of development. They don't want to live the way Russia does."

"- There aren’t people living on this land, there are Nazis. They kill people just for speaking Russian. Ukrainians want to be in Europe, yeah, right! Who'd let them in there! Ukrops are thieves and murderers, they always have been. Uncle Vova (Putin) won't let them get away with this."

"- Excuse me, but I think the thieves and murderers are the ones who sent us here. Putin is the main thief and murderer."

"- Tell me, what would you do if NATO bases were located near your house? The Americans want to destroy Russia, they want you to suffer. Taking this territory is the only way to ensure the safety of our children. Just you wait, Uncle Vova is going to launch nuclear missiles and wipe all these Ukrops off the face of the earth."

Ofis also played pranks out of boredom. One warm day, we weren't heating the stove in the cellar, deciding to save firewood for the night. Ofis, unnoticed by anyone, snuck up to the stovepipe outside and covered it with a plastic bag, tying it in a knot. Evening came, the braga was uncorked in the cellar, and the party was in full swing. As darkness fell, it started to get cold, and the drunken soldiers decided to light the stove. The stove was lit, but the stovepipe was blocked with a bag. All the smoke poured into the cellar, everyone started coughing, their eyes stinging, and all the drunken men stumbled out into the street. A drunk Shar decided to check the stovepipe and discovered the bag.

-"Alert! Pyatnashka, to arms! A Ukrop DRG has infiltrated the apiary and put a bag on the stovepipe so we'd all suffocate!"

Those few who knew what was going on immediately realized that the alarm was false. And those drunk ones who didn't know anything grabbed their weapons and started searching the apiary, and, of course, found nothing but the bag on the stovepipe.

The shelling became more frequent, and the trenches were dug deeper. Now we were shelled every day, sometimes twice a day. Once, I left my shelter at my post and went to deepen a trench a couple of hundred meters away. It had already been dug deep enough for firing from a sitting position, and I was calmly digging away. Digging in a winter coat and body armor with a helmet is hot. Took off my coat – still hot. Took off my helmet and body armor, left only my jacket on. Much better, the work was going well. That's when they hit me. It seems they were working directly on me – and I was without body armor or a helmet. And it was a long way to run to the shelter.

Now I could only hide in the trench. Whatever I had dug, that's where I had to hide. Between incoming rounds, I put on my body armor and helmet. One incoming, two. I crouched on my knees, keeping my head close to the ground. One hundred meters, fifty meters, a third incoming round, a fourth. And I got lucky. Nothing hit me. I waited ten minutes and ran to the shelter. I got away with it.


Chapter 11: Guests at the Apiary near Village of U. Frontline. Winter of '22


Our entire company was stationed further back, behind us. Some lived in the tree lines, others in the villages. Our "five-hundredths" lived in P and had it easy. Sometimes they worked on procuring firewood or digging trenches for other units, but most of the time they just sat in their houses, posting one-night watchman at the entrance. But our position at the apiary was considered dangerous. So, the command came up with the following scheme: any soldier who committed some offence was sent to us for hard labour for a few days. Sometimes we also got people sent to us not as punishment, but by quota. I called these temporary attachments "gastarbeiters" (guest workers). They were supposed to follow our orders, and we started taking advantage of this.

We stood guard duty during the day, and the "gastarbeiters" stood guard at night. In shifts, of course. Each person stood guard for no more than three hours per night. We let them sleep in longer in the morning, but they also had work to do during the day. During the day, they would join me for digging. And I really, really hate digging. So, I put two unfortunate souls under my command. I wasn't a harsh boss, no. I'm generally a very easygoing person. But I assigned them tasks: "Dig a trench here, deepen the dugout there, level the steps over there – digging time is before and after lunch, I’ll provide you with the tools."

I was their foreman, a kind foreman. Having assigned the tasks, I would simply leave and go about my own business – anything to avoid digging myself. I didn’t demand much from them, shared snacks, and showed them where they could get a phone signal to call home. In general, the "gastarbeiters" didn’t complain about life, but like everyone else, they were afraid of the shelling.

One of the shelling attacks riddled the house by the lake where Lineika lived. The walls of the house became full of holes, and Lineika decided to move in with us at the apiary permanently. However, he often left for meetings and to inspect the positions, so he didn't bother us too much with his presence.

As we settled in at the apiary, we acquired pets. Both cats and dogs were roaming around, and some of them took a liking to us. Suleiman got himself a puppy, Kulich (Easter Bread) – the sweetest little mutt, playful and cheerful. He loved running around with the adult dogs, playing with the three-legged cow, and accompanying his owner on guard duty. A ginger cat, Kus' (Bite), lived in our squad, and a cat named Murka lived in the neighbouring one. They enjoyed the warmth and comfort of human company, sleeping on our sleeping bags, and we fed them pâté and stew.

The three-legged cow also became our pet. She appeared at the apiary after the food supply situation had been resolved, and we no longer needed her meat. Ofis felt sorry for the cow, and we started feeding and watering her. Three of her legs were healthy, but the fourth was unusable. Half of the hoof was missing, the entire lower part was swollen beyond recognition, and it was painful for the cow to step on it. Nevertheless, the cow managed to survive despite this injury.

We were incredibly bored. In the evenings, we would have a movie night on someone's phone, the whole squad together. There weren't many movies, but we had no choice. We would place the phone on a table near the stove, settle in comfortably with our tea, and watch together. The neighbouring squad watched a TV series. Sometimes, to entertain ourselves somehow, I would tell my comrades "fairy tales." First, "The Tale of Fedot the Archer, a Dashing Young Fellow." Then I moved on to retelling the plots of BioWare games. I recounted the stories of Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect.

I wasn't a very good storyteller, but the guys liked it – they turned out to be decent "fairy tales." There was nothing else to do anyway.

I also missed board games terribly. I had some experience playing Nemesis, and I had repeatedly explained the rules of the game to my friends, so I decided out of boredom to recreate this game here. Plywood became the game board, and cardboard from boxes became the locations, tokens, and markers. A book of Ukrainian fairy tales from the latrine was torn apart and turned into ability cards, item cards, and event cards. I recreated the game characters and their abilities, items, and objectives from memory. Instead of miniatures for characters and monsters, we used shell casings and cartridges. It wasn’t the original Nemesis, but a perfectly playable creation, made on the fly in a shed from a combination of wood and, well, you know. Two guys agreed to play with me – and we even won the game (thankfully, I made it a bit easier than the original). All the players enjoyed it, but we only played it once – after all, board games of this kind aren't for everyone. My creation quickly faded into oblivion, but I have very fond memories of it.

New Year's was approaching, and our dreams of celebrating it at home were not destined to come true. So, we prepared to celebrate it at the apiary. We had prepared enough braga and food in advance. I even decorated our garage with garlands made of cartridges: tracers and armour-piercing rounds hung on strings from the ceiling, Dubina shared some machine-gun belts, and we hung them on the walls like tinsel. And on December 31st, the long-awaited packages finally arrived.

The packages contained everything necessary to celebrate the holiday: a Christmas tree with shiny ornaments, greeting cards from Russian children, food for the New Year's feast from our relatives, and, most importantly, Russian alcohol.

The cognac was quickly distributed among the squads; some was drunk immediately, some was saved for New Year's Eve, and some was hidden away for the future. And there was something else in the package that would drastically change our lives. A vehicle.


A vehicle! A used UAZ "Bukhanka" (loaf) with incredibly high mileage, no brakes, falling apart – but still running! And expensive at that. Prices for off-road vehicles had at least doubled since the war began. A battered Bukhanka cost three to four hundred thousand rubles. UAZs, Nivas, Bukhankas, and Sobols were worth their weight in gold. A million rubles for a used, last-century Russian vehicle – easily. And despite all its shortcomings, this vehicle fundamentally changed our way of life. Now we could drive wherever we needed to. Supplies, shopping trips, transporting personnel – we could handle all of this ourselves now. Grusha, and another comrade who knew how to drive, nicknamed "Mart" (March), became the driver-mechanics of our Bukhanka. Life took on new colours after its arrival.

Meanwhile, it was almost midnight, all the dishes were prepared, the tree was decorated, and everyone was already feeling festive. We gathered in the cellar, turned on the music, drank, and made toasts:

"To Pyatnashka!"
"To all of us returning home as soon as possible!"
"To none of our family and friends ever experiencing what we have experienced!"

There was no TV or radio, so we relied on our watches. Nefrit gave a New Year’s speech in place of Putin, everyone cheered "Hurrah!", and we started singing the Russian national anthem. New Year's in the army feels different than at home, and at war, the feeling is even more different.


Chapter 12: Leaving the Apiary near the Village of U. Frontline. Winter of '23


Towards the end of the New Year's celebration, when everyone was starting to go to bed, Nefrit, as he had on the train, drank too much again.

"Tikhon is waking up in Nefrit!" we would say.

Nefrit started acting up, being rude and picking fights with his comrades. He made some nonsensical complaints to Shar, wrestled on the ground with Grusha, kept everyone from sleeping, and so on. Finally, he calmed down, too.

The next day, January 1st, Nefrit began complaining of pain in his ribs after the fight with Grusha. For several days, his condition didn't improve, and we began to suspect a fractured rib.

By that time, I had developed my own ailment – dermatitis. Much later, I understood why it appeared: every evening I wiped my body with alcohol wipes. That was a mistake! I should have used regular wipes, not alcohol ones. In addition, I had several large, unhealed, infected abrasions, some of which were from running into a rusty metal structure, and others were from dog bites. None of this was healing; it was just festering and spreading. At some point, my comrades noticed this and decided to take me to see the medics. Nefrit went along, too.

Now we had a whole vehicle, and we could independently and quickly go to the deep rear, to the village of Ts., to see the medics. I anticipated that they would keep me there for treatment, so I took all my essential belongings with me. And that's exactly what happened. The village of Ts. was a completely safe place (or so it seemed to us), because it was located more than a dozen kilometres from the front line. There were no enemies around, and only those locals remained who understood the situation and maintained good relations with the Russian military.

The medics were stationed in the basement of a school. The building, of course, was abandoned and now served as a good base for our soldiers. By the time I arrived, the basement had already been settled and well-equipped by the medics and signalmen. Beds made of planks, triple-decker bunks made of stretchers, school desks and chairs, a gas stove for cooking and heating, a working toilet – one shared toilet outside and one for the signalmen in the basement, a working shower, a washbasin, dishes, a mountain of food, free cigarettes from humanitarian aid, plenty of water. Paradise!

The medics examined me and decided to hospitalize me. Our medics weren’t great general practitioners, but they managed the tasks assigned to them. However, to be honest, they had no idea how to treat my dermatitis. They smeared me with all sorts of antibacterial ointments – these helped, after a while, to clear up the extensive skin infections. Then they started treating me with зeлeнкa (brilliant green antiseptic). It hardly helped. The weeping dermatitis would get better, then worse, and so on, in a cycle.

Nefrit went to the medics with me. There weren’t too many patients: about a dozen. The supply guys prepared food for us. The building was heated with gas, there was no need to gather firewood. There was plenty of everything. The village of Ts. even had its own dealer who sold goods from Russia. The medics regularly took soldiers to Russia to see a dentist, so you could order all sorts of things from the stores through the driver. In general, we could do nothing all day long and still have everything we needed.


Chapter 13: Infirmary in the Town of Ts. Near the frontline. Winter '23


Everything was just perfect. Safety, comfort, and blissful idleness. The patients had only one duty: to stand guard at the door for an hour, twice a day. That's all! The rest of the time we rested. We had two senior patients: old man Kasha (Porridge) and the humble Gubka (Sponge). Over time, I started helping Kasha refuel the generator, and I helped Gubka carry food to the infirmary. We gradually improved our living conditions. We jointly laid another gas pipe and built something resembling a stove out of bricks – I hung some scrap metal over a burning gas burner, and we had a great dryer for clothes and linen. Someone brought a TV and set up an antenna – we managed to tune in to Russian channels on this TV, so now we watched TV series, movies, and sometimes even the news. However, no one liked the news because the news was always useless.

There was a library on the upper floors of the school. Most of the books were in Ukrainian, but some fiction in Russian remained from Soviet times. My comrade, Kist' (Brush), a book lover, and I raided this library and brought down a whole bunch of books to the basement. During my month at the infirmary, I read a lot of books: Goethe's Faust, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, several short stories and The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov. I even started reading Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, but it didn't grab me.

The head of the medical unit, Gil'za (Shell Casing), was a good and compassionate man. But he didn't understand my condition. He treated my dermatitis with brilliant green. This helped to clear up the extensive skin lesions, but I couldn't fully recover. One day, he looked at me for a long time and kept saying: "It's still weeping and weeping. Why?"

And so, he paced back and forth across the infirmary, and suddenly spotted a tube of Tetraderm cream on the bedside table of one of the patients. That patient no longer needed the cream, and Gil'za handed it to me. "Apply it," he said. And lo and behold, the cream actually started to help!

Sometimes wounded soldiers of varying degrees of severity were brought to Gil'za. There was no way to perform complex procedures on seriously wounded soldiers here. Gil'za would stabilize them, carefully disinfect and immobilize the injured areas, bandage them, and send them to Russia. We, the patients, observed all of this because the operating table was located right here in our area, in the middle of the basement. This spectacle was mesmerizing. I couldn't tear myself away from watching the process of medical care and tried to memorize what I could.

Besides medics and signalmen, the village of Ts. was also home to supply officers, reconnaissance scouts, and the battalion headquarters. The supply officers were busy with their usual tasks – preparing food for the soldiers, organizing the warehouse, and receiving and distributing supplies from Russia. But the reconnaissance scouts were engaged in something completely different from their supposed duties: they weren't going on any reconnaissance missions, they were guarding the battalion headquarters. This was the personal guard of our ComBat, Shprits. And the headquarters staff were busy with their usual headquarters work.

The battalion's political officer, Ishma, regularly patrolled the village and occasionally engaged in army idiocy. But, in reality, Ishma wasn't the worst officer.

He organized a "jail" in our basement – a sobering-up station. It was an unheated room with bars and a padlock on the door instead of a regular door. Ishma would put any drunken offenders he caught there, and he caught them relentlessly. The scouts were responsible for guarding the prisoners.

Because of all this, the signalmen set up a "trap" for Ishma. A small button was hidden at the duty officer's post at the entrance, and when Ishma approached, the duty officer would press this button. A loud alarm would sound in the signalmen's room – a warning!

The signal was too loud. Once, I was on duty at the entrance, and Ishma was pacing back and forth, in and out, in a bad mood. Each time, I gave the signal. And at some point, he heard this signal from the entrance. It was a fiasco, bro.

"If you give that signal again when I'm entering – you're fucked! You'll be sitting in that cell with the other prisoners. Understand!?"

After that, we had to forget about the button. And the prisoners came and went. Once, a drunkard with the call sign "Bes" (Demon), a veteran of the Chechen wars, ended up in our cell. Alcohol made him lose his mind, and he would start acting up and doing all sorts of crazy things. When Ishma brought him under guard and put him in the cell, Bes addressed him from behind the bars with a magnificent request:

"Comrade Colonel, I understand, I got drunk. I'm not asking to be let out, Comrade Colonel, I understand everything. But I have one small request: could you bring me some more vodka, Comrade Colonel, please, I need a drink to cure my hangover."

"Alright, listen up, everyone," Ishma replied after hearing all of this. "I'm leaving for Russia to get vodka. I'll be back in three days. Don't let him out until I return!"

Ishma left, and Bes remained in the cell, drunk and rowdy. By the way, it was Bes who had once welded the bars behind which he now sat. He threatened us with all sorts of gods, demanding to be let out and given more vodka. Many came to talk to him and tried to calm him down. Drunken shouts of varying degrees of delirium could be heard from behind the bars:

"Have you ever seen your friend and comrade have their head cut off with a knife right in front of you? Well, I have!"

"You pup, are you going to teach me about life? I'm a veteran of the Chechen war!"

"Give me vodka!"

"I'm ready to give my life for my buddies, and you bastards put me in a cell!"

"I welded these bars, I'll tear them apart!"

"I love my mates! I love my mates! I love my mates! I love my maaaaaaateees!"

The next morning, of course, he sobered up and calmed down. There were other rowdy prisoners. Once, two drunkards were brought to us, and they actually managed to unhinge the bars and escape. The scout on guard duty was chatting with the signalmen and wasn't watching the prisoners. They got outside and ran in different directions: one of them ran out the door and was immediately caught by Ishma. And he was a man of character, so he immediately pulled out his pistol and started firing into the air.

"Get down, dammit! Get the fuck down!"

The scouts, together with Ishma, subdued him and took him away. The other escapee ran upstairs to the school and broke open another set of bars there. He started hiding on the different floors, and the scouts, led by Ishma, started searching for him. The scouts searched the school for about an hour, looking for him among the signalmen and in our infirmary. The escapee won this game; he jumped out of a window somewhere and ran off to the village. Of course, they found him the next day.

For a while, a female medic, Tanya, lived with us. She was temporarily attached to us and was waiting to be sent to her commanding officer in the medical unit. Naturally, Tanya became the centre of attention in our basement, and many started courting her. But she was married, and for her, it was just a harmless flirtation. Tanya often chatted with the soldiers about all sorts of things: life and war. Sometimes the conversations turned to God and spirits. She believed in both, quite seriously. Tanya would talk, in all seriousness, about how God protects us from all sorts of troubles and from death in war – and then, just as seriously, she would talk about how she had encountered ghosts of deceased people and a house spirit that caused all sorts of mischief in her home.

One day, Ishma brought us letters with warm words and drawings from Russian children and demanded that we write back. In my reply, I wrote all sorts of banal things: about our pets, about the medic's cat I often played with, about how children should do their homework and study computer science, and about how everything was fine with us.

Tanya read my letter and started laughing at me: "So, that's how you deceive children! 'Everything is fine,' 'we have a warm and cozy bunker here,' 'we play with kitties here!' Why are you lying to the kids?!"

My treatment was coming to an end, and I asked Gil'za to discharge me. I had already been there for a whole month, and I felt guilty towards my comrades for my "betrayal." He agreed and promised to provide a vehicle and take me back to my unit the next day.

At that time, about a hundred soldiers from another company were living upstairs in the school. They were there temporarily, waiting to be deployed to their positions. And while they were there, they wandered around the village, called their relatives, and by their presence, attracted the enemy's attention.

That morning, I woke up around six o'clock from a powerful explosion upstairs. Plaster fell from the walls and ceiling of the basement, the blast wave spreading through the building's supporting structures. I was already familiar with shelling and knew that the best shelter was underground. And I was already underground. A second incoming round, a third, a fourth. It was clear that if I ran somewhere – and where would I run? – I wouldn’t increase my chances of survival. I was already in the deepest basement. So, I made the only sensible decision, in my opinion – I went back to sleep!

A few hours later, when I woke up and started packing my things, I discovered that we had many new guests in our infirmary – they were the soldiers from the upper floors of the school. They had run down to us after the first incoming round. From them, I learned that we had been hit by HIMARS – the legendary MLRS from NATO, which had launched four rockets at our school. An entire wing of the school was reduced to rubble, but our basement was unharmed. And, thank God, there were no casualties. The soldiers upstairs quickly got their bearings and ran to the basement, so everyone survived. But I understood that after the first shelling, there would be more, so I was lucky to be leaving the infirmary that day. Having gathered my things, I got into the medics' vehicle, and the driver took me "home."


Chapter 14: Alcohol Marathon in Village of P. Frontline. Winter of '23


So, it turned out that my comrades had already left the apiary near Village U and moved to the rear, to Village P, following our "five-hundredths." While I was undergoing treatment in Ts., things at the apiary went from bad to worse. The shelling intensified; my guys were shelled several times a day, and once an enemy attack helicopter even flew over them. They were afraid to leave the cellar. At some point, they asked Lineika for a rotation, and he agreed. The entire platoon moved to P and occupied a spacious house. I learned all this from my comrades when I finally arrived.

Our house was spacious, with four rooms. With Nefrit's help, I built myself a bunk: I placed a door on top of some bricks and laid out my foam pad and sleeping bag. It made a comfortable bed. Then I also made myself a bedside table. The house had a kitchen with a stove, which we heated with firewood. A heating system branched off from the stove: pipes ran throughout the building.

The guys had already set things up: thanks to our vehicle, we could go out for water, food, and firewood at any moment. We had long since acquired a chainsaw and axes, plenty of water containers, and entire crates were filled with canned goods and mashed potatoes. We also had our own generator, enough gasoline, electricity in the house, and outlets. Suleiman had brought Kulich the puppy with him from the apiary and really wanted to surprise his wife and daughters by bringing the puppy home. Kulich was doing great, playing with us and the village dogs, accompanying his owner on walks around the village, and spending long evenings lying by the stove. We could get a mobile signal at the intersection near the village, and we would walk about a kilometre to make calls – not too far. There was no enemy here, no shelling, no guard posts. We had only one duty – to keep the stove going at night.

It was a peaceful village life, free from any worries. In connection with such a heavenly existence, we started looking for ways to entertain ourselves – and we found them. The guys got acquainted with a man from Village Ts. who sold vodka. The prices were astronomical, but there was always plenty of vodka available. We started drinking every evening. We bought groceries for snacks from the dealer in Ts., and in the evening, we prepared the main courses. We would set a huge table, all sit down together and pour the vodka. Drunken conversations, music, dancing – it was all there. We had a speaker and a flashlight with a strobe function. Vratar, Tuz, and I would go into the entryway, turn on the strobe, and have a wild dance to "Petropavlovsk" by Radio Tapok. And so it went, every evening!

After a copious amount of vodka, Tikhon would awaken in Nefrit again. He would start talking nonsense and arguing with his comrades. Sometimes he and I would sit together in the kitchen until four in the morning. I would watch the stove, and he would tell me everything that was on his mind, singing songs: "My friend, artist and poet, on a rainy evening, on the window… drew my love, revealing a miracle on earth…" This particular song evoked deep feelings of longing and sadness in Nefrit. He would play it every evening at the end of our drinking session and reminisce, reminisce, reminisce…

That’s how we spent almost the entire second half of winter. Defender of the Fatherland Day was approaching (god, how I hate this holiday now), followed by the anniversary of the start of the "Special Military Operation." The approach of these holidays made us very anxious. About a week before them, Lineika arrived and announced that there would soon be an assault near the City of M.

The City of M was right on the front line. The city itself was controlled by the Russian Armed Forces at that time, but there were fortified Ukrainian positions in the surrounding area, for which fighting was constantly taking place. The guys there were shelled every day. The city became for us a byword for the hottest spot on the front (at least in our sector). And as soon as we heard the word "City of M" from the commanders, we immediately felt uneasy. So, Lineika announced that our battalion would soon be assaulting the railway line near M. He told us the stories he had been fed by higher command. Supposedly, we wouldn’t be the first wave of the assault: "The assault troops will go first. We’ll follow them, the second line! We’ll have to secure and dig in at positions beyond the railway. We’ll be supported by artillery and air cover."
(Translator's note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAutFAW29Aw - here's the song Nefrit was humming)

That's what Lineika said. He wasn't lying, no. He was misled just like us. Lineika set the following task: a few men from our platoon were to go with him and inspect the positions from which the offensive was supposed to begin. Suleiman volunteered to go with him.

Suleiman went with Lineika to the positions almost every day for a week, and each time he returned in the evening and described an unpleasant picture: "There are no houses. No dugouts. No trenches. It's just bare forest. And they're constantly shelling there. Drones are flying around every five minutes. I can't imagine how we're going to dig in there. It looks like we'll have to dig as soon as we get out of the vehicle – otherwise, we won't survive."

Along with Suleiman, some guys from another platoon also went with Lineika. Lineika ordered them to dig a dugout at the drop-off point so that they could take cover from shelling later. The other platoon went to dig, but the results were disastrous: four wounded in four days. They couldn’t dig anything – the men were afraid of dying and hid from the drones under trees, and lay in ravines, trying to protect themselves from shelling.

We expected the worst-case scenario from this whole endeavour and anxiously awaited our fate. Finally, February 23rd arrived, Defender of the Fatherland Day. We prepared vodka and food for the evening. That day, Lineika came again and had a drink with us:

“Well, soldiers! Congratulations to all of you on Defender of the Fatherland Day, valiant soldiers of the Russian army! Today I permit you to have a few drinks. Relax, but don't overdo it. Tomorrow morning, we might be going on the assault."

“How? When? Will they come for us? What are our orders?”

“So, here’s the plan. We take only weapons, armour, ammunition, shovels, and a couple of days' worth of food. Don't load up or leave without my personal presence, I’ll give you the order myself."

With that, he finished and left. We hoped that this would be the end of the story. Surely, everyone will be celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day now, and there won't be any assault! It would be madness to send everyone into an assault drunk! And Lineika’s words were imprinted in our memory: "Don't load up or leave without my personal presence." So, our evening continued as usual, with vodka and music.


Chapter 15: The Assault. Frontline. Winter of '23


The next day, right after midnight, they came for us. It was the Ural driver, without any accompanying officers. He was ordered to take us to the assault – and, naturally, he wasn't given any accompanying documents. Our hearts sank. This was it, the end for all of us.

But one important fact saved us: almost all of us were dead drunk.

"Where are the combat orders stating that we're obligated to go on the assault!?"

"You'll be shown the combat orders on-site – they're already there, at the unloading point before the assault."

"Lineika ordered us not to go anywhere without his personal presence!"

"And I have Shprits's orders to take everyone there!"

"They're trying to screw us over again! We're not going anywhere without combat orders and Lineika!"

The instinct for self-preservation pushed our senior guys to argue. No one wanted to die, so all ten of us yelled obscenities at the poor driver, who was made the scapegoat in this situation. The driver had no authority over us; he was simply relaying the command's orders. While this argument was going on, no one noticed how the quietest one among us, nicknamed "Shelk" (Silk), quietly packed his duffel bag, put in a couple of days' worth of food and water, took his weapons and ammunition, put on his body armour and white camouflage suit, and, without saying a word to anyone, got into the truck to go to the assault.

Shelk was the most humble, quiet, and reserved among us. But behind this modesty hid a great rage: Shelk’s brother had been killed in the war with the Ukrainians, and now he thirsted for revenge. He once told me: "I want to strangle a Ukrop with my own hands."

A few people knew about Shelk's desire, but we thought that common sense and the instinct for self-preservation would be stronger than his thirst for revenge. We were wrong. That evening, Shelk was the only one completely sober. He knew what he had to do. He chose his own fate.

Only one person saw Shelk getting ready – Suleiman, the owner of Kulich the puppy. Suleiman was a wonderful man, sensible and noble. He himself wouldn’t have gone on the assault for anything. But when he saw Shelk going to the truck alone, he decided to go with him. He couldn’t leave his comrade alone. And so, a completely drunk Suleiman hurriedly packed his things and got dressed. I noticed this.

"Suleiman, are you getting ready to go?"

"Yes, Kompas."

"Holy shit."

"Kompas, please don't forget to feed and water Kulich."

"Don't worry, Suleiman, Kulich will be fine, we’ll take care of him. And then you’ll come back and take care of him yourself!"

Suleiman weighed the duffel bag with his food and water in his hand. Then he handed it to me.

"Here, Kompas. I won't need this there…"

With these words, he picked up his weapon and left the house, joining Shelk in the truck. Only two people from our house went to the assault. The driver gave up on us and went to another house, to our "five-hundredths."

Our platoon commander, Stopor, lived with the "five-hundredths" (he was a "five-hundredth" himself). But in this situation, he understood that the command's order was indeed valid. If Stopor, a platoon commander, a lieutenant, refused to carry it out, it would have led to dire consequences for him. So, he rallied our "five-hundredths" for the assault. Thus, the second half of our platoon loaded into the truck and went off to fight. They left only a couple of men behind to look after the house and their belongings.

We spent a couple of hours discussing what had happened and then went to bed. Lineika never showed up. In the morning, we heard alarming radio chatter.

With the first rays of the sun, interrupted by static, calls of the following nature began sounding on the company frequency:

"All vehicles (...) report to (...) zero. Evacuation needed. All available (...) vehicles report to (...) zero…"

The guys had already sobered up, and the realization came to us that the assault had failed. Grusha acted responsibly and prepared our vehicle. The two of them armed themselves and drove off to evacuate our comrades. It turned out that the commanders had managed to organize the deployment for the assault but failed to organize the evacuation. We spent the entire day in anxiety and anticipation.

Closer to evening, Grusha returned with news. Our "five-hundredths" also returned. Suleiman and Shelk were not with them.

“So, it’s a total clusterfuck, guys,” Grusha announced. “Ours got completely smashed there. We spent all this time evacuating the remaining soldiers back to their positions.”

“Lots of two-hundredths (killed in action), lots of three-hundredths (wounded in action),” he added. “The medics are evacuating the three-hundredths to Russia, but there aren’t enough vehicles. A bunch of guys are still lying in the forest, there’s no one to carry them out. The shelling is continuous, drones are flying around every minute.”

“What about Shelk and Suleiman? Where are they, what happened to them?” we asked.

“Suleiman is a two-hundredth. We don’t know what happened to Shelk. He’s not there.”

“Fuck.”

The news of Suleiman’s death hung over us like a black cloud. This was the first death of a comrade-in-arms. Suleiman was here. And now he’s gone. And he only went there for Shelk, so he wouldn’t be alone! Suleiman didn't even want to fight!

Later that evening, we went to the communication point to call our families. There we met our "five-hundredths." They were in complete shock. Empty stares. Quiet words.

“It was a total fucking nightmare, guys. They started shelling us as soon as we landed. The Ukrops were waiting for us there. That fortified area beyond the railway was packed with artillery, mortars, and everything you can imagine.

The Ukrops had been listening to our radios the whole time. They tuned into our frequency. Shortly before the assault, we heard a voice with a Georgian accent on Lineika’s radio: ‘Hey, Russky! Don’t go beyond the tree line! You’ll be fucked!’ After that, Lineika gave everyone the order: ‘Forward!’”

“Fucking hell. They promised us that assault troops would go before us, yeah, right! Fuck them! There weren't any assault troops. We were the assault troops! They sent us to the front line of the attack! It was such a clusterfuck…”

“We were supposed to have artillery and tank support. Yeah, right! The artillerymen and tankers got drunk yesterday for the holiday, and no fucking one showed up to support us. Only one little tank rolled out, fired eight shots, and fucked off to reload. And it never came back. What air support? We didn't have any air support!”

“They just sent us forward with shovels, a whole fucking crowd. Mortars were shelling us every minute. You just lift your head out of the ravine – whistle, boom. How did we even survive… It’s a fucking nightmare…”

“And there weren’t any positions there. No trenches, no dugouts where you could hide. You just lie in the ravines and under the trees. God, I've never prayed so hard in my life…”

“Some of our guys reached the railway, some even crossed it. But they didn’t all come back. It’s a meat grinder there. You don’t know where to go. You don’t know where to shoot. You can’t see the Ukrops, only drones flying around and mortars zeroing in on us. We couldn’t do anything there.”

“Suleiman caught shrapnel in the groin. Boom, and he's down. They immediately picked him up, put him on a stretcher, and started carrying him back to zero. And the Ukrops kept shelling. Suleiman was completely drunk, and alcohol makes you bleed more. The guys carried him for a bit, checked him, looked – and he was already… a two-hundredth…”

“What about Shelk?”

“No one knows. They say he lost his rifle somewhere and went back to zero to get it. Lineika stopped him there and asked, ‘Where’s your rifle? Go get your rifle!’ So Shelk went to get his rifle. And never came back.”

“What about the rest of you? Is everyone alive and well?”

“Like hell they are, three of ours are three-hundredths. One guy’s legs were shredded by shrapnel, they dragged him to the evacuation point. Another one got hit in the arm. A medic picked him up and carried him, too. Only, dammit, the medic shot him in the leg along the way, for fuck’s sake. He was supporting him with one hand, and apparently pulled the trigger with the other and shot him in the leg. But he’ll be alright.”

“Remen was also seriously wounded. He got hit in the head with shrapnel, it's fucked up. He was covered in blood, walking to the evacuation point himself. He was in shock. Then he lost consciousness. Who knows if Remen will even survive.”

“The commanders are fucking bastards. They just sent us to be slaughtered. It’s a fucking nightmare.”

We never again laughed at our "five-hundredths." After all, the "five-hundredths" had participated in that meat grinder. And we hadn’t. Now we were the "five-hundredths."

Kulich the puppy whimpered incessantly, missing his owner.


Chapter 16: Aftermath of the Assault. Frontline. Winter of '23


That evening, we mourned Suleiman. We drank a shot of vodka and left another shot on the table, covered with a piece of black bread. The mournful mood lingered for several more days. We didn't feel like doing anything. Someone had to inform his wife that her husband had died. Some of us asked Lineika to call her, but he refused.

"The headquarters will handle it, they’ll call."

This seemed strange and wrong to us. Lineika, the company commander, should have shown some sensitivity to the family of the deceased soldier, but he didn't. So, Vratar took matters into his own hands. He chose his words carefully and called Suleiman's wife himself. She refused to believe it for a long time, thinking it was the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) calling to intimidate the Russian population. But soon she realized it was true. Her life was shattered.

Due to the recent events, one of us decided it was time to get out of this war. Ironically, it was Dubina, our most experienced and combat-ready comrade, the machine gunner. It turned out that he had been registered with a psychiatrist all this time. But no one bothered to check this during his enlistment – after all, he was a volunteer. Every body is needed in war, and if someone volunteers for service, no one would think to check their mental health. But now, after our battalion had been sent to be slaughtered, Dubina lost faith in the command and decided to pursue the psychiatric route. He was taken to the Town of Ts., to Shinel, and there Dubina began seeking a discharge from service.

After a while, we learned that the neighbouring company had recorded a video message and posted it online. In their video message, they talked about the meat grinder and demanded that the commanders be held accountable. This video message quickly spread throughout the entire battalion, reaching us and the ZGT (information security) officers. An investigation began.

We called our relatives and friends. We asked them to spread this video message, to create public awareness. What we were hoping to achieve with this, I didn't understand myself. Meanwhile, the ZGT officers were making plans for our battalion. One day, Stopor came to visit us and shared the news from the officers' meeting.

“So, listen carefully, everyone. Our battalion has been declared deserters and traitors to the Motherland. What will happen next, I don’t know. Most likely, they’ll send us on assaults. We’ll officially become assault troops.”

Other officers confirmed this news. When we went to the Town of Ts. for water, I met my acquaintance, the signalman Mart.

“Hey, Mart! How’s life? Is everyone alive and well?”

“Everything’s fine with us, Kompas. We weren’t involved in the assault. How are you doing?”

“One two-hundredth, three three-hundredths, one missing in action. Listen, what’s the general news? What’s going to happen to the battalion next?”

“Well, you know, I overheard the officers saying that the video message from the second company reached Moscow. The ComBat got a call from the Kremlin, they chewed him out.”

“And what will happen next?”

“Well, there’s a rumour going around that they’ll transfer us closer to Russia, that's what will happen. Our battalion isn't coping with its assigned tasks.”

This news was very encouraging, even though it was just a rumour. After chatting with Mart, I went to see Gil’za, the head of the medical unit.

The infirmary had transformed since my departure in early February. There were more beds and more patients. There were many lightly wounded "three-hundredths" with minor injuries who didn’t require evacuation to Russia and were being treated there. Dubina, our comrade-psychiatrist, was also there. Gil’za looked tired and gloomy.

“Good afternoon, Gil’za. How are you doing, is everyone alive?”

“Yes, thank God, all the medics are alive. Did you come to ask about your three-hundredths?”

“Yes, I want to know what their prospects are.”

I dictated the call signs and last names to him, and he started searching for them in the lists of the wounded and killed.

“So, Suleiman. Two-hundredth. One has leg and arm injuries. But he’s light, he’ll be fine. Another one – arms, leg. Light, nothing critical. He’ll recover. Remen… So, Remen… Serious. Head injury, brain damage.”

“What about him? Will he survive?”

“Well, look… When he was brought to me after the assault, and I stabilized him, I assessed his condition as… he wouldn’t live to see the next morning. Then I sent him for evacuation to Russia. If he made it there and is still alive, then he’ll live. I haven't received any updates on his condition. Try contacting his relatives.”

“And Shelk? What about him?”

“Shelk… Shelk… I have a feeling I saw his name somewhere on the lists…”

Gil’za searched for Shelk on various lists for a long time but couldn’t find his name. Shelk wasn't among the dead or the wounded. He hadn’t returned from that meat grinder.

I also briefly stopped by headquarters while accompanying Stopor to a meeting. In the smoking room, I managed to exchange a few words with the staff officer, Granit. From him, I learned the following: Shprits had been removed from his post as battalion commander. A criminal case was opened against him for trafficking in government property. The military police and the FSB suspected that he was selling military equipment and humanitarian aid on the black market.

Moreover, he was blamed for the failed assault. In addition to Shprits, the chief of staff was also arrested. Ivankov, the commander of the second company, became the new battalion commander. And Granit became the new chief of staff. Granit was a young captain, a career military man, but not at heart. He looked haggard from all the anxiety and the weight of his new responsibilities; he stammered and stuttered. In closing, he added the following:

“Right now, the officers are trying to advocate for our battalion’s continued existence. If they can demonstrate to the brigade command that we have everything under control, we’ll remain here, in the same composition.”

“And what if not?”

“In that case, they’ll send us back to Russia for reorganization. And then, most likely, we’ll all be assigned to assault units.”

Upon returning to the Village of P, I relayed all this news to my comrades. The prospect of being assigned to assault units didn’t thrill anyone. But we were all hoping for the best—hoping that the reorganization would send us to a quieter place.

But then something happened. We were commemorating Suleiman on the third day when a drunken Lineika stumbled in: “Aha, so you’re drinking, eh? Is this what you’re doing here?! Instead of serving, you’re all boozing! And who’s going to take revenge on the Ukrops?! Who’s going to retrieve the bodies of our dead comrades from the forest?!” Lineika’s face was visibly turning purple. Lineika wouldn't let up: "Let's go get revenge, dammit! We need to retrieve the bodies of our guys! But you’re not going anywhere, are you? You’re all fucking wasted! Dubina's the only one who's any use!"

Dubina peeked out from the doorway. It turned out that Lineika had come to the medical unit and appealed to Dubina’s “patriotic feelings,” urging him to avenge Suleiman. Our “commandante,” with an expression of annoyance, called Dubina over: “Let’s go, Dubina! Grab your machine gun, you’re the only one I can count on!”

Lineika went out and headed for the vehicle. Dubina picked up his machine gun and boxes of ammunition belts and followed him towards the exit.

“Dubina, are you out of your mind?! You’ll die there! What revenge?! You were going to get discharged on psychological grounds, weren’t you?!”

“Valhalla awaits…” Dubina mumbled through gritted teeth. Maybe he really was crazy…

With those words, Dubina left to “take revenge on the Ukrops.” Kogot' looked at the doorway with a stunned expression and said to us: “Guys, pour me one. Please.” With trembling hands, he snatched a glass, downed it in one gulp, and followed Lineika and Dubina. We stopped drinking after that. Enough, we thought—anything could happen at any moment.

A couple of days later, Dubina returned, shouting instead of a greeting: “I’m alive! I’m aliiiiive, motherfucker!”

A little later, he told us how the “revenge” mission had gone. Lineika gathered a few volunteers and drove them to a forest not far from the zero line—the unloading points during the assault. When the soldiers formed up, Lineika, without getting out of the vehicle, leaned out the window, and, feebly shaking his fist, gave the order in a weak, hoarse voice: “Go collect the bodies of our two-hundredths from the forest! And give those Ukrops hell! Avenge your comrades!” After which, he drove away with Kogot'.

Where to go? What to do? Where’s the enemy? Where are our “two-hundredths”? A map? No map! Where’s the cover? Where are our guys?! Around them—forest, and nothing is clear. The operation was pointless. Five men were standing alone in the middle of the forest, not knowing what to do next.

Dubina suddenly remembered why he had decided to get a psychiatric discharge. This was why!

After wandering around the forest, they found a dugout where some reconnaissance scouts lived. They let Dubina and his comrades spend the night, and in the morning, made a reasonable demand: dig a new dugout if you want to stay here. Dubina, of course, refused, and the five of them set off to find their way home. Naturally, there could be no further talk of revenge or collecting the bodies of those killed during the failed assault. They were simply abandoned in the forest. Somehow, the brave detachment found civilization and transportation. The drivers agreed to take them back to their positions. It was a disgrace.

With the arrival of spring, the time allotted to our battalion was coming to a close.


Chapter 17: The Long Road Home. Frontline. Winter of '23


Stopor came to visit us to announce the final order: the battalion command couldn't handle the situation, and the morale of the personnel was low. This meant reorganization. A vehicle would arrive for us during the night and take us back to Russia. Our spirits lifted. The mourning for Suleiman was over; we were excited. We were going home!

We spent the entire day packing and waiting. Late in the evening, a Ural arrived for us. Half of our platoon, led by Stopor, was already in the truck, and there wasn't enough room. We tried to load our belongings inside, and we had accumulated a lot of things. We had settled in comfortably over these months: water containers, a generator, gasoline, a chainsaw, and tools. All of this wouldn't fit in the truck: there was only one for the entire platoon. The senior guys decided to load up our vehicle with our belongings—we also wanted to take the vehicle itself with us. We somehow managed to cram everything in, and what didn't fit, we gave to our neighbours.

Finally, we set off, saying goodbye to our cosy home in the Village of P. Kulich the puppy rode with us. We took him in our arms, and he embarked on his grand journey. The Ural brought us to the Town of Ts., to the headquarters. There we waited a long time for the other vehicles of our company. We spent half the night by the vehicle, without a place to sleep or food. While we waited, Stopor announced that they wouldn't allow us to take our vehicle across the border (only later did we learn that this wasn't true). The decision was made to leave the vehicle there, in Village of Ts. Grusha suggested giving it to the local man who sold vodka. A crazy idea, but everyone supported it! The man was overjoyed, and we took out of the vehicle what we could and crammed it into the Ural.

In the middle of the night, all the vehicles of our company finally assembled into a column, and we set off. It was a very long journey. Somewhere deep down, we still feared that we weren't going to Russia, but towards the City of M, to another assault, so we watched out the sides, counting every turn. If we turned left now, it meant M. If right – Russia.

And then came the fateful turn. With bated breath, we rode towards our destiny. The vehicle turned right.

"Hurrah! We're going home!"

Then came the border, the checkpoint, and the inspection of documents and belongings. This went on for several more hours. The military police searched us for ammunition and grenades, we slowly and painstakingly unloaded all our luggage from the Ural and then loaded it back on. Kulich was passed from hand to hand. We were determined to deliver him to the family of his deceased owner. Finally, the border was crossed, and the column moved on. We were in Russia.

As we drove through Russian villages and towns, we watched the return of familiar provincial landscapes. Stores! Real stores! Cafes! Civilian cars! People walking around!

Some slept, some smoked, passing the ashtray from hand to hand. I sat by the tailgate, watching the road. When day broke, the column stopped near a supermarket. Everyone began to wake up and stir. We could get out, use the bathroom, go to the store, have lunch—and, of course, everyone ran for alcoholic beverages. Finally, real alcohol from a store! Green figures in a long line carried rustling bags back to the vehicles, clinking with every step.

When the column continued on its way, a drinking session began in the Ural. This wasn't a wake anymore—this was a celebration! We turned on the music. Cognac and whiskey were passed around. I quickly mixed up energy drinks and juice into a cocktail. Our spirits were high, and each of us looked to the future with the hope that everything would be alright!


Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed
She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb
In the shape of an "L" on her forehead

Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb

So much to do, so much to see
So what's wrong with taking the back streets?
You'll never know if you don't go (GO!)
You'll never shine if you don't glow

Hey, now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play
Hey, now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid
And all that glitters is gold
Only shooting stars break the mould
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_jWHffIx5E)