DISPOSABLE SOLDIER (diary of a RU mobik) - TOUR 2
(translation courtesy of cofi anon)

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



Chapter 1: Arrival at Training Ground G. Russia. Spring of '23.


A full 24 hours – that’s how long we spent in the Ural truck. It was the longest ride in a vehicle for the entire duration of our service. My backside ached, my legs were numb. Everyone was exhausted, but also tipsy after the change of scenery. Finally, after much wandering around the region, our convoy arrived at Training Ground G.

We unloaded onto the parade ground in front of a huge tent city. Over a hundred massive tents stood in neat rows across the training ground. We piled all our belongings into a giant heap and waited to be assigned our quarters. Kulich the puppy, was with me. We had improvised a leash for him and walked him around the parade ground. He immediately found a friend in a local dog and started playing with her boisterously, picking up random bits of trash and exploring the area. Soon enough, we were assigned a tent and started lazily hauling our gear inside.

It was a tent meant for thirty men. Inside were two-tiered bunks made of planks, a couple of tables, and a couple of small stoves. It was incredibly cramped, with hardly any space for our things. I ended up shoving my backpacks into the narrow gap between the bunks and the tent wall. It made for an awkward and inconvenient storage solution, but at least I was the only one who had to wrestle with that particular den. I barely managed to find a sleeping spot for myself on the top bunk. The bunks looked incredibly flimsy. The ladder was held together with nails and quickly became wobbly: I risked tumbling down onto the scorching hot stove at any moment while climbing to the top tier. I recalled the first nights at the apiary when we all slept crammed together. But here in the tent, we at least had electricity! Free electricity, wired throughout the whole training ground.

The tent city also had its upsides: a small shop (a "chepok"), a mess hall, washbasins, and showers. The chepok was the only one for several hundred men, so there was always a massive line. But at least you could buy food there that we sorely lacked back in Ukraine: sausage rolls, shawarma, chebureki, soda, candy, chocolate… They even sold SIM cards, electronics, headphones, and military clothing. I bought myself a pair of warm rubber boots, a purchase I never regretted—they saved me in the months that followed. Naturally, all of this came at exorbitant prices. The chepok owners were profiteering off the soldiers as much as they could: with no other shops on the training ground and no way to leave, they held a complete monopoly. They knew how much participants in the "SVO" (Special Military Operation) were paid, and they set their prices accordingly. It was highway robbery, but we had no other choice.

The mess hall food was… edible. Not particularly good, not particularly bad, not too little, not too much. Just average, like any other mess hall. The dining area was located in several tents. There were no seats, only long tables running along the tent walls, where you could stand and eat. Some guys skipped the mess hall altogether, preferring to buy food from the chepok. I was fine with the mess hall grub—after eating what we had in Ukraine, I had become even less picky about food than before.

The washbasins were nothing special, but they had mirrors! For us, that was a luxury after Ukraine. And the showers…mmm… For the first time in months I could wash myself in a shower! A hot shower! Not with a mug and a bucket of water, but in a proper shower! Pure bliss… And right next to the shower tent was a tent with washing machines! We had returned to civilization…

We were organized into what they called a reserve battalion. We had a temporary battalion commander: a short man with extremely dark skin, who constantly wore a patch with the Virgin Mary on his shoulder. He never introduced himself to us, so we nicknamed him "Negr". This same Negr assigned us to companies and platoons. Our group got lucky: we all stayed together, making up the majority of the new platoon. Essentially, it was still the same old Pyatnashka (Fifteen). They also added a few other guys to fill in the gaps from our battalion but from a different company.

Training Ground G became a gathering point for our entire old battalion. I constantly saw familiar faces: our company first sergeant Vishnya (Cherry), company commander Lineyka (Ruler), political officer Veslo (Oar), battalion political officer Ishma, senior medic Kasha (Porridge), and many other guys. Everyone was being reassigned. Some other groups were probably less fortunate than us and got split up. Reshuffling was happening almost daily for a week.

We hadn't seen our families for months, so the question of leave to visit them quickly came up. The soldiers' desire was understandable, but the command had very different plans.


Chapter 2: Army Idiocy at Training Ground G. Russia. Spring of '23.


At the next formation, Negr announced what we would be doing here. Every day we would have military training on the training ground. There would also be duties, but not too many. He promised to grant us leave in turns: three men per day from each platoon. We were delighted and made a leave roster: each of us would be able to see our families within the next ten days. The soldiers started calling home and inviting their relatives to visit. The first group of vacationers wrote their leave requests and set off for the nearby town that evening.

But the next day, the situation began to deteriorate. Someone didn't return from leave. Someone smuggled in vodka. And someone had a baby, and the new father was granted not one day of leave, but ten. The command decided that we were having it too easy and started reducing the leave quota and introducing new rules. Now, no one could go on leave until the previous group returned – and they had no intention of returning on time. Their first reunion with family in months! Naturally, people went and didn't come back for several days, sometimes even weeks... Our leave schedule went completely haywire.

Meanwhile, military training began at the training ground. Every morning we donned our armor, grabbed our weapons, and marched on foot to the training area. It was a long walk: about twenty minutes to one location, forty minutes to another, and sometimes we walked for a full hour. Back in Ukraine, we hadn’t walked as much as we did on this damn training ground, in full armor and carrying weapons. And the training itself… was actually almost the same as it had been back in City of V before our first deployment. Medical training, engineering training, tactical marching, combat drills, practice firefights in the field and trenches. Except that live-fire exercises were several times more frequent than they had been in City of V. However, that shooting was just as pointless: I never got a chance to approach the targets.

Naturally, everyone was just thinking about how to get out of these exercises. There were several ways. One of them was duties. Mess hall duty, guard duty on the parade ground, and a bunch of stove-stoking duties. Mess hall duty involved cleaning and serving in the mess hall, of course. Guard duty on the parade ground meant just standing on the parade ground under a "mushroom"—a post with a roof for rain protection. And the stove-stokers kept the stoves burning in the tents. Each tent required two stokers, working in shifts: one for the battalion HQ, one for the training ground HQ, one for the washrooms, and also one for our sleeping tent. And that's where, in our sleeping tent, an ingenious plan was hatched.

The plan was this: we wanted to go to town. Two people would go AWOL to the town, and at roll call, someone would answer "at the stove" for them. That is, for the command, they would be listed as stove-stokers. The actual stokers would go to formation, answer for themselves ("Here!"), and then quietly slip back to the tent to stoke the stove. In this way, we covered for those who went AWOL, and everyone had a chance to visit their families.

The main problem was how to leave the training ground and get to town without being caught by the military police. Very quickly, some of our guys made contact with a local gang of taxi drivers who offered exclusive services.

Regular taxi services almost never operated between the town and Training Ground G. The pay was low, the road was terrible, cell service was spotty, and navigation didn't work—you could easily get lost. But this local gang of taxi drivers operated differently: they advertised through word of mouth, and charged two or three times more than official taxis, but they were ready to pick up at any time of day or night with just a phone call. They also picked up AWOL soldiers at specific locations near the woods, hiding them from the military police. This gang expertly monitored the roads leading to the training ground and always knew where the military police were stationed and how to avoid them.

Our soldiers would leave the training ground, slip through the woods, and in about half an hour would arrive at the prearranged meeting point. That's how they got to town, and the next day, they’d come back the same way, bringing treats from town and liquor. When the vacationers returned, we'd throw evening parties in our tent. Thus, illegally but cleanly and quietly, we implemented our own leave schedule.

I didn’t feel like sneaking through the woods and fields, so I left the training ground via a different route. The training ground had its own medical unit where doctors examined soldiers' complaints. That's where I went, complaining of pain in my feet due to flat feet. There wasn't actually any pain, but the flat feet were clearly visible during the examination—I had a grade 2 condition. Not enough to be discharged from the army, but enough for a clever trick. The doctor at the medical unit examined my feet and told me to go to an orthopedic salon to buy orthopedic insoles—and wrote me a permit to go to town.

Officially, the permit was single-use, but it was valid for ten days. And the military police at the checkpoint didn't check or record who left the training ground with this permit: they simply checked the stamp and let you pass. So, when going AWOL, I would just walk out through the main gate and then just as brazenly walk back in, and no one ever stopped me. I even cheekily changed the date on the permit to go to town even after the ten days had expired.

This way, I managed to go AWOL to town five or six times. I mostly went shopping and bought the things I needed for further service. I bought two sets of new uniforms, thermal underwear, two pairs of boots, a bunch of small household items, a new rugged smartphone, and lots of other things. Of course, all the AWOL guys would drink in town and visit prostitutes.

I had mixed feelings about this: on the one hand, after long months at war, I craved female attention, but on the other hand, there was a sense of fakeness to it all. A dubious experience, but you have to try everything in life, right?

One of our new guys – a perpetual partygoer and spendthrift – was used to earning big and spending big. He would go AWOL to rent a luxury penthouse with a pool, hang out at expensive clubs, and hire a dozen girls. He found himself a Ukrainian girlfriend and proposed to her a week later, presenting her with a gorgeous diamond ring. During the month we spent at Training Ground G, he spent about a million rubles on leisure, which was more than half of what he'd earned during his time at war.

A few other comrades went to live in the bathhouse. Literally live: they spent several days there with prostitutes. When we called them and asked what to say about their whereabouts, they proudly responded in drunken voices, "Say we're in SOCh!" (a pun: SOCh - samovolnoe ostavlenie chasti, AWOL and Sochi, pidorashka's Miami).

When they returned, we witnessed a hilarious phone conversation. One of them had been caught by his wife: she'd received notifications about her husband's spending. She called him and gave him a good dressing down, while he paced around our tent, drunk as a skunk, trying to justify himself. We couldn't hear what his wife was saying, but we could guess, roaring with laughter:

"Honey, how could you spend one hundred and fifty thousand in two days?"

"I couldn't have spent one hundred and fifty thousand in two days, hello!"

"It must have been scammers, they probably hacked me!"

"I wasn't at any bathhouse! I only love you!"

"What three prostitutes? How do you know how many there were?!"

"Honey, I only love you… Listen, could you send me another twenty thousand to my card, please?"

Other guys went AWOL to Moscow. It cost a fortune – about thirty thousand rubles for the taxi – but they didn’t regret it, having spent time at home with their families. I also managed to meet up with my family and friends once in a town near the training ground.

In between AWOL adventures, we still attended training exercises, but with reduced personnel. Every day, the number of “responsible” servicemen dwindled, while the number of “sick” ones increased. Negr would look at this “army” of people eager to see the doctors and mutter, “Where has my army gone…”

One time during engineering training, we were given signal flares to try out. I and a couple of other soldiers fired them without incident: the flare would go up into the sky, ignite, and slowly arc down until it burned out completely. But one poor fellow did something wrong, and the flare went not up, but into the field. The sun was shining, there had been no rain or snow for a week: the grass was completely dry. A breeze was blowing. The flare landed in the grass and ignited it. The field caught fire about a kilometre away from us.

Realizing what had happened, we rushed to stomp out the burning grass, but it was no use. By the time we reached the fire, the wind had already spread it over a vast area. Although the fire wasn’t intense, the fire line had already spread for a good kilometre in all directions. We stomped on the grass as best we could; other soldiers joined us, and we walked along the fire line for a long time, about an hour. But we couldn't outrun the wind. While we were extinguishing one spot, the wind would carry the fire line even further. In the end, we gave up and let it burn itself out. The fire was still going strong far, far away as we returned to our tents. It eventually went out on its own, without our help.

Another day, we were tasked with… preparing the forest for exercises. Preparing the forest. That was the most army-like task we ever performed. There were a lot of fallen spruce trees in a grove near the training ground. The order: the spruce trees must stand! Armed with chainsaws, hammers, and nails, we set to work. The tops of the spruce trees were given a new life: we nailed them to stumps. Oh yes, it was a new forest: stumps and tops nailed to each other. Naturally, we wanted to somehow brighten up this incredibly useful activity, so a squad of scouts was dispatched to the nearest village to get some beer. The scouts returned at the height of our labours, and this gave us a huge boost of enthusiasm for restoring the planet’s ecology. The chainsaw roared more merrily, the hammers pounded faster and accompanied by the cheerful laughter of drunken soldiers, the forest took on new colors!

Though it was all fun and games, it was also utterly pointless. Every one of us understood that our "vacation" at the training ground wouldn't last forever. We watched as other companies, one after another, were sent back to the SVO, and each of us looked for ways to stay in Russia permanently. Some were more successful than others.

In one of the tents, the bunks were very poorly constructed, and this led to unfortunate consequences. Early one morning, a top bunk collapsed. One soldier rolled over the stove, suffering burns. Another broke his spine. He was brought to the medics and evacuated. His fate after that is unknown. Perhaps he was even sent home.

Our tent also had its share of illnesses. While we were in Ukraine, out in nature, there weren’t many illnesses because the concentration of people in any given area was low. Here, in civilization, where thousands of people live in close proximity, illnesses began to spread rapidly. For about a week, our entire tent coughed, sneezed, and ran fevers. However, that didn't exempt us from duty.

Everyone was looking for more reliable health problems. One of our comrades, for instance, burned his hand on the stove. Who knows if it was accidental or on purpose. But it didn't get him out of service for long - the injury wasn't serious. Dubina, our valiant machine gunner, went down the mental health route again. He complained to a psychiatrist and provided the necessary documents: it worked. Dubina was kept at the training ground and made an instructor for other machine gunners – that’s how he continued his service until his eventual discharge from the armed forces. One of our medics also found his niche as a tactical medicine instructor, not due to illness, but thanks to his experience and skills. Grusha went to the hospital to treat his endocrine system; fortunately, he had legitimate reasons. Another heavyset guy found a way out through the corruption system: he paid one million seven hundred thousand rubles for his diagnosis! That was one and a half times more than he'd earned at war at that point. The poor fellow, overjoyed, went on a massive bender in the hospital and was quickly discharged. He went to other doctors to confirm his diagnosis, and I don't know what became of him after that.

Many were searching for diagnoses. Shaiba and another senior soldier tried to find a loophole and were ready to pay three hundred thousand rubles, but to no avail. Tush (Ink) and another soldier managed to get diagnosed with something, but their conditions weren’t serious. In the end, they were simply transferred to other units and were sent to war separately from us, to hotter and more dangerous locations. Helpless Shesternya (Gear) turned out to be the luckiest: he managed to secure a diagnosis from either a psychiatrist or a neurologist.

Someone tried to get discharged due to the birth of their third child, being a clever guy: he'd thought everything through in advance, and last summer he already understood where things were heading. But I won't be able to find out if he succeeded because our paths diverged. Another guy, a notorious drunkard and AWOL specialist, also tried the mental health route, just like Dubina – and he succeeded. After what he went through during the assault, he'd genuinely lost his mind.

We all looked at "military camaraderie" and "loyalty to the Motherland" differently after the first tour. Every one of us dreamed of returning home. If there was even the slightest chance to get the coveted right to be discharged from the armed forces – you had to take it. None of us needed this war, none of us needed this victory. Just home. But only a few succeeded. The state had closed almost all legal avenues to freedom. And if you run and hide in the forests – how long can you hide? And how do you live after that, if you're a fugitive? How do you work, how do you support your family? Some tried to get discharged on compassionate grounds, others simply ran away. Those who ran usually returned. It happens, someone would go AWOL for a couple of weeks and come back. But the drunkard Nefrit didn’t return. However, he's doing alright even now: he finally found a whole bunch of pre-retirement-age ailments and is now running around from doctor to doctor, and so far, they haven’t sent him back to war.

Thus passed the month of March.


Chapter 3: Formation of the new battalion. Village of Yu. Non-recognized republics (Donbabwe in pidorashka parlance, translator's note). Spring of '23.


That day, I had once again gone AWOL to the neighbouring town. I left at half-past five in the morning through the checkpoint, got to town, and waited for the shops to open. I had plans to buy a few things, relax at a hotel, maybe go to a hookah bar... But my plans were not destined to come true. At eight in the morning, Ofis called and announced that we were leaving Training Ground G in an hour.

"But how am I supposed to get back in an hour?"

"Listen, I don't give a fuck how you're gonna get back. Make a choice: either you get back quickly and leave with us, or you don't come back and you're declared SOCh (AWOL)."

"I got you."

All I managed to do in town was buy cigarettes and withdraw some cash. I hastily called a taxi back to the training ground and headed off to meet the new deployment. I was late, of course. But the army is the most disorganized organization, so no one noticed my tardiness. I had enough time to gather my duffel bags, load them into the truck with the others, and rejoin my unit.

We left only a couple of hours later and spent the whole day on the road. There were stops at shops, and we stocked up on food and alcohol for the long journey. I had headphones, and for almost the entire trip, I sat by the side of the Ural truck, listening to music and admiring the scenery. Though we were going back to war, the mood was upbeat. In the evening, we crossed the border and entered the territory of the unrecognized republic. And late at night, we arrived at a village school in the Village of Yu. There, we somehow settled in and piled our belongings into one giant heap.

When the officers asked who had a Category C driver's license, our comrade Kryuk (Hook) volunteered. That was a mistake—they never gave him a truck, but they did transfer him to a different platoon. Unfortunately, they took our crazy Kryuk away from us. Though he ended up stationed not far from us, we didn't see each other often, and the guys from our old group started missing his catchphrases:

"A faaat little pigggg!"

"Ursula von der Leyen!"

"They'll be sucking our fat cocks!"

"You're doomed to serve our Motherland until the end of your days!"

When the officers asked who had a degree in psychology or education, I, in turn, volunteered. I said, "I have a degree in education." They took me aside for a conversation.

"So, Kompas, you have a degree in education, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Look, we can offer you the position of company political officer."

"Political officer!? But that's an officer's position, and I'm a private!"

"No problem. You sign a contract, we give you the rank of lieutenant, and you take the position of company political officer."

"A contract? I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to sign a contract. I'm mobilized—I want to go home, not sign a contract."

"And you think that if you're mobilized, you'll go home sooner? The SVO is planned until 2030. No one will let you go home before 2030 in any case, whether you're a contract soldier or mobilized. But if you sign a contract, you’ll get a one-time payment of two hundred thousand rubles. We’ll make you an officer."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to sign a contract. If you are willing to appoint a mobilized private as a company political officer, I'm at your service. If not, I’ll remain a regular rifleman."

And that's how we left it. I didn't sign the contract. At the next formation, the officers called my name and said, "Step forward to company HQ, you’re the new political officer!" I was shocked but amused. It was some kind of joke. And there I was, standing in company HQ, outranking everyone in the company except for the company commander, Plita (Slab).

I looked, of course, utterly ridiculous. I’m a lousy leader, and a military commander even less so. Five minutes! It took the officers only five minutes to realize that they didn’t need such a political officer. My name was called again, and I returned to the position of rifleman—but in a different platoon!

I panicked and tried to get back to my group. Everyone was making fun of me.

"Political officer for five minutes!"

I wasn’t against the jokes. Of course, the situation was comical. I appealed to my platoon commander, Katapulta, and asked to be transferred back to our platoon. At that moment, he was talking to a battalion officer—I later learned that it was Yakor (Anchor), the battalion political officer. Yakor and Katapulta listened to my request: Katapulta treated me humanely and was all for my return. But Yakor started mocking me, and not in a nice way: "So, when you were offered a higher position, you immediately abandoned your comrades and happily ran off to company HQ. But as soon as they kicked you back to the position of rifleman—'Oh, my team, oh, I want to serve with my friends, oh please, take me back!' Right? What, cat got your tongue?"

I didn’t like Yakor right away. From just one short conversation with him, I immediately understood that he didn't give a damn about people or their needs. Nevertheless, Katapulta managed to secure my return to our platoon, and I rejoined my comrades. However, not everyone was happy about my return.

Ofis and I had our disagreements, and he chose a cunning way to get rid of me. Ofis started trying to convince me that signing a contract was a good idea: "Kompas, you were offered an officer's rank and the position of company political officer. Kompas, think about it. You'd be sitting at HQ. No trenches, you’d have soldiers digging for you, you’d be in command. And they'd pay you two hundred thousand. If I had a degree in education, I wouldn't hesitate to sign a contract."

Of course, I didn't fall for his persuasion and didn't sign any contract.

A few days passed, the battalion was fully staffed, and another round of training began at the training ground. The walk to the training ground took about half an hour, uphill. The training was standard—the same old shooting, medical training, grenade throwing… But there was also something new: I fired an RPG (hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher) a couple of times. It was an interesting experience. The RPG fires very loudly, and I had to wear noise-cancelling headphones, which my comrade Vratar (Goalie) lent me.

Several weeks went by like this, and in mid-spring, our valiant battalion set off for its positions. In the evening, we loaded up the trucks and set off. We spent the whole night on the road, and in the morning, we started recognizing our familiar places, the familiar front line. Passing by the Town of Ts., we looked out from the Ural truck, trying to spot our old Bukhanka, which we’d left there a month and a half ago with a local. Alas, we couldn’t find it. Later, we learned that our Bukhanka had been requisitioned for army needs.

In the evening, under the cover of darkness, we arrived at some positions.


Chapter 4. Wandering in Search of Our Positions. Frontline. April of '23.


Complete darkness, an unfamiliar treeline, and a bunch of mobilized soldiers, lost and weary. A nasty April drizzle was coming down. Artillery fire rumbled somewhere in the distance, but our position was safe.

We unloaded into a treeline as a single platoon. Without command, without a company commander, without battalion officers. Fortunately, trenches and dugouts had already been prepared in the treeline. We settled in wherever we could and started getting ready for bed. There wasn't enough room for me in the dugout.

For a good half hour, I wandered through the trenches looking for a comfortable spot, and my search was successful. I found a concrete pillbox where I stashed all my gear, sheltering it from the rain. I settled down for the night in what used to be a generator shed: a convenient pit in the ground covered with logs and a camouflage net. The bottom was covered with pallets: previously, they held a generator, now they held me. The pit reeked of gasoline, but I didn't care—I was too tired to care. I desperately wanted to sleep. Shmel joined me later, but he couldn’t stand the smell for even half an hour: he got a terrible headache and went to look for a better place.

Having slept in the generator shed until midday, I crawled out and started to survey the surroundings. There was a convenient latrine dug in the trenches, below ground level – credit to those who had dug in here. The entire treeline was properly fortified. The other guys were sitting in dugouts, searching for their things in the treeline, and no one knew what to do next. We spent the whole day milling about in these trenches, and in the evening, we were ordered to move again.

This time, the Ural truck carried not only our belongings but also the company's equipment: weapons crates and a massive field kitchen. The problem was that it wasn't a mobile field kitchen on wheels, but a stationary one on metal skids, which eight of us had to load onto the truck. Since there wasn't enough room in the Ural, we made two trips. And we didn't have to go far: because of the constant rain, the road had turned to mud, and halfway there, we had to transfer everything to MT-LBs (multi-purpose tracked armoured personnel carriers).

That was my first time riding in an MT-LB – a tracked armoured personnel carrier for transporting troops and equipment. With great effort, we loaded the field kitchen onto the roof of the MT-LB and our belongings inside the troop compartment. Some of us rode on the outside, "on the armour," but I was lucky enough to get inside the troop compartment. You couldn’t call the ride comfortable, but at least I was sheltered from the rain and mud. And the rain and mud became our constant companions for the next few months.

After driving some more distance, we arrived at our new positions late at night. And the rain kept drizzling and drizzling. That's when I realized that I desperately needed shelter for the night, and I had to build it myself.

The solution came surprisingly quickly. I spotted some crates of company weapons, a camouflage net, and a raincoat. I positioned the crates to form two "walls" with enough space between them for me and my belongings. I covered the crates with the camouflage net, weighing down the edges with some logs—the roof was done. At the head of my makeshift shelter, I placed our generator and my belongings, covering everything with the raincoat—the roof was complete. It only had one open "entrance," which I crawled into, spread out my sleeping bag, and even managed to take off my boots. The rain wasn't heavy, and my shelter saved me that night.

As we spread out further, we came across some neighbours who finally told us where we were. It turned out we were very close to our good old Village Z – the one where the shopkeeper lived who ran his little store. Happy to hear this, we figured out how to get there and started heading that way. First one group went, then another, and so on. My turn came too. Gathering a group, we set off for the village to resupply.

Along the way, we saw abandoned positions. Someone had lived here before. There were whole dugouts, trenches, unfinished pits in the ground, and piles of abandoned belongings. We took note of this and entered the village. We recognized our old friend Vityok, the shopkeeper's assistant.

"Hey hey, Vityok, hello there! Long time no see, good to see you again!"

"Hello, guys! Glad to see you alive and well."

He recognized us. Or at least pretended to. We’d been going to his store for almost all of December and remembered him well. He, of course, had dozens of customers from various units every day – naturally, he didn't remember everyone. We stocked up on all sorts of things for the platoon's needs: gas canisters, wet wipes, and of course, soda, juice, sausage, sweets, and other goodies. One of our comrades, nicknamed Metla (Broom), hadn't had time to withdraw cash while we were at the training ground, so he gave the shopkeeper his bank card and PIN, asking him to go to Russia and withdraw cash for him. This was, of course, risky, but Metla had no other choice but to trust the shopkeeper.

Loaded with purchases, we headed back. On the way back, I took note of materials that might be useful, planning to return for them later. When we got back to our own, everyone happily began consuming and drinking everything we'd bought. Meanwhile, the rain kept coming down. We started to realize that we needed to improve our shelters.

By this point, I had started to understand that a "lone wolf cub has to fend for himself." There were no commanders here who knew what to do; our platoon leader, Katapulta, was sitting by a campfire in an open dugout, just as bewildered as the rest of us. There were no experienced soldiers who would politely settle us into dry quarters. And my comrades wouldn't take care of me either, because they were busy taking care of themselves.

So, I returned to the abandoned positions on the way to Village Z. The most resourceful among us had already occupied the ready-made dugouts in that part of the treeline. I got the materials I had my eye on. After walking around the positions, I gathered a rigid medical stretcher, a greenhouse frame for cucumbers, some tarp, a couple of camouflage nets, and a torn raincoat. This loot actually saved me. I returned to my group and started building a new shelter.

I laid the stretcher out on the ground between some bushes. Sleeping bag on top. Cucumber frame on top of that. And then the camouflage nets, tarp, and raincoat over the frame. This way, I wasn’t lying on the damp ground but was slightly elevated, thanks to the stretcher. The greenhouse frame served as the structure for the walls and roof, covered from the rain by all the materials I’d found. The problem was that all the materials were old and torn. There was nothing to seal the gaps and holes with. But it was better than nothing. By nightfall, I had a shelter. The other guys had a good laugh watching me crawl inside. Like a caterpillar, I wriggled into this pathetic greenhouse, tried to undress in the tiny space, and settled down comfortably in my sleeping bag. I slept soundly in my greenhouse for a good twelve hours. In the middle of the night, the rain started coming down harder and harder. Water flowed through the holes in the greenhouse and the seams of the tarp, pooling right under my backside in a cold puddle. But it was too late to change anything about the structure. So I simply resigned myself to the fact that my ass would be wet and cold, and just kept sleeping.

In the morning, I crawled out of my sleeping bag, shivering and soaked. I had never slept in such dampness before. I was shaking, my teeth were chattering, I quickly got dressed, and with trembling hands, tried to tie my boots. I crawled out of my greenhouse like a caterpillar again. Once outside, I found my platoon in an even more miserable state than myself. It turned out that my greenhouse had been the most reliable shelter of all those built the previous day. Everyone else was much wetter, colder, and more exhausted than I was. And today, they weren’t laughing at my shelter, but praising it in admiration.

That day, we decided that this couldn't go on. We needed to occupy houses again! We couldn't abandon our positions, though our purpose at these positions remained unclear. After conferring, we decided to send a small group to the Village of Z to find a dry, unoccupied house. Katapulta gave his approval. I joined this group, and we set off. Once back in the village, we spent some time asking around among the locals and other soldiers and soon found an empty house.

The house was small and barely fit eight people. But that was enough for us. A dry house! We hung our sleeping bags up to dry, went to the shopkeeper’s for some supplies, found some firewood, and settled down to rest. We were supposed to stay in the house for one day and then switch with another group. But, as always, our plans were not meant to be. “Man proposes, God disposes,” as they say.

In the afternoon, Ofis contacted us by radio and ordered us to return. We were moving again! We gathered our sleeping bags and trudged back. Of course, none of us had time to dry out completely; we were all still damp and chilled. At that moment, the spirit of looting flared up within me, and without a twinge of conscience, I stole the homeowner’s shovel and axe. I was starting to understand: to survive here, I needed to take everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Fortunately, this entire area was safe, and we were able to move around without armour. Walking around in armour would have been too exhausting. We returned to our platoon and began loading up. We were to be transported by MT-LB again, in several trips. Again, we loaded the field kitchen onto the roof, carried bags of company supplies, and stowed our duffel bags in the troop compartment. And the rain, the endless rain. We formed a chain and passed the things from hand to hand. Krab, Utka, Shlyapa, and I were standing next to each other in the chain. We were already hysterical from this weather. We laughed and filmed our suffering.

“Everything’s fucked…”

“Everything’s fucked!”

“Everything’s fucked!”

“Every…”

“…thing’s fuuuuucked!”

Everything truly was fucked. Thick, sticky mud covered everything. Our legs were covered in mud up to the shins. Our arms were covered in mud up to the elbows. The supply bags were covered in mud. The weapons were covered in mud. The armour was covered in mud. The sleeping bags were covered in mud. The duffel bags were covered in mud. We were completely covered in mud. Thick, sticky, cold, wet mud was everywhere, and there was no escape.

“I’m loving life! Loving it!”

“Life is so good!”

“Living the dream!”

These words were uttered with a hysterical, mocking tone. There was a cheerful madness in my eyes.

While the first two groups were being transported, Katapulta, a few other comrades, and I sat by a campfire in an unfinished dugout. We discussed the weather and cursed the command.

“This is fucking bullshit! No dugouts, no electricity! And when the radios die, what are we gonna do? How are we supposed to charge them, for fuck's sake?” Katapulta lamented.

We’d been hoping for prepared positions and good supply lines. How naive we were, how inexperienced. And our platoon commander Katapulta was just as naive as we were.

Finally, the last group loaded up onto the MT-LBs. This time, I rode on the outside, on top of the armor. We settled in as best we could and braced ourselves. The vehicles drove through the mud; thick, viscous sludge flew from under the tracks. The engine roared loudly, drowning out our voices. Whenever I ride somewhere with a view of the passing scenery, my mood lifts a little, and I started humming softly:

(He starts to hum this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfLYcJvQlA8)

Song translation is available here: https://lyricstranslate.com/ru/doroga-v-oblaka-doroga-v-oblaka-road-clouds.html)

Late at night, we arrived at some new positions—another treeline. We were met by our comrade Kolobok.


Chapter 5: First Days in "The Office." Frontline. April of '23.


Kolobok and a few other guys met our last group disembarking from the MT-LB. Fortunately, in this treeline, the shelters were already dug for us. They showed us where everyone would be staying: one dugout per squad. In pitch darkness, we trudged along the road to our assigned dugouts. Our squad settled into a small but cosy dugout for six people. There were nine of us. Two-tiered bunks were arranged in a U-shape at the back of the dugout: seven people fit on them, two of whom shared a bunk. Someone settled on a crate of RPG rounds, and Utka curled up on the "closet" shelf. He lay there whispering, repeating the same thing over and over: "A roof over my head... Finally, a roof over my head. A dry dugout. Warm..."

It seemed safe here. Artillery fire could be heard somewhere far away, but nothing exploded near us, no fighting could be heard. Those who had arrived before us had already lit a tiny stove and were warming up the space. We decided to post a night watch at the entrance to the dugout, just in case. This dugout became our home for the next few months. Over time, it acquired the name: "The Office."

A Bukhanka truck was stuck in the mud on the road by our dugout, and one of the drivers came in to warm up. He’d been living here for a while and started warning us about minefields around the area, advising us not to wander off. He was drunk. Those of us who were still awake listened to him without comment – we were too tired. During the night, on my watch, our company first sergeant, nicknamed Sapog (Boot), came to check on us. After making sure everything was in order, he moved on to other squads.

The next morning, we started setting up our living space. The first thing I needed to do was find my belongings. The treeline stretched in a long, straight line for several kilometres, and a dirt road ran alongside it, used by trucks and MT-LBs. A path wound between the trees along the treeline, and I had to make several trips to the unloading point and back to haul all my bags to our dugout. While I was carrying things, Ofis and I had another conflict.

Sapog tasked us with urgently clearing a space in the treeline for parking the MT-LB, which was now assigned to our company. I happened to be walking past Sapog and Ofis when they were choosing a suitable spot. Sapog, as the company's first sergeant, gave the order to Ofis. And Ofis, as the acting platoon commander, delegated the task to me: "Go grab an axe and get over here! Clear the area for the MT-LB!"

I immediately figured that this task didn't actually need to be done... Especially not by me. Plus, I was busy with my own affairs. So I started playing dumb.

"I'm going to get my things..."

"I said you're not going for your things, you're going for an axe."

"I'll just quickly go get my things, bring them over, and then I'll come back."

"No, I said you're going for the axe right now!"

"But I don't know where the axe is..."

"Get the fuck out of here, Kompas, you fucking idiot!"

This arrangement suited me perfectly. So I just went on with my business. From then on, there was always tension between Ofis and me, which often escalated into arguments that Ofis always won. I tried to play dumb, work half-heartedly, and avoid him so as not to get stuck with some stupid task that didn't really need to be done.

The next problem that needed solving was provisions. We had neither food nor water. A couple of open bottles, a few cans of food, and that was it. Fortunately, we at least had a gas burner and a little fuel. When I was fetching my things, I'd noticed the company’s supplies – a huge pile of boxes with canned goods, packages of drinking water, and a large barrel of technical water. There was some commotion around these supplies. A lot of people were milling about, taking what they needed, all without Sapog's supervision. I didn't understand whether they were taking it legally or not. So I decided to act. Blending in with the crowd, I put on a confident look and started stuffing food and water into my duffel bag. And no one noticed anything. Everyone was so busy with their own affairs that no one asked me a single question, and I successfully returned to my dugout with a bag full of provisions. But that wasn't enough for me.

I’d brought the stretcher I slept on under the cucumber frame with me! Now, it was transformed into a cargo carrier. I approached a comrade nicknamed Vyshka (Tower) and asked him, "Help me out, let's go get some supplies!"

Vyska didn't realize I meant stealing – I hadn't told him we were going looting! And we went. With even greater audacity, I started loading food and water onto the stretcher, right in front of everyone. We loaded up, probably, half a centner, and covered it with a raincoat. And we hauled it back. And again, no one said a word against it; everyone was too busy. On the way back, we ran into our comrade, Kust (Bush), who looked at the supplies on the stretcher with surprise.

“Uh, are we stealing this?”

“Yeah, just a little bit…”

“A little bit? Are they giving it out there?”

“Yeah, they’re giving it out, they’re giving it out,” I lied, and we quickly walked past.

The guys in the dugout were shocked. A whole stretcher full of provisions. I said, "Let's go again!" This time, I took Utka with me. The short, skinny fellow came with me on the next trip, and I completely wore him out. He barely managed to make it back with fifty kilograms of food and water in the stretcher. And I wasn't in the best shape either. By that point, there was almost nothing left of the company’s supplies – everyone had already taken everything. But I knew: if these supplies are going to be stolen one way or another, then we might as well be the ones to steal them. Otherwise, we’d be in trouble. So, in one day of looting, I provided my squad with food for a week and a half or two weeks.

The situation with water was worse. Every day we would go to the barrel and fill our bottles with rusty, murky technical water. It needed to be boiled. But on the way to the barrel, I would always sneak a peek at Sapog’s stash and steal a few bottles of clean drinking water from the company’s supply. I’m ashamed, of course, but there was no other way to survive.

Having dealt with carrying things and provisions, I decided to tackle the next problem: sleeping arrangements. And fortunately, I had a solution for creating one new sleeping space. My beloved stretcher somehow fit inside our dugout, and we wedged it diagonally between the second-tier bunks, right under the ceiling. Proud of my invention, I decided I would sleep in the stretcher myself! It hung over the heads of people walking by, and everyone told me I would fall out of it onto someone. But the stretcher held firm and never let me down. The guys believed in omens and told me, "If you sleep on a stretcher, you’ll become a '300' (wounded)." But I didn’t believe them and laughed at their superstition.

In the following days, I went on looting expeditions around the area. I conducted reconnaissance alone; it felt safer that way. Fortunately, the positions were safe, and we all moved around without weapons or armor. To be honest, the war felt like it was far away from us. Venturing further and further from "The Office," I discovered abandoned dugouts containing crates of canned food and sometimes even drinking water. I gradually loaded all of this into my looting duffel bag and hauled it back to "The Office," creating a stockpile for my squad.

Everyone else was also busy with domestic chores. Some gathered firewood, some stoked the stove, some arranged the dugout and stashed supplies in corners and on shelves. Other squads were also engaged in looting, and they were successful too. They managed to loot stoves and stovepipes – much better than the one we had in "The Office." They found provisions as well. Eventually, Sapog and Plita established a system for delivering food and water to the company, and the supply problems disappeared. Life began to settle into a stable routine, and with it came the inevitable army idiocy.


Chapter 6: Setting up "The Checkpoint." Frontline. Summer of '23.


Our platoon was spread out among four dugouts. After several moves from dugout to dugout, things finally settled down. Our squad was lucky; we managed to arrange things so that we didn't have to move anywhere else. Our "Office" was located at the edge of our platoon's positions, closest to the positions of the neighboring platoons and company HQ. Next came "Venus," then "Hudson" (named after our old post from January), and "Belgium."

Katapulta, a couple of his assistants, and two guys assigned as MT-LB drivers – Krab and Grusha – lived in "Venus." They replaced the previous MT-LB crew due to their incompetence: the MT-LB had gotten stuck right on the road near "The Office" and thrown a track – the track had come off. It sat there for about a week, covered with dry sunflower stalks. There was a large machine gun mounted on the roof of the MT-LB. This stationary MT-LB could have attracted unwanted enemy attention, but miraculously, it wasn't discovered, and we weren't shelled. The old MT-LB crew couldn’t manage to put the track back on, but Krab and Grusha did. So our guys were assigned to maintain the vehicle permanently.

List's squad, which included almost all of our old group, lived in "Hudson." They also set up one of our generators there and ran electricity. In the beginning, we would charge our radios and power banks at "Hudson."

Mostly younger guys lived in "Belgium." It was a mess there, and the senior man in charge, nicknamed Pechka (Stove), clearly couldn’t handle leading people.

Our Shaiba’s squad lived in our "Office." From the old group, there was Shaiba, Shmel, and myself. Utka, Shlyapa, and Gubka had joined us at Training Ground G, while the machine gunner nicknamed Komp (Computer), Karton (Cardboard), and Vyshka joined us just now.

The command had certain plans for us. The plans were utterly senseless, just like us. We were ordered to post a guard at the intersection of the treelines to observe the road. In theory, this was supposed to be the first line of defence in case of a flanking attack. But since we were in the rear, there was, of course, no attack (thank God). We were something like the third line of defence. There was another treeline and Village of I in front of us, and the enemy was beyond that: the Ukrainian positions were only a few kilometres away, and no active assault operations were happening in this sector. Our artillery was positioned behind us, regularly firing from the fields and treelines in the lowlands, and even further back was Village of Sh.

So, our platoon was supposed to post a 24/7 guard to observe the road on the flank. Since there was no direct threat, this guard's sole purpose was to monitor who was driving along the road towards our positions and report it. We were a tripwire.

Here’s why: imagine the brigade commander shows up and our drunken company commander is standing by HQ in his underwear, taking a piss! To prevent this from happening, our guard post was set up. We called this post "Shlagbaum" (Checkpoint). At first, it was just a log in the middle of the treeline, where we sat and watched the road, reporting by radio. But over time, we were ordered to fortify our post more and more thoroughly.

Over the course of several months, "The Checkpoint" acquired a comfortable bench; two proper foxholes, deep enough to stand in, covered with a roof of logs, from which the road could be covered by fire; a wired telephone from the Soviet era, which you had to crank to operate; and a long, genuine checkpoint barrier. All of this was built, for the most part, by the efforts of "The Office" squad. In general, over time, "The Office" became the only dugout that serviced "The Checkpoint" and manned the guard post at the front entrance. The other squads were assigned different tasks.

All of this construction was, of course, completely unnecessary for us. But the command had its levers of pressure. One fine day, we were informed that they were ready to grant us leave, three men per platoon at a time. We drew lots and divided the entire platoon into ten "shifts" of three men each. Shaiba, our squad leader, was supposed to go on leave in the first shift. But then he was told: until a foxhole is dug and covered at "The Checkpoint"—no leave for you! And his leave was starting the next day. So our entire squad, like damned souls, worked all evening to finish this wretched foxhole, and we did it.

When they brought us the checkpoint barrier, we were stunned. A checkpoint barrier, for real! It was unloaded from the Ural truck: a monstrous structure of planks and carpentry brackets. We dug it into the ground, packed the earth around it, and tried to lift it. It wouldn’t budge. The long arm of the barrier was too long and heavy, and the short arm was too short and light. It was impossible for one person to lift the barrier alone. So we found an empty bag of pasta, filled it with dirt, and placed it on the short end as a counterweight. We tried it out with a real vehicle. When a UAZ drove under the barrier, there were no problems. But as soon as a Ural truck appeared, things went south. The Ural knocked down our checkpoint barrier with its roof; the long arm broke, and the support post was twisted. And we had to fix it all. We had to dig the support post further away from the road and nail a long branch to the long arm instead of the broken plank. The balance was off, and the bag of dirt also had to be repositioned. Every few days something would bend or break on this checkpoint barrier, and we’d fix it.

When it rained, the bag of dirt would get wet and heavier. When it was hot, the bag would dry out and become lighter. When they welded a roof of steel rebar onto the MT-LB, it knocked down our checkpoint barrier again. When it was muddy, the Ural trucks would slide and twist our support post. When the brass came to inspect, they made us rebuild the checkpoint barrier: change the branches to planks, and then the planks back to branches, then camouflage it with netting and green leaves. And every time, we had to change something about this checkpoint barrier. In the end, I even had the idea of hammering in a large nail and attaching a duffel bag strap to it so that in case of an alarm, we could leave the barrier open and run to our shelter.

This checkpoint barrier, it was a chthonic monster cobbled together from pieces of wood and metal. Ugly, disgusting, and vile. But functional and fully operational. We built it ourselves. And that was good.

Another foxhole was forced upon us by the deputy brigade commander. He came to inspect the positions and stopped by "The Checkpoint." There, he found an unfinished foxhole and a machine gun lying in it, left there by one of our comrades. No one understood the essence of his complaints, but the deputy brigade commander cursed everyone out with a three-story-high tirade of obscenities, dismissed the guard detail, took them for a reprimand, and confiscated the machine gun. My comrade and I were called to replace the guard detail, and on the way, we witnessed the deputy brigade commander’s colourful pronouncements: "Soldier, fuck! Should I shoot your knees? And then smash your face in? And then ask: how’s it going, bro, how’s it going?!"

In short, we were tasked with digging a second foxhole. Pointless, but these two foxholes would save our lives in the future.

The signalmen, meanwhile, were improving the wired communication lines in the treeline. They set up a switchboard, ran several kilometers of wire, created a telephone network, and even set up one of the telephones on a pole for us. It was a Soviet-era field telephone that you had to crank to operate. Calls were received at the switchboard, and now we reported all incoming and outgoing vehicles. We had to stop every vehicle, ask for their call sign and the purpose of their trip, report it, request permission, and only then open the checkpoint barrier. A vehicle stopped in the middle of the road is a very dangerous thing. But the command didn't care. A checkpoint is a checkpoint.

And then came the pinnacle of army idiocy... anti-tank hedgehogs!

These were structures of branches and twigs fastened with tape and nails. They were wrapped with barbed wire and then camouflaged with netting. These anti-tank hedgehogs wouldn’t be able to stop a tank, let alone a UAZ—it would just crush them and not even notice. But an order is an order, and all the drivers carefully drove around them, pretending that they were some kind of insurmountable obstacle.


Chapter 7: Improving the Positions. Frontline. Summer of '23.


Besides "The Checkpoint," the other squads in our platoon had other tasks. The main one was digging trenches. Some open trenches had already been dug in this treeline, but the command wanted more. Every week, some important officer would arrive, inspect the positions, and make us dig deeper and better. We approached this task with little enthusiasm. No one likes digging, and I especially hate digging. We would spend several hours a day digging with varying degrees of diligence, and in the evenings, we'd gather for shashlik at "Hudson." A few guys went to Village Sh. and brought back a bunch of meat and moonshine, so the shashlik was excellent.

Shmel, Shaiba, and I would go to "Hudson" to hang out with our old group, drink, and have drunken conversations:

"Damn, when will this whole war end?"

"Guys, my wife told me that Putin signed an order to send all mobilized soldiers home on June 1st!"

"That's bullshit, no one's letting us go anywhere!"

"Stop being so negative, I'm telling you, we'll be home in June."

"Well, here's to getting home soon!"

During one of these drunken gatherings, List, completely wasted, took me aside and started telling me some nonsense:

"Kompas, listen. You're running around here, taking an interest in everything. Why don't you become the squad leader instead of me?"

"What? Squad leader?"

"I know, Kompas, you can do it. You’re smart! Curious! You’ll quickly put everyone in their place!"

"List, I don't know how to and don't want to command people. I have no authority and won’t have any."

"Authority is quickly earned, Kompas! People will listen to you!"

"List, people will listen to anyone more than they’ll listen to me. They’ll listen to you. They’d even listen to Grusha. But not to me. I’m a regular rifleman, that's my place."

List spent the whole evening trying to persuade me to become a squad leader, but I kept refusing.

Days went by, and the command came up with a new idea: to push the flank further away from the main positions. Katapulta, Ofis, and List walked along the treeline, about a kilometre past "The Checkpoint." And there they found a suitable place to set up a new post – "Arctic."

The plan was to station about a dozen men there and establish a 24/7 guard duty. Ofis knew what was what: the further away they were from the command, the less attention they would attract. So Ofis convinced almost all of our old group to move to "Arctic." They spent a whole week building their accommodations: they built the roof of the dugout from scratch using logs, insulated the dugout from the inside, hung sleeping bags at the entrance, and built two-tiered bunks. "Arctic" became their beloved home, which they built themselves. They had their own kitchen and dining area outside, a latrine, a generator, a shower, and trenches with foxholes. And later, they even had a telephone line installed. Ofis's calculation was correct. The entire "Hudson" squad and a few other people moved to "Arctic," hiding from the watchful eyes of the commanders and officers. We inherited a second generator from "Hudson."

Once the construction of "Arctic" was completed, they spent most of their time relaxing, lying around on the bunks, and watching TV shows. And, of course, they had guard duty. However, this guard duty was mostly for show. After the move from "Hudson" to "Arctic," we ("The Office") and "Belgium" were left to man "The Checkpoint." But the command's plans didn't end there...

They wanted us to set up another post, a kilometre closer to the enemy, at the end of a perpendicular treeline that branched off from ours. This post was named "Tiger," after a burned-out scout vehicle that had been abandoned at the intersection near this post. With much grumbling, those of us who were free from duty at "The Checkpoint" would walk a kilometre from "The Office" to dig this new post. This post was just as pointless as all the others, but it was deep and cosy. I even did a couple of shifts at "Tiger." It was very quiet there and far away from the higher-ups.

Finally, the commanders demanded that we build a fourth post – "The Sperm Whale," right in the Village of I, only a kilometre away from the enemy. Katapulta personally took charge of this post and took a few other men with him to "The Sperm Whale." I only went to this post a couple of times, and it was already much more dangerous there than at our location.

Thus, our platoon was scattered among four 24/7 guard posts, located far from each other. We were, like, a commandant platoon. While initially we all lived next door to each other, spread out over half a kilometre, now we were spread out over all five kilometres. And between our groups were also people from other units.

Our platoon commander, Katapulta, was far away; our acting platoon commander, Ofis, was also far away. And then our squad leader, Shaiba, started yearning for the old group. Shaiba had become so attached to List, Ofis, and the guys at "Arctic" that he spent all his free time there. Every day he stayed at "Arctic" longer and longer, and at some point, he moved there permanently. Thus, we were left without a squad leader, and I had to take charge.


Chapter 8: Peaceful Life in "The Office." Frontline. Summer of '23.


Poor Ptitsa, who had left his bank card with the shopkeeper back in Tokarevka, never saw it again. Several kilometres away from us, towards the rear, was a town Sh. – and it had its own shops. One of these shops was run by a young family who regularly travelled to Russia for supplies. The young mistress of the house usually ran the shop in the entryway, and sometimes she’d leave her twelve-year-old son, a plump, well-fed boy, in charge. Even at his young age, the lad had a talent for trade: he knew the entire inventory and the prices, handled money, counted well, and made profitable deals. One time, he tried to sell me a one-kilowatt generator for fifteen thousand rubles. All the soldiers in the surrounding area knew the boy, recognized him, and chuckled good-naturedly at his business acumen.

Another shopkeeper, an Armenian, sold fresh meat and moonshine. The meat was excellent, straight from livestock. And the moonshine was potent, we’d buy it ten litres at a time.

We would go to the shop every few days, and at first, we went illegally, on foot, without permission from the commanders. One day, this backfired on us. The military police and the commandant's office started patrolling Sh., catching illegal shoppers. That day, another soldier nicknamed Maska (Mask) and I went to the village. That same day, Colonel Postnikov also arrived in the village for an inspection. Maska and I, as if nothing was amiss, were walking across the field without weapons or body armour, listening to music. Upon reaching the village, we headed towards the Armenian’s place for meat and moonshine. And just as we were almost there, a car with some officers stopped us.

"Your documents!"

And we showed our military IDs. Fortunately, we hadn't had time to buy anything yet, so there was nothing to confiscate. Only later did we learn that it was Colonel Postnikov himself, the head of the military police and commandant of the area, who had stopped us. He tossed our military IDs into the glove compartment and ordered us, "Run over there, to the intersection, double time! I'll meet you there and return your IDs."

So we ran to the intersection. Naturally, there was no Colonel Postnikov there, and no one returned our military IDs. At the intersection, we found Mort, Krab, and Grusha, who had been caught in the same way. We were met by the local commander, a captain from the commandant's office, a very reasonable guy. They decided to "punish" us and assigned us to corrective labour in the form of digging a dugout for the commandant's office.

The captain perfectly understood that this was army idiocy and didn't actually need our help. So he treated us humanely, fed us, gave us water, and didn’t supervise our digging, promising to let us return to our positions in the evening. But he couldn't return our military IDs – he didn’t have them. The military IDs had disappeared in the glove compartment of Colonel Postnikov’s car, and they remained there for several months. There was no communication with Postnikov; no one could find him and no one outranked him. But the colonel himself could always find anyone he needed, whenever he needed, and everyone obeyed his orders. It took several months to get our military IDs back. This is what army idiocy looks like.

When we returned to our positions, we were in for a scolding. While we were serving our punishment, Colonel Postnikov had paid a visit to our HQ and reamed out our entire battalion – presumably because of us. We had attracted his attention. Our company commander, Plita, understood that this was army idiocy, but he had to pretend we were being punished. So he assigned us to dig for a week.

It so happened that after our punishment, we still managed to visit the shops in the town of Sh. and stock up on a large quantity of moonshine. We didn't want to be guilty without cause. So this week of digging was quite enjoyable for us. We dug posts for neighbouring units, dug trenches, and even a huge pit for parking the MT-LB.

Every time we went digging, we would take a couple of flasks of moonshine – “meldonium,” as Maska called it. Under the influence of moonshine, we dug like madmen. Music, snacks, and “meldonium.” We were "meldonium-ed" to the gills, and at the same time, we were completing tasks and serving our punishment with great comfort and pleasure!

Since Shaiba was taking less and less part in leading the squad, I had to take on that role. I made the duty roster, assigned tasks, and answered for the whole "Office" on the radio. Sometimes I would get people to help the neighbors when they needed it. We improved the area around "The Office;" there was a latrine nearby. The MT-LB crew at "Venus" set up a shower and a large barrel of technical water. Every few weeks, we would receive packages from home, and life was getting more and more comfortable.

I took charge of maintaining the generator and the wiring. From the generator that remained at "Hudson," we ran a "field mouse" (field wiring), borrowed from the signalmen, to "The Office," "Venus," and "Belgium." The MT-LB crew would bring us gasoline, and I kept track of its reserves, refuelled the generator, changed the oil, and turned it on and off according to the schedule. In addition, I had to constantly monitor the field mouse: every few days, the damned cows would chew through the wiring! These parasites roamed everywhere and repeatedly cut us off from communication. And every time, I had to splice the wires and wrap the breaks with electrical tape.

When one of the first packages arrived, we got containers for water – plastic jerrycans of twenty to forty litres. Naturally, not all of these containers were used for storing water, and very quickly, our beloved braga (moonshine) reappeared! It was brewed in almost every dugout, and Gubka even managed to make something resembling beer. Drinking parties became a regular occurrence in our dugouts. "The Office" drank to music: we’d put on "Demobilizatsya" and "Russkie ChVK." A song got stuck in Shmel’s head, which he played constantly:

Зacыпaй cпoкoйнo cтpaнa
He пpoкpaдётcя вpaг в нoчи-и-и
Coлдaтy нe cтpaшнa вoйнa
Пoкa нe жмyт киpзaчи-и-и

(This is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFHHNYTrmYg)

Drunk as skunks, we’d go to our night watch at "The Checkpoint." One evening, the post was completely covered in vomit, and another time, Shmel, completely plastered, put on a light and music show at 2 a.m. right at the checkpoint. He explained his behaviour with slurred speech: "Kompas, everything hurts without adrenaline, you know? I want adventure. I want shooting, I want action around me. But it’s so boring here..."

The other dugouts also drank. Mort was having a braga tasting at "Belgium." Shmel and I had left for our night shift at "The Checkpoint" – Mort was tasting. We were returning from our shift – Mort was still tasting! And in the middle of our shift, we heard some drunken mooing from the direction of "Belgium." I went to investigate and found Mort, completely wasted, lying in the middle of the road in the mud. Mort was sitting on his ass and looking for his slipper.

"Hey, Mort, what's up, bro?"

"Fuuuuck, damn it. I went out to take a piss and lost my fucking slipper."

"Mort, you won’t find your slipper now. Come on, I’ll help you. Take a piss and let's go back to the dugout."

While searching for his slipper and a place to piss, Mort had managed to wander fifty meters away from "Belgium" before collapsing in the mud. I took him by the arm and led him back. Mort was indeed wearing only one slipper, the left one. His right foot was bare.

"Kompas, bro, thank you so much, man! Damn it, I lost my slipper!"

"You’re welcome, Mort. You’ll find it tomorrow."

"You know, Kompas, I didn't come to this war for nothing! I’m ready to serve! I’m ready to kill! But they’re not giving me the proper equipment... give me the equipment!"

During our conversation about "equipment," I led him back to "Belgium" and started getting him ready for bed. Mort took off his uniform jacket and pants, which were completely covered in thick, sticky mud. The jacket landed on the floor. The pants landed on Krab's face, who was sleeping on the lower bunk that night. Suddenly, Mort sat up on his bunk and froze: "Fuck... I forgot to piss!"

He started hastily putting on Krab’s slippers to go outside and finish the job. We went back outside, and Mort finally relieved himself, turned to me, and face-planted into the mud again. Now, all of Mort's clothes were muddy. As he climbed down the ladder into the dugout, he slipped again and fell, and a frustrated voice came from the bottom step: "Fuck, I lost my slipper again!"

Mort really was only wearing one slipper. And again, the left one. Now he had a pair of left slippers of different sizes. We somehow managed to crawl back to the bunks. Mort passed out, completely dirty and sticky from head to toe. But those were tomorrow-Mort’s problems.

"Arctic" was also drinking. We rarely went there, but every time they offered us a drink. One fine late evening, while sitting in "The Office," we heard a deafening explosion from the direction of "Arctic." We immediately contacted them on the platoon radio frequency, which the officers didn't monitor, and requested a situation report. Ofis replied that everything was normal. The next day we learned that their post had gotten drunk almost as a whole, and they’d gone out to shoot RPGs in the field. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no one noticed.

Another time, Mort and Grusha got drunk and went looking for cigarettes. They had a contact who had weed, and they felt like paying him a visit. This friend lived far away, several kilometres beyond the battalion HQ. Mort and Grusha, of course, were too lazy to walk that far. And then a car appeared on the road.

"Stop! Stoooop! Guys, could you give us a lift to battalion HQ? It’s really fucking urgent!"

The men in the car exchanged glances silently and let Mort and Grusha get in. Our drunken soldiers were overjoyed and began chatting and getting acquainted with the car’s occupants.

"Guys, where are you from? From our battalion or what?"

"Man, I’m so fucking desperate to get home. I called my girl today, she promised to give me a blowjob when I get back!"

"Why so glum, guys? What, sick of your service?"

"Dude, I've got porn! Want me to send it to you?"

The men in the car just looked at Mort and Grusha and said nothing. It dawned on our drunks that they were almost there and needed to get out before reaching battalion HQ, or the company commander would see them.

"Whoa, guys, stop here, please, we’ll get off here! Thanks a million, man! You guys are the best!"

Mort and Grusha got out of the car and headed towards their friend's place for some weed. As they passed by the battalion HQ, they noticed the same car and our company commander reporting to the arriving officers about the state of affairs. It turned out that it was another inspection. The men who’d given Mort and Grusha a lift to get weed were inspectors from brigade HQ. And Mort and Grusha got away with it.

I, at that time, was temporarily acting as squad leader in "The Office," and in effect, I was the checkpoint commander at "The Checkpoint."

Somewhere in early May, we got ourselves a cat. In general, there were a lot of cats in this treeline. Sapog's adult cat had a litter of kittens, and he started giving them away. Our company commander took a black kitten and named him Azart (Excitement). We also took one. One evening, Shlyapa brought a tiny kitten, which he named Athena. She was a little angel, affectionate and playful. When she grew up a bit, Shlyapa spent a long time trying to house-train her. At first, she was afraid of everything, but every day she’d venture further and further from her corner. Athena loved to sit on our laps and purr, and she absolutely adored my armpits. She would climb onto my lap and lick my armpits for hours until they were completely soaked with saliva. Athena often slept in my stretcher under the ceiling when I wasn't in the dugout.

Although her name was Athena, everyone called her differently. Gubka called her Panther, and I called her Rook. We fed Athena with pâté and stew from cans. Over time, she started hunting mice in the dugout and outside, playing with them more than hunting for food.

Every evening, she would bring some unfortunate vole to the centre of the dugout and start tormenting it. Athena would poke the mouse with her paw and make it run. The mouse would look at the cat with eyes full of terror and despair, sometimes playing dead, sometimes trying to hide. Some managed to escape, but most of them would end up losing their heads to Athena, who would leave the headless bodies lying in the middle of the dugout. Over time, she became an excellent hunter, and the mice in our dugout disappeared, replaced by beetles and cockroaches.

Athena often accompanied us on our night watch at "The Checkpoint." She would tag along with the next guard detail and come to the post: running around, climbing the grass, hunting voles. When she got tired, she would lie down on our laps or sleep in an overturned helmet, sometimes for the entire night. Athena was a guard cat.


Chapter 9: Drones and Shelling in "The Office." Frontline. Summer of '23.


All these weeks we were running around the treeline back and forth. Several hundred soldiers, trucks, MT-LBs – all of this attracted the attention of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And our artillery was positioned behind us.

One fine day, a Ukrainian drone, flying over us in search of artillery, spotted our battalion. From that day on, "birds" (drones) began to fly over us regularly. Every day, we started hearing the familiar buzzing that foreshadowed a possible artillery shelling, which was not long in coming. Explosions began here and there. Fortunately, they were usually several hundred meters away from us. The enemy artillery harassed our entire treeline and one day, the enemy even sent a kamikaze drone to hunt our MT-LB.

Krab and Grusha were tinkering somewhere near their "Lamborghini" when they heard the mosquito-like whine of propellers, followed by an explosion: the kamikaze drone had crashed directly into the MT-LB, a direct hit, and it caught fire. Everything on the outside of the armoured vehicle was burning: the camouflage, the diesel fuel, the bags of food. We all scattered and waited for it to burn out.

Later, someone in the battalion who had internet access found a video posted by Ukrainian soldiers on YouTube. It showed, from several angles and different drones, how they destroyed our MT-LB. Part of the video was shot from the camera of the kamikaze drone, which crashed directly into the armoured vehicle. At the end of the video, a proud red inscription appeared: "Znischeno" (destroyed in Ukrainian). Our MT-LB became a YouTube star.

At that time, Shmel and I liked listening to audiobooks at our post. An officer who stayed with us in "The Office" for a short while was a fan of Russian science fiction and shared several audiobooks by Andrey Kruz with us. Every night on duty, we would sit on the bench and listen to the next chapter. There were almost no vehicles at night, so we’d just sit at "The Checkpoint" and do nothing. A fairytale duty. Somewhere in the distance, artillery would be working, and explosions could be heard. Sometimes the explosions were close by.

Sometimes, Shmel and I would go to the Village of I on looting expeditions with Katapulta. Unauthorised, of course. We just went. We would walk for several kilometres through the fields along the treelines, passing by an old farm, and reach the village. For us, it was more of an entertainment than a necessity. Together with Katapulta, we’d explore abandoned and destroyed houses and village institutions. We found a lot of interesting junk: water canisters, building materials and tools, old first-aid kits with medicines. Once, we found a wheelbarrow. Sometimes, we’d find old personal belongings left behind in the houses and apartments by the departed residents: photographs of children and newlyweds, women’s cosmetics, and household items. In one abandoned house, I discovered a collection of Czech porn magazines from the 1990s. On one of these raids, our curiosity almost cost us dearly.

We were walking down a shady street toward an apartment building, searched it, and started back. On the way back, an enemy drone spotted us, and the shelling began. We hid in a basement and waited for about half an hour, and when we came out, a surprise awaited us: “petals” were scattered all along the path towards our positions.

“Petals” are small green plastic mines that explode when stepped on, injuring a person's foot. They aren't lethal, but the injured person can no longer move on their own, and it's very painful. The enemy artillery would scatter petals over a large area and in large quantities. And these very petals were now lying before us. We carefully made our way back, warning each other about every mine. Miraculously, we managed to cross that section safely and return “home.”

Another time, we discovered a whole mansion belonging to a local oligarch in Village I. The villa was partially destroyed; the roof had caved in, but the first floor was intact. The villa had a huge swimming pool, a garage, and a sauna. We also found a cracked-open safe. It was lying near a recess in the floor, its door ripped off, and in the study nearby lay signs of lost wealth. Large stacks of bills are held together with special bands that have the amount written on them. And in this study, there were bands scattered around, each with "ten thousand euros" written on them. There were about a hundred of these bands. Considering the wrecked safe, the owners probably hadn’t had time to take the cash with them, and it went to the first looters who came to the villa long before us.

When we returned to our positions, I excitedly recounted my frustration to the others: "A million euros! A million! Euros! It could have been mine, but nooo: someone just had to get there before me!"

The others chuckled at my greed:

"A life hangs by a thread, but thinks of profit instead."

Besides guard duty, Shmel and I had another job. One day, our platoon was asked for two volunteers to be auxiliary sappers. Since there were no volunteers, Shmel and I stepped up: thus we became sappers – “disposable” ones, as we called ourselves. Sapper training was very concise: half an hour of instruction, and voila, we were sappers. But in reality, our tasks were quite simple.

A kilometer from our positions, at the intersections of the treelines, the real, professional sappers had planted explosives. An electric detonator was connected to the explosives, with bare wires sticking out of it. Our task was to get field wire from the signalmen and run it from the explosives to our positions, where a detonator button would be placed. Shmel had one line, and I had the other.

So we went to the signalmen to get the wire. Naturally, the signalmen didn’t give us a neat spool of two kilometres of wire. Instead, we got four tangled-up balls of half a kilometre each. The wires were all tangled and twisted. Untangling them was pure torture. There was nothing for it but to grab a ball and head to the explosives to unwind the wire. The process was extremely time-consuming. It took us a week to lay one kilometer-long line: the wires had to be unwound, laid across the field, checked for breaks, and in some places, buried in the ground.

Finally, the first line was ready. We connected one end to the detonator and the other to the firing button. The button allowed us to test the current in safe mode, without detonating the charge. Everything worked as it should.

Having finished with the first line, we immediately started on the second. We carelessly walked along the treelines and across the field without weapons or armour, listening to music. After laying another section of wire, we began to get ready for lunch when a tank drove past us. It moved to a position not far from us and started firing. This was bad because return fire would surely follow soon.

We scattered in all directions: Shmel headed back towards our positions. I ran forward, towards the enemy, and lay down in the treeline. Our tank finished firing and quickly retreated. It was already being tracked by an enemy reconnaissance drone. The retaliation was not long in coming.

The enemy artillery started working on our tank just in the direction Shmel had run since he was retreating the same way as the tank. I lay on the ground, face up, listening in terror to the shells whistling and exploding just overhead. Nevertheless, I was completely safe since I had run in the opposite direction to the tank's movement. Shmel, on the other hand, had a much harder time: the shells were exploding only a few dozen meters away from him. He was lying in the middle of a field with nowhere to hide. The only thing that saved him was that they weren't targeting him, but the tank. And when the tank moved further away, the explosions moved further away from Shmel too.

We met up after the shelling only near our positions.

“Setting new records! Twenty meters from me, a hit!” Shmel proudly declared.

“Fuck those records!”

“I wonder when it’ll be our turn. I want some action!”

We were incredibly lucky this time. But luck doesn't last forever. One clear June day, Shmel went to visit “Arctic,” and we were lounging around in “The Office.” Gubka was on duty at “The Checkpoint,” and a Bukhanka belonging to the battalion medics was slowly approaching the front entrance. They didn’t know yet that they had long been spotted by enemy reconnaissance drones.

As the medics were driving not far from “Arctic,” a kamikaze drone suddenly swooped down on their vehicle. An explosion and flames. The vehicle stopped and started burning. Gubka reported this in time and ran to pull out the wounded. The guys from “Arctic” also ran to the burning Bukhanka, and we in “The Office” grabbed our first-aid kits and followed.

And just as the guys from “Arctic” gathered around the disabled vehicle, the enemy drones launched another attack. They started dropping grenades on the crowd gathered around the burning vehicle. Two wounded medics were now joined by four more of our wounded. In the chaos, the “300s” (wounded) were dragged into the bushes, away from the drones’ eyes. Gubka was patching a hole in one of the medics' lungs. Everything was covered in blood, hands covered in blood. The bandage was slipping, the wounded man was gasping.

Shmel was hit by shrapnel in the arm, Kolobok in the groin—fortunately, his genitals and femoral arteries were unharmed. Maska was hit in the buttocks. One soldier wasn't so lucky: shrapnel hit his leg and the area behind his knee, damaging an artery.

When I arrived with the medical bag, it was already over. Another vehicle had arrived for the seriously wounded, and they were immediately evacuated to the rear. Those with minor wounds limped away from the site, towards "Belgium." Getting down into the dugout, we started providing them with first aid. All three of the lightly wounded escaped with minor injuries. Half an hour later, they were also evacuated to the rear. Thus, we lost four men to injuries.

Due to the shortage of personnel, a group of former “refuseniks” was assigned to us. These were men from our battalion who had previously refused to go to a dangerous location. Under wartime laws, they were sent not to a Russian prison, but to the infamous "Gestapo"—the military detention center. That's where they break people. They starve them, beat them, don’t let them go to the bathroom or sleep. In the “Gestapo,” you stand all day facing a wall, and you can't lie down, sit down, or take a step left or right. Most people after the "Gestapo" are sent to assault units. But these guys got lucky—they were returned and assigned to us.

A guy appeared in "The Office" who constantly smoked hashish. Where he got it from is a mystery. But for a whole month, every evening he would light up a joint and offer me some as well. I had tried hashish a few times, and it never really did it for me: a terrible cough, and very little high.

But eventually, I found my dosage. Our hashish master slept right below me and smoked hashish on his bunk. The hashish smoke would rise directly to my stretcher, which was suspended in the air. This passive smoking was just what I needed; falling asleep was pleasant. That guy often smoked hashish during his night watch at “The Checkpoint” too, and thankfully, no one ever caught him.

During the day, we usually stood guard at "The Checkpoint" alone, and at night, in pairs. If in April there were nine of us, by July only six remained consistently. People were taken away for other tasks: Utka became a company clerk, Shlyapa was temporarily taken away for anti-aircraft gunner training, Karton and Vyska were transferred to another unit. Some went on leave. But from the very beginning, I understood that I wasn't going on any leave.

Responsibility in the army is always collective, which means no one went on leave. This could go on for several days, a week, two weeks. They might let two people go, or even just one. According to the calculations from April, when we drew lots, I was ninth in line for leave (out of ten shifts). If everything had gone strictly according to schedule, I should have gone on leave in August. But in reality, given the actual pace of leave, my leave should have been in January of the following year. So I finally resigned myself to the fact that leave was a myth.

I managed to arrange the duty roster so that each of us had an average of five to six hours of duty per day. Everyone had time to sleep at night and take care of their own business during the day. I was a mediocre squad leader: not particularly good, not particularly bad. The other soldiers listened to me, not because of my authority, but rather because they didn't want to bear the responsibility themselves.

Around July, we got beetles in our roof. Since Athena had caught all the mice in the dugout, there was no one to eat the beetles, and they multiplied in massive numbers. They lived between the logs in the roof and laid their eggs there. During the day, when there was movement and voices in the dugout, the beetles were quiet. But in the evening and at night, when everyone was lying in their bunks or sleeping, the beetles would start making noise. They would crawl on the logs and fall down into our dugout. There was nowhere to hide from them. I’d be sitting at the table, and beetles would fall down my collar. Beetles would fall into my mug, beetles would fall onto the table. When I tried to sleep, beetles would fall on me from above: onto my legs, my chest, my face. The sound of a beetle hitting the ceiling, followed by another one, was a constant presence. I couldn't sleep because of these beetles.

“Beetles are falling from heaven, you like it! Help me get rid of them right now!”

“Kompas, dude, you’re losing it. The geese have flown away, the duck is quacking,” Shlyapa would laugh at me. It seemed like the beetles didn't bother him.

And the ants. Hordes of ants constantly crawled into our sugar. Every time we made tea or coffee, there were ants in the mug. The tea turned into some kind of slightly sweet soup. Formic acid replaced lemon in our tea.

When Prigozhin's mutiny began, we all rooted for the Wagnerites. Not long ago, these orchestra members of war were legends, heroes of Russia. Songs were composed about the Wagnerites, people placed their hopes in them. Their PMC was considered the most professional fighting force in the Russian army. They captured cities for Russia – and then Russian troops shelled their own heroes.

We didn’t doubt for a second that the truth was on the Wagnerites’ side. Listening on the radio to all these high-flown words: "traitors," "betrayers," "mutineers," we only laughed at Russian propaganda and hoped that tomorrow we would wake up with a new president who would end the war. But deep down, we also understood that this road led nowhere.

Prigozhin wouldn't win. Putin couldn’t be moved. A miracle wouldn't happen.

I also had a moment of senseless, bloodthirsty cruelty. As I’ve said, herds of damned cows constantly roamed our positions. Not far from us there used to be a huge farm with several hundred cows. When the war began, the farm administration left, and the cows remained. Without supervision, the cows scattered across the surrounding fields, feeding on grass, and regularly passed through our treeline. They were parasites. The cows would get into our above-ground structures, and eat food left in bags on the ground. They would break everything their herd came across. And they shit everywhere. The paths were completely covered in cow patties. The wires were trampled and broken. Every week, I had to search for breaks several times and splice the wires coming from the generator. And then one time I decided to wash my clothes…

I took off everything: underwear, socks, t-shirt, thermal underwear, and uniform. I soaked all of it in a bucket with laundry detergent and left it outside to soak. Then I had some urgent business, and I forgot about the bucket until the next day. When I returned to the bucket of clothes the following day, I found a foreign substance in it. A cow had left a huge, sticky patty in my clothes… and my clothes had been soaking in cow shit for a whole day…

“Fucking cows, damn it!”

This became a local meme. I repeated this phrase over and over. Soon the others started greeting me with this very phrase.

“Fucking cows, damn it!”

The next day I was on daytime duty at "The Checkpoint," alone. And then a huge herd of cows started moving past me. I was angry at them, very angry. It was a cold-blooded, senseless, but all-consuming hatred. I loaded my rifle and started shooting.

I wasn't aiming, just shooting at the massive bodies. I hit the first cow in the lung. It stumbled and a wide stream of blood flowed from its mouth. It stood there for a long time, trying to move its legs, then lay down, slowly dying. The other cows didn't understand what was happening. I fired again. A second cow, a third. I shot six cows before I got bored. Two of them survived: I hit them in the leg. They hobbled away, not understanding that the danger came from me. Four cows died. One of them convulsed violently: I’d hit it in the spine.

Wild animals in such moments experience fear; the instinct of self-preservation kicks in. Wild animals would have run away. But cows are different. They have no fear! Cows are domesticated and didn't understand that death came from me. They just stood there. Several calves surrounded the dying cow and looked at me with their big, stupid eyes, as if asking, "Why did you kill our mother?"

Then I realized what a stupid thing I’d done. No, I didn't feel sorry for the cows. These farm animals exist to be turned into beef on our tables. And for us, they were still parasites that ruined our positions. But by killing them, I realized that they would soon start to stink. A ton, or even two tons, of rotting meat in the heat, under the sun, right next to our post! Something had to be done. By the end of my shift, everyone already knew what I had done.

I tried to bury the cows but quickly realized how futile this endeavour was. Fortunately, Grusha came to my rescue with his MT-LB. It was already dark. Grusha got a thick tow cable and attached it to the front of his "Lamborghini." We drove up to the cow carcasses and started tying them up. The cows were already bloated from decomposition; their hides were stretched taut like drums. The cable loop went around the legs of one of the cows, and we dragged it away from the positions. We took it a couple of kilometres away from "The Checkpoint" and left it in the field. The other cows were disposed of in the same manner. On the way back, Grusha, for fun, let me sit behind the controls and steer the MT-LB. I can't drive, but it was fun. At least I managed to keep the vehicle going more or less straight on a flat road.

When we got back, everyone, of course, scolded and condemned me for what I'd done. But good-naturedly. For everyone, it was more of a funny story than a monstrous act of murder. However, fate punished me with another shelling.

I was again on daytime solo duty at "The Checkpoint," enemy drones were circling above, not paying any attention to me. Suddenly, a mortar shell flew right over me. Most likely, they were looking for our MT-LB and trying to take it out. The explosions were very close to me. Fortunately, we had a dug-in foxhole, and I immediately jumped into it. There was a small stool inside the foxhole; I sat on it so that my head was below ground level and started playing on my phone. What else is there to do under shelling? Sit and tremble?

The explosions were getting closer and closer. One of them, bursting nearby, slightly deafened me; my ears were ringing. Dirt rained down on the roof of my foxhole. In total, about twenty or thirty mines were fired in the span of an hour.

“Kompas, how are you doing there?” Komp asked me on the radio.

“Sixteen!” I replied, which meant that everything was okay. We used numerical codes on the radio. Practising working with numerical codes would help us a lot in the future.

The next day, my comrades asked me, "Did you know that shrapnel ripped out a chunk of log inside the foxhole at 'The Checkpoint'?" It turned out that a large piece of shrapnel had flown right over my head, between ground level and the roof of the foxhole – and I hadn't even noticed.


Chapter 10: The Beginning of the End. Frontline. Summer of '23.


By the end of the summer, an unsettling flurry of activity began. For a short time, the brigade commander and his staff were stationed in our treeline: they were planning an offensive from Village of I towards the Town of L.

They were very dissatisfied with the fact that our battalion was just sitting quietly in the treeline doing nothing – soon preparations for the offensive began. Several commanders’ call signs changed. Our battalion commander, "Phoenix," became "Udar" (Strike), company commander "Plita" became "Kran" (Crane), platoon commander "Katapulta" became "Prizrak" (Ghost) (though we continued calling him Katapulta), even the acting platoon commander "Ofis" became "Rzhev."

A whole platoon of fresh contract soldiers arrived as reinforcements. These poor fellows had just signed their contracts at the beginning of the summer—two weeks of training, and here they were. They looked dejected, just like we had the previous autumn. They didn't know how to behave or what to do, how to survive in the field. Many of them had never held a rifle before. Many of them were former prisoners, recently released, trying to earn a living. One man had spent more than thirty years in prison. After being released, he couldn't find a better job than a military contract. And a wartime salary could make any average worker jealous.

One of the new contract soldiers called his family back home and told them everything, absolutely everything: troop numbers, equipment, weaponry, which commanders were stationed here, the names and numbers of units. He did this not out of malice, but out of stupidity. This conversation was intercepted by both enemy reconnaissance and our counterintelligence. The battalion commander was ordered to confiscate all phones from the personnel.

That evening, I also went out to make a call. There was a wooden observation tower near "The Office," which I would climb to call home. And at that very moment, our artillery started working. An enemy drone flew by, searching for the artillery, and it happened to fly right over me. And it saw my flashlight. It thought I was the artillery. A mortar shell was not long in coming. Less than a minute later, the first explosion thundered near me. I tumbled down the ladder. Boom! A second hit. I crawled back to the dugout, lost my phone along the way, jumped inside, and waited.

"Fuck, I lost my phone!"

"Be thankful you're still alive, idiot!"

Half an hour passed, the shelling subsided, and I decided to go out and look for my phone. It was impossible to do so without a flashlight. But I went out too soon. I had just spotted my phone in the grass when boom-boom, two more hits landed near me. I ran back into the dugout, this time with my phone. But for everyone else, I had "lost" my phone.

The next day, we were ordered to hand over our phones. I buried mine under a log near "The Office," just in case of a search. Most of our soldiers had two phones: some had managed to get a spare phone the day before. In the end, a large bag of signed phones was sent to Kran, and then to Udar at battalion HQ. I and several other comrades didn't hand over our phones. We were in for a scolding. Kran called us all in for a talk.

"So, Kompas, you refused to hand over your phone, right?"

"Yes, that’s right, Kran, I lost it yesterday under fire."

"Yes, I heard about the shelling. But you still have the phone."

"No, I lost it."

"You'll be telling these fairy tales to the FSB. I have three kids; I can see right through your lies."

"Well, if you don’t want to believe me, then don’t."

"Listen, Kompas... If because of you we get fucked up during the offensive, if I ever see a phone on you again – I will personally shoot you. My job is to save the lives of my men. If for that I have to eliminate one asshole, I will do so without hesitation. Do you understand me?"

"I understand."

"Let's go see Udar."

Kran gathered all those who refused to hand over their phones and led us to battalion HQ. Udar and Yakor were already waiting for us there.

"So, these are the ones who refused to hand over their phones, right?" Udar said.

"Yes, sir," Kran replied.

"Then listen up, men. We’re all adults here. I don't give a fuck why you didn't hand over your phones, I don't care at all. You all signed a document stating that the use of phones is prohibited. You all know that phones can be tracked, and then we get shelled. If you don’t give a shit about the lives of your comrades – that's on your conscience. Just know this, if I see a phone on anyone, even once – straight to the assault units. Did everyone hear me?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Dismissed."

From that day on, we all tried not to be seen with our phones. I didn’t even call home or watch movies. I started reading a book. But not everyone was so careful. A week after this incident, all the auxiliary sappers were called in for another training session. More people were added to our group, so the number of auxiliary sappers doubled. The lesson was just as short as the previous one, but this time it was led by Udar himself, the battalion commander. And then, in the middle of his lecture about bounding mines, a phone rang among the formation.

The phone’s owner had not only decided to bring a phone to a lesson with Udar, he hadn't even put it on silent mode.

“Is that a phone?”

“There’s no SIM card in it, Comrade Colonel…”

Udar took the phone from the soldier and turned on the screen.

“Yeah, no SIM card. But your mobile network is on! The last text message came in twenty minutes ago. Oh, this is just great. What a moron…”

Udar paced back and forth across the clearing, trying to contain his anger. He was trying his hardest to come up with some way to make an example of the soldier.

“Give me a rifle.”

Udar threw the phone on the ground, chambered a round, and started shooting at the phone. He emptied an entire magazine into it in front of the formation.

“So, listen here. Now you go to Kran. Report everything to him. Tonight, you’re going to the assault units. Double time!”

The soldier ran off, and the lesson continued. I never saw him again.

The staff officers and signalmen, of course, didn't hand over their phones. They had a satellite dish, and they happily surfed the internet and used Telegram. One fine day, Udar’s wife informed him that she was due to give birth to a son at the end of August. Udar really wanted to be there for the birth, and only the brigade commander could grant him leave. So Udar carried out all the brigade commander's orders without question so as not to fall out of favor. And the brigade commander’s latest order was this:

"The battalion is to advance from its current positions to reinforce the assault units moving from the Village of I to the Town of L."

A few days before the advance, Kran walked around the positions, talked to every soldier in our company, and explained that we wouldn't be able to sit things out in the rear. Our comfortable life was coming to an end. Our platoon started preparing for the move. We cleaned our weapons and packed our things. We decided what to leave behind and what to carry with us. I packed myself a heavy backpack, which I would later regret. In the middle of the day, Katapulta called a meeting and summoned me, as the commander of "The Office." The platoon needed to be reorganized into squads.

Officially, we held one set of positions, but in reality, we held others. The squads had long since been mixed up; some people had left for other platoons or headquarters, while others had joined us from other platoons. Everyone settled into dugouts based on personal preferences. This needed to be sorted out and the platoon re-staffed. Katapulta redistributed the personnel among the squads based on the weapons they used. We had machine gunners, snipers, grenadiers, and riflemen.

Since I had successfully managed "The Office" and "The Checkpoint," Katapulta appointed me as a squad leader. And my squad had almost no one from "The Office" because he didn't care about that. Rzhev and Shaiba attended the meeting, and we started exchanging soldiers. One there, another here – and I quietly managed to "bargain" almost all my men back. Plus, a few new guys – former refuseniks – were added to my squad. Thus, a whole squad of ten men was assembled under my command.

I wasn't at all happy about this appointment. But I understood that now I had no choice – there was no one else. So I agreed to take command.

All unnecessary things were put into storage. The necessary things were packed into backpacks. I dug up my phone from under the log and hid it in my body armour. We were ready to move out at the appointed time.


Chapter 11: Moving to Combat Positions. Frontline. Summer of '23.


Everything we’d experienced before was child's play...

We started moving by vehicle. The company driver, nicknamed Zerkalo (Mirror), picked us up at "The Office" and drove us to the entrance of Village of I. We were never destined to see our beloved "Office" again. Our kitten Athena also stayed there; we didn’t want to take her into the zone of active combat.

Arriving at the location, we took a short break, and foolishly walked past the food and water that was waiting for us there: there was nowhere for us to put this food and water – we were already fully loaded. Our platoon was to move first, and we were promised guides. The problem was that none of us knew where exactly we were going. None of us had a map, because officially, we had "handed over" all our phones. We knew neither the grid squares nor the sectors. We were walking like blind kittens.

So, we set off, and walked for a very long time through Village of I, crossed a stream, and entered some houses, where the guides were waiting for us. A week earlier, there had been an assault here. The command was urging us on because it was already getting dark, and we had to be guided in under the cover of twilight. But Katapulta showed prudence and refused to lead us in a large group across open terrain, deciding to trust the guides.

The guides led us in small groups, moving in short dashes along the paths between the trees. By this point, I was already completely exhausted, breathing heavily and wheezing. I couldn’t run, and my subordinates cursed me up and down.

“Kompas, you fucking idiot! Move, damn it! They’ll kill us all because of you, for fuck's sake! Some squad leader you are, you fucking moron!”

Moving through the treeline, we finally reached a former enemy stronghold. Several small dugouts, several firing positions and machine gun nests, connected by shallow trenches. Now, this stronghold was occupied by our assault troops. Some of us found space in the dugouts, others didn’t. I settled down in a trench; there was a corpse lying next to me. It was the only available space for me. We decided to stay there for the night. It was already too dark. The guides didn't lead us any further, and we didn’t know where to go ourselves. I lay down to sleep, hugging the corpse.

A sporadic shelling was going on around us. Occasionally, mortar and tank shells would fly over. And drones, drones, drones. When a drone flew overhead, I would cover myself with a sleeping bag so that my body heat wouldn’t be visible to its thermal camera, as I had no roof above me. I just lay there and hoped that the "bird" wouldn’t notice me: there was nothing else I could do. Shooting was pointless – I would never hit it. There was only one sniper in the entire battalion who had ever successfully shot down an enemy drone. I wasn’t thinking about the corpse lying next to me.

Assault troops were running and yelling through the trenches. They yelled in the night, talking to each other, carrying their wounded. Groups of assault troops passed us one after another to join the assault ahead. My comrade Grusha was much more impressed than I was.

Grusha had made a mistake. He was an MT-LB driver, and he should have stayed at the old positions to later deliver supplies to us on the "motolyga" (MT-LB). But he was putting on a brave face:

"How can I stay here? I'm with you guys! I won't abandon you, I'll go with you, I don't care! Fuck the 'motolyga,' I'll go into battle with you, so be it!"

Now, however, having seen all these corpses along the way, he was singing a different tune:

"Fuck, why did I come here? This is fucked up. They’re going to get us all killed here. I should have just stayed on the 'motolyga.' All these corpses, fuck, this is fucked up..."

We spent the night in this godforsaken place. By this point, most of our water had been drunk.


Chapter 12: First Blood. Frontline. Summer of '23.


In the morning, the company commander, Kran, arrived with his assistants – his "entourage." Katapulta and I went to him for new instructions. Kran berated us for our slowness and for arriving at the wrong location. Kran was in a foul mood because of everything that had fallen on his shoulders. Finally, he showed us a map on his phone and explained where we needed to go.

Between the Village of I and the Town of L was a vast area where the assault was taking place. Several long treelines ("shelves"), connected by perpendicular treelines ("spears") – and fields between them. We were to take up positions on the first shelf, already captured by the assault troops. By that time, the fighting was taking place for the second shelf. We were the "consolidators," meaning we weren’t assaulting – we were consolidating our hold on the liberated territory and were supposed to set up defences. So, we had to walk three kilometres to our assigned squares along the first treeline.

It would have been fine, but there was no path in the treeline. None at all. There was a path across the field, along the treeline. But enemy drones were constantly circling above us. The path across the field was clearly visible. Katapulta decided to proceed cautiously and led us through the treeline, without a path. Completely exhausted, each carrying several dozen kilograms of gear, hungry and thirsty, we pushed our way through dense bushes. My legs refused to move. Every drop of water was worth more than all the money in the world. Every time we heard the buzzing of propellers, we froze for several minutes.

After a few hundred meters, we gave up and followed the path across the field along the treeline, hiding from every "bird" in the bushes and making frequent stops. The drones wouldn't let us move. Mortar shells exploded now in front, now behind us. During this crossing, I threw away almost everything I was carrying: shovels, axes, ammunition, armour plates from my vest, and a spare set of clothes. I couldn't go even a hundred meters without resting. The entire three-kilometre crossing took us a third of the day. None of us were prepared for this at all. Nothing can prepare you for this – you have to experience it.

We dreamed that upon reaching our destination, we would find old enemy dugouts and trenches there that we could occupy and hide in, to rest. But we were mistaken. There were only a few open pits about half a meter deep. During this crossing, we realized that the enemy fought differently. Ukrainians fight with technology, and Russia fights with "meat."

Russia sends hundreds of thousands of soldiers to war, armed with shovels and automatic rifles. These hundreds of thousands of soldiers occupy territory and dig in, turning the terrain into a network of trenches, dugouts, and foxholes. But all these hundreds of thousands of people are equipped with weapons and equipment from the Soviet era, which is older than many of us. This weaponry is, undoubtedly, excellent for its time and for the wars of the past century. But we lack modern technology. We lack drones, we lack night vision devices and thermal imagers, we lack anti-drone guns, we lack guidance systems, and, worst of all, we lack artillery shells. The enemy's artillery works – our artillery works much less frequently. Enemy drones circle above us – where are ours?

Ukraine fights differently. Thanks to the support of the entire world, they possess modern weaponry and know how to use it. Having far fewer men than Russia, they rely not on quantity of manpower, but on quality. Their artillery pounds us around the clock; they have enough shells. They aim well, thanks to drones. Drones, drones, everywhere drones. Ukrainians don’t need many trenches, dugouts, and foxholes - they manage with five or ten strongpoints per treeline. When we arrived at the location, we found that we would have to dig in almost from scratch.

I was exhausted and dehydrated. I collapsed on the ground, stripped down to my underwear, and lay down at the bottom of a small ravine under the branches of trees. I couldn’t move, let alone dig. I lay in that ravine for two or three hours, eating only one can of pâté and taking a few sips of water for the entire day. And then the shelling began.

They were firing cluster munitions with shrapnel at us. A cluster munition explodes high in the air, scattering dozens of small explosive devices around, covering a large area. And all these dozens of explosive devices detonate above the ground, spraying shrapnel. I felt a kiss on my right shoulder. Like a stone thrown into water creates ripples, a small piece of shrapnel entered my flesh. The wound was actually minor, but a "300" (wounded) is a "300." Blood flowed from my shoulder, and I announced on the radio: "This is Kompas! I'm a '300'!"

My comrades yelled, asking how I was feeling. I crawled from the ravine to a small hollow where we were crammed together, trying to get at least a little bit below ground level. The shelling continued for some time, but fortunately, no one else was injured. I got dressed again, and put on my body armour without the plates. Only the Kevlar remained in the vest, protecting against small shrapnel. I left all my belongings there—I was thinking I’d be going to a hospital in Russia and then home. I even left my phone there, fearing a search.

I was happy about this injury like a child. Anything to make this agonizing trek end.

"Guys, I'm going home! Hooray!"

"Yeah, Kompas, you've done your part. An idiot's dream come true..."

"I'm getting three million! Finally, fuck yeah!"

When the shelling stopped, I was taken to the commanders. Katapulta and Shinel escorted me to the pit where Kran, Udar, and Yakor were sitting. They scolded us for not bandaging the wound and decided to escort me to the medics in Village of I.

It was agonizing for a wounded man: on the way, Udar ran into a neighbouring battalion commander, and they went into every dugout, every trench, every pit, checking how everyone was settled. And I had to stand and wait. Udar examined me and said:

"Well, this wound is nothing. We’ll take you to the medic Bint, he’ll dab some iodine on it, and tomorrow you'll be back in the ranks."

"Will you at least fill out the paperwork for the three million (rubles)?"

"What three million are you talking about? Where did you get three million from?"

By nightfall, we somehow made it to the Village of I. The medics, led by Bint, were stationed in the village school. Udar set up his battalion HQ in a dugout next to the school. Bint and two assistants received me on a simple operating table and started treating my wound. Bint also said that the "wound was nothing." At that moment, he pulled three tiny shrapnel balls out of me and gave them to me as a souvenir.

"Will you fill out the form for the three million, then?"

"No. Your wound doesn't qualify for three million. We won’t fill out the form, and we won’t evacuate you to Russia. You’ll rest here for a couple of days and then back to the ranks."

It was a complete failure. No three million, no evacuation, nothing. I was shown a mattress where I could sleep and given a bottle of water. I’d never enjoyed a drink so much before. I gulped down a litre and a half of water in one go and asked for more. Well, at least I had a couple of days of rest…

These days dragged on, long and boring. I had nothing to do, so I started reading a book about tractor mechanics – there were no other books available. At the medical station, I met a couple of signalmen who were on duty nearby, at the battalion HQ. The chief signalman, nicknamed Shkura (Hide), was also there – he was organizing accommodations for the signals platoon and setting up a new switchboard. I really didn't want to go back to that damned treeline, so I decided to put out feelers and offer my services. Shkura was a good guy and happily agreed to take me into the signals platoon. But as soon as Bint heard about this, he immediately nipped it in the bud: "Udar ordered this cripple to be returned to the treeline. He’s not getting out of service here, the malingerer!"

Then I decided to address my problem to Udar himself. But at the entrance to the battalion HQ, I was met by Yakor, and his response to my request was: "Didn't you understand what they told you, fuckwit? Tomorrow, you're back in the ranks! Get lost!"

I was once again convinced of Yakor's utter indifference to people. There was nothing to be gained here. On my last day of treatment, a comrade nicknamed Tabak (Tobacco) was brought to us. He was a former member of Kran's inner circle, but he was sent with the first platoon to the front lines, straight to the second treeline. They had a rough time there; they were shelled, and Tabak suffered a large, deep laceration on his shoulder blade. Such a wound already qualified for three million and evacuation to Russia. I helped him take off his extra clothes, gave him something to drink and eat, chatted with him for a bit, and then the shelling started.

They weren’t actually shelling us, but our artillery. But our medical station was nearby and caught in the splash damage. Shell fragments flew into the walls of the building. Tabak and I put on our body armour and lay down away from the windows. There was nowhere to hide; there was no basement here. A chandelier crashed and shattered next to us. Fortunately, our eyes remained intact. When the shelling subsided, Tabak was taken for evacuation. And I needed to get ready to go.


Chapter 13: Moving to “The Skewer” and the First Refuseniks. Frontline. Summer of ‘23.



By that point, convoys were already running. Kran’s company (our company) and “Pryanik’s” (Gingerbread) company had moved to defensive positions, while “Steklo’s” (Glass) company was handling convoys and evacuations. I joined the convoy that was supposed to deliver food and water for our platoon. We loaded up with bags of supplies and set off. This trek was already easier for me than the first one. In an hour and a half, we made it from the Village of I to “Lavra” (The Monastery) – the intersection of the treelines where our platoon was stationed.

When I got back to my guys, everyone was very surprised that I wasn’t given three million rubles and sent back to Russia. My comrades promised to support me in court as witnesses if I decided to sue the Ministry of Defense. We still hoped that we would return home soon. I couldn’t find all of my belongings. The guys had already taken a lot of things – after all, I’d thrown everything out of my pockets and yelled, “Take everything! Use it! I'm a '300,' I'm going home!” Roughly speaking, I had "dropped loot." And now I had to gather this “loot” back. Some of the things were returned to me; some I found in the bushes; I even found my phone! But I suffered a terrible loss: I’d lost my sleeping bag.

It’s warm during the day, but cold at night. Even though it was summer, the temperature at night dropped to ten, fifteen degrees Celsius. Fortunately, Gubka shared a spare jacket with me, offering at least some warmth.

A couple of hours passed, and that same day, we were ordered to move forward. The assault troops were advancing, and we had to advance behind them. Our new position was to be “Shpik” (The Skewer) - a curved, winding treeline along the flank, between the first and the second shelf.

That's when we had our first refuseniks - the "500s" (deserters). Shinel (Overcoat), Vratar (Goalie), Pechka (Stove), and Shlyapa protested:

“They want us all dead!”

“There are Ukrainians everywhere around us; we’ll be completely surrounded!”

“Fuck this shit, I’m not going! They can court-martial me, I don’t give a fuck.”

And they didn’t go. They disobeyed the order. And they needed to be taken to Kran for a report. I wasn’t present for their conversation, but I soon saw that Kran didn’t disregard his men. Instead of sending them to a tribunal and prison or to the assault units, Kran decided to keep them with him. He didn’t report the incident to the battalion commander. Instead, he issued an AGS (automatic grenade launcher) to Kryuk and Shtyk (Bayonet), and a DShK (heavy machine gun) to Shlyapa and Pechka. This is heavy weaponry: the AGS is a long-range grenade launcher, and the DShK is a heavy-calibre machine gun. Kran ordered our "500s" to take the weapons and prepare firing positions for them. Thus, he saved the guys from prison, gave them a responsible assignment, and got two combat crews for heavy weapons at his disposal.

The rest of us moved forward. In small groups, we passed through the strongpoint at “Lavra,” crossed a ravine, and reached another strongpoint where the scouts were stationed. The scouts in this war walked on foot, crawled through fields, and conducted reconnaissance by fire. Good scouts in this war operated drones.

These scouts were good: they had a drone. So they could afford to sit in a dugout far from the assault and still successfully carry out reconnaissance missions.

Nothing had been dug at "The Skewer" at all. And, to be honest, we didn't understand which direction our trenches should face. So we simply dug camouflaged shelters for ourselves. I chose a spot right in the dense bushes between two trees. One of my comrades lent me a spare shovel, and I started digging a pit for myself. I was no longer whining about how I didn’t want to dig. You sleep in whatever you dig. And if you don’t dig, you die. Estimating my height, I dug so that I could stretch my legs out while lying down. My trench could even be used for firing, though not very far – about fifty meters. At the same time, it was naturally camouflaged from above and on all sides, and didn't require any additional work – the bushes, trees, and branches hid me perfectly. Eventually, the trench was dug almost to my full height, and there were steps on both sides.

On the first night, as on all subsequent nights, I froze to the bone. I didn't have a sleeping bag. I slept on the ground, at the bottom of the grave I had dug for myself. My comrade's jacket and thermal underwear saved me. Miraculously, I didn't get pneumonia during that whole time. In the morning, my teeth would chatter, and I would shiver. But by midday, it was already hot and sunny again.

The second day, the question of food and water arose. Under conditions of severe shortage, everything had to be divided between people, and somehow delivered. Steklo’s convoys refused to deliver supplies to our current positions – they would only carry them as far as “Lavra.” This meant that we would have to go back to the scouts, climb across the ravine, and then back to "Lavra" to get our food and water. After discussing it, we decided to appoint a courier: Kust volunteered.

Kust soon moved back to the scouts’ position and spent his days carrying supplies from “Lavra” to the scouts, dividing those supplies between the squads according to the number of people, and giving everyone their share. We, in turn, dug our positions and went to Kust to receive these supplies. And then each squad leader divided everything among his men.

We decided to operate in this mode, and that very day, I was distributing supplies among my men. Steklo sent four soldiers in the convoy for us. Kust carried all of this by himself across the ravine. There were about thirty of us. How much would each person get with such a distribution? A liter and a half of water per person per day, one can of pâté or stew per day, one slice of bread. There were also instant soups and porridges, but there was no water to prepare them with. There was one packet of instant noodles per person – we gnawed on them dry, like cookies. We were most short of water…

One day I thought, "My God, how lucky we are with the weather." It hadn’t rained once during this entire offensive. I jinxed it. That very day, clouds gathered, and it started raining. The damned rain. It poured and poured without stopping for six hours straight. I tried to stretch a garbage bag over my trench – I had no other material, no tarp, no camouflage net. The garbage bag was too small and provided very little protection from the rain. Very soon, I was completely soaked: from my underwear to my jacket. I had no change of clothes, so I had to dry my clothes on myself. Naturally, they didn't dry in half a day, so I spent the night watch completely wet. And I went to sleep just as wet. There was nothing else I could do.

While we were at "Shpik," I learned some sad news: Shlyapa was seriously injured. While Shlyapa and Pechka were digging a position for the DShK, an enemy drone spotted them and called in a mortar strike. A Polish mine, which is almost silent, landed near Shlyapa, and he didn’t have time to react. Ironically, he was the one who was most worried about dying and always wore high-quality body armour with a groin protector and shoulder pads. And yet, he was one of the first to be injured. The shrapnel was large: it pierced Shlyapa’s thigh, and ripped open his stomach so that his intestines spilled out. He also suffered a brain injury. Fortunately, he didn't lose consciousness immediately and managed to call for help. There were soldiers nearby; they quickly provided first aid and evacuated him to Bint. From there, Shlyapa was taken to Russia.

A few months later, I had a chance to talk to Shlyapa. He told me how he lost his sight for several days, how he came out of a coma in Russia, and how the wounded criminal assault troops greeted him:

"Holy shit! You’re alive! Good job!"

Shlyapa spent a long time in treatment, but in the end, his vision returned. Having gone through all of this, he admitted that he now agreed with my liberal views: a genocide of the Russian people is taking place, and Russia is the one orchestrating it. Russia wants its citizens dead.

Drones circled constantly above us, but we had good camouflage. Sometimes the shelling was close, but none of us were injured. Soon, we were ordered to build three new posts and assign a 24/7 guard detail to them. One post for each squad. My squad got the post that was supposed to be located by the road between the first and second shelves. Nefrit and I went to scout the location. He was a very capable guy; he had excellent navigation skills and could lead a group of people even to places he’d never been himself. We descended a scorched slope, crossed a ravine, and found a suitable place for a post in the bushes under a tree.

I adjusted the duty roster: now the shifts were 24 hours long, meaning two people would take up the post for a full day. They took food and water with them and were supposed to observe, dig, and sleep in shifts. As for myself, as the squad leader, I remained at the main positions and was on duty at night in my trench while the rest of the personnel slept. I was on duty the whole night along with two other squad leaders, reporting by radio every hour and going to sleep only at dawn. This schedule, in general, suited me. I stayed awake during the cold hours and didn’t freeze too much, and I slept during the hot hours, which meant I wasn’t as thirsty. A few days passed, and the posts were almost finished. And then Udar himself addressed us by radio:

"Guys, dig in, make sure everything is top-notch, and report back to me. And I’ll arrange a rotation for you, send ‘monsieur contract soldier’ to replace you.”

He said it in this drawn-out, sly voice. We dreamed of rotation every day. We longed for rotation. Replacing mobilized soldiers with contract soldiers – for us, it was a fairy tale we believed in, like Father Frost. A rumor had been circulating for a whole month that the mobilized soldiers were to be sent back to Russia in August and replaced by contract soldiers, that we would be sent home soon so they wouldn’t have to pay us the legendary bonus of one million rubles for a year of service. After Udar’s words, the word "monsieur" became part of our lexicon, and from then on, we always referred to contract soldiers as "monsieur" in radio communications. The posts were now dug with even more enthusiasm, but one wise man among us, Rzhev, said:

"You shouldn't believe Udar. There will be no rotation after we finish the posts. He's bullshitting us. Now we’ll report to him that everything’s ready—and he'll send us to dig new posts. Let’s not report to him yet, shall we? We’ll just sit here and chill."

Rzhev, of course, was right. We stayed at "Shpik" for about five days, and then we received orders to move forward.


Chapter 14: Digging in on the Second Treeline. Frontline. Summer '23.


So, another move. On this day, some of our soldiers returned from leave, and even Shmel was among them. His wounds had healed, he’d spent a month at home on rehabilitation leave, and been with his family. And now, he was back with us. We all greeted them with open arms and joked about what a shithole they were returning to.

The posts were abandoned, and we moved across the ravine in small groups, towards my squad's post. Enemy drones were constantly circling above us, and mortar shells landed nearby several times. Fortunately, our group made it safely along the road and found the path. Nefrit had scouted the route in advance and left an empty ammo box where we needed to turn off into the field.

This was a dangerous section: the path crossed an open field for about three hundred meters without a single piece of cover, not a single tree or bush. Our group crossed the field without incident, but the following group got a taste of fear. Shaiba, Rzhev, and List came under heavy tank fire; there was absolutely nowhere to hide around them. This shelling significantly impacted their morale: Shaiba lost all hope of survival and withdrew into himself. I only understood him much later.

Having finally reached the second treeline without casualties, we followed the path towards our designated squares. We were told that the Ukrainians had a network of trenches and concrete bunkers on the second shelf – otherwise, why did it take so long to capture?

Yeah, right, trenches and concrete.

Finally, we reached our future positions. Only with time did I realize how lucky we were. We were right in the middle of the second treeline. In front of us was a minefield; across the field from us, about a kilometre away, in the third treeline, was the enemy. They wouldn’t cross the field: it was mined, and there wasn’t a single piece of cover there. To one side of us was Pryanik’s company, and to the other side was a short “spear” – a perpendicular treeline running between the second and third shelves.

The intersection at the short spear was held by "Linguist" (The Linguist) and "Tokar" (The Turner). The supply and evacuation routes ran far to the left and right of us: one led from "Lavra" to Pryanik (where we had entered), and the other ran along the long spear to the second shelf, and then through Linguist's position to the short spear towards the assault troops who were engaged in combat. We were stationed on a small island of quiet and calm, right in the centre. Movement was happening to our left and right, attracting artillery fire – while it was quiet at our location. And we weren’t threatened by direct combat. We were surrounded by small trees and bushes; they weren’t very dense, but they were there.

We had time to dig in before we were discovered and shelled. I found a pit that had already been dug by someone, about twenty centimetres deep, and started to deepen it. The pit was under a tree, surrounded by bushes. In a few hours, I deepened and lengthened it to fit my height, and now I could sleep safely in it, with my legs outstretched. I had to chop through large tree roots with my shovel; it was tiring but necessary. I spread out my squad over a hundred meters; they were also digging shelters for themselves.

Far away, half a kilometre from us on the short spear, small arms fire could be heard. Sometimes bullets whistled overhead, hitting tree trunks – they weren’t aimed at me, just stray bullets fired at random. Sometimes mortar shells would fly over.

There was very little food and water. The further we moved from Village I, the harder it was for Steklo’s convoys to deliver supplies to us. On the second day, we encountered a problem: the convoy didn’t reach us. I asked Kran and Sapog on the radio: where did the convoy unload our supplies? They just replied that somewhere at the intersection of the long spear and the second treeline. I gathered four comrades with bags, and we went to look for our food and water.

At that point, the same thought was going through my head again: "A lone wolf cub has to fend for himself."

We walked through thinned-out sections of the treeline where fighting had previously taken place. One abandoned strongpoint after another, and then we encountered wounded assault troops, then Linguist’s and Tokar’s men, and then we found some contract soldiers who had just arrived. They were our acquaintances: the same ones who had joined us back at our old, peaceful positions. I happily greeted Akhill (Achilles) and Zerkalo. Unfortunately, they also didn’t know where our supplies were. We moved on.

The food had been unloaded at the burial ground. Not a cattle burial ground, no – it was a military cemetery. The intersection of the long spear and the second treeline was located here, and a path leading to the third treeline branched off from here. There was a large enemy strongpoint located here: a couple of dugouts, shallow trenches, and machine gun nests. It was a very important strongpoint; it had been defended and assaulted for a long time.

There were corpses lying around everywhere. Ours and the enemy’s. Burned. Bloated like drums. Eaten by maggots. And not a single intact tree – everything was bare, destroyed by shelling. That was the place where our supplies were unloaded. I could perfectly understand the convoy drivers who were afraid to go any further. They’d dropped their cargo and ran, reporting that everything had been delivered.

We searched for a quarter of an hour, hiding from the drones, but we couldn’t find our supplies. However, we did find something to loot. It seemed to be an old enemy cache. There were the remains of some rations and drinking water with labels in Ukrainian. The bottles were punctured by small shrapnel fragments and were leaking, but they still contained about half of the water. We loaded our backpacks with the loot and reported that we couldn't find the convoy. However, our loot allowed our platoon to hold out for another day…

We returned to our positions and started dividing the spoils. Half a bottle of water for each person, a hundred grams of food from the rations. And that was for a whole day. I personally distributed the food and water to my men. I shared water from leaky Ukrainian bottles. We even managed to brew one small cup of coffee for three people.

"What a life… It gets scarier and scarier…"

This incident with the provisions determined my future fate. Katapulta appreciated my efforts. And at the same time, he saw that Rzhev during those two days had only been digging a shelter for himself, trying to save his own skin, arguing and expressing his irritation. Katapulta saw how Shaiba withdrew into himself and hid in his hole. He saw that List, having returned from leave, was completely disoriented. I, on the other hand, showed initiative, running around under “birds,” not arguing with the commanders. I was useful. And as always happens in the army – initiative fucks the initiator.

Katapulta was due for leave soon.


Chapter 15: A Heap of New Responsibilities. Frontline. Summer 2023.


Our company first sergeant, Sapog, transmitted over the radio: if the convoys can't bring the provisions to us, then one of us has to meet the convoy at the burial ground at night and receive the cargo. The convoy’s call sign was "Bilet-odin" (Ticket-one). Katapulta assigned me to this task, as the most responsible. And I decided to go alone.

Even then, I clearly felt that I was safer alone. Enemy drones were tracking groups of people: a group is easier to spot and easier to hit. A lone target is less of a priority. It’s easier to hide alone. So I went alone.

After walking those two kilometers, I met Zerkalo's platoon, and they showed me an empty bunker: it was a good shelter. A pit in the ground almost my height, covered with plastic sheeting and branches. If needed, two people could even fit in there. I climbed into my bunker and lay down to sleep until nightfall. Drones flew over me at dusk, but I knew: as long as I'm unseen, I'm invulnerable. And at night, my watch began: I peered into the darkness from my pit, waiting for Ticket-one. Some people ran past me, and I quietly called out to them: "Ticket-one?" They didn’t answer and ran past. They were most likely assault troops’ supply runners heading for the short spear.

As dawn was breaking, I finally waited for our supply carriers. Ticket-one arrived, led by Sapog himself. A whole squad hastily dumped their cargo on the ground near my shelter. Sapog was very angry that he was personally forced to come here and make sure that the supplies reached the recipients.

“Sapog, hi there! These are the provisions for Katapulta, correct?”

“Hi, Kompas. No, these aren’t just for Katapulta. These are for Katapulta, Linguist, and Zerkalo. Divide all of this between the three platoons.”

“What? For three platoons? That’s like, a hundred people.”

“Kompas, you’ll figure out how to divide it. I know it’s not enough, but what can we do? We can’t bring more.”

“Understood.”

“Tomorrow, a new convoy will arrive at the same time. So, Kompas, now you’ll be meeting the convoys every day. And everything has to be divided between the platoons. You’re responsible for making sure everyone gets food and water. Got it?”

“Fuck. Understood.”

“If they make me drag myself out here again, I'll be furious as hell.”

I understood that he was right. Someone had to meet the convoys and divide the provisions – otherwise, everything would be wasted again. The supply runners left me with a mountain of provisions and ran off. In the twilight, I divided everything into three parts, arranged them in separate piles, and called everyone on the radio to come and get their share. People came to me and took their allotted supplies; I was now the quartermaster of this treeline. Miraculously, the "birds" didn’t spot us and didn't shell us.

The last batch of supplies was distributed, and I trudged back to my position to talk to Katapulta.

“Katapulta, from now on, I’ll be meeting the convoys every day and dividing the provisions between three platoons.”

“Kompas, it’s too dangerous for you to be there alone. Take a second person with you.”

“It’s safer for me to be alone.”

“What if you’re injured? You absolutely need a second person. List will go with you tonight. You’ll spend the night there and meet the convoys.”

“Roger that.”

“And another thing, Kompas, I have another important assignment for you. I was at Kran’s today, and we discussed my leave. The platoon needs a commander. I recommended you.”

“And how am I supposed to be in two places at once? Are you kidding me? What kind of commander am I? There’s Rzhev, he’s the acting platoon commander, let him run the platoon.”

“No, Rzhev won’t do, he complains too much, and Kran won’t approve. I’m appointing you as platoon commander, Kompas. You’ll be meeting the convoys at night, and during the day, you’ll command the platoon. If you’re away, Rzhev will cover for you. And Nefrit will command your squad.”

“Fuck. Roger that.”

I didn’t feel like a commander at all and didn’t want to be one. But there was no way out. I talked to Nefrit and handed the position of squad leader over to him. Rzhev and I talked and agreed that we would command the platoon together: Rzhev would be better at managing people, and I would be better at talking to the command. At that time, good news arrived: four more men from our platoon were going on leave with Katapulta, according to the queue.

It turned out that Kran had secured this leave for us. He and Udar had an unpleasant conversation. Kran confronted the battalion commander about screwing over his soldiers: he’d promised rotation, and instead sent them to the front lines. Udar replied, "Well, you’ve got a shitty battalion commander, then. Any questions?" Kran demanded that Udar approve leave for four soldiers as an alternative to rotation. Udar unexpectedly agreed.

The vacationers’ mood was excellent, and everyone else was green with envy. As for me, leave was still a distant dream. In the evening, List and I packed our things and went to the meeting point with the supply convoys. Arriving at the location, we found that yesterday’s bunker was already occupied by one of the contract soldiers. We had to look for a new shelter, but it was too late to dig. Fortunately, there was an old enemy strongpoint nearby with an empty dugout. We decided to occupy it. The area around was completely exposed, but at least we had a dugout – which meant logs over our heads.

Corpses everywhere. And wasps, wasps, wasps. Wasps loved the smell of corpses; they were everywhere here. The dugout was littered with trash, ammunition, medical supplies, and punctured cans of food. We cleared out some of the trash and settled in for the night. The stench of death and decay hung in the air. But we had nowhere else to go. We slept next to corpses; thankfully, at least there weren’t any inside the dugout. Instead of greenery and trees, our position was now camouflaged with trash and corpses. In the morning, I got up and started waiting for Ticket-one.

It turned out to be much more convenient and safer to meet the supply runners and divide the provisions in the dugout. The supply runners were under cover and could rest; we had enough space to arrange everything in separate piles. The people who came to pick up supplies could also stay with us for a minute and catch their breath. List and I started setting aside a little bit of food and water for ourselves. Later, during the day, we threw all the unnecessary things out of the dugout, and our shelter was transformed into a sort of decent warehouse. We had plenty of space for the two of us. But this didn’t last long.

That afternoon, the shelling started. They shelled Zerkalo's neighbouring platoon of contract soldiers, who were too brazenly walking around the treeline without armour or helmets, gathering in large groups and drinking tea. They were punished for this with shelling. One of their comrades died right in front of their eyes. The rest panicked and scattered. Three contract soldiers, including Zerkalo himself, ran into our dugout seeking shelter. They were afraid to go outside and settled in with us permanently. Zerkalo, the acting commander of their platoon, fell into a depression and withdrew into himself. I understood them perfectly. I remembered what it was like for us when Suleiman died. Now they were going through the same thing. Their first death. Thus, there were five of us living in the burial ground.

The shelling continued, and our dugout often shook from the explosions. One time, a mortar shell landed about five meters from our entrance. We thought it was the end for us – but no, we got lucky. We just had to clear the fallen tree trunks from the steps at the entrance. We tried to make the dugout look uninhabited, so we camouflaged it from the outside with piles of garbage.

Meanwhile, Katapulta and four soldiers from our platoon went on leave. I decided that I should report to Kran and talk to him. So much had fallen on my shoulders… I had a low-quality photo of a paper map on my phone. I contacted Kran and specified the grid square where he was located. After figuring out the approximate route, I set off. The supply runners had already trodden a decent path across the long spear, and I had no trouble reaching the first treeline. After walking a couple more kilometres, I found Kran's location.

Kran and his entourage had chosen an excellent spot. It was a former enemy strongpoint: they had a dugout and shallow trenches around it, which they had been camouflaging and deepening all this time, and now the shelters were deeper than a man's height. Kran greeted me with a smile: he was impressed that I always stayed in contact and took care of the platoon’s affairs, and even those of other platoons.

"Hello, Kompas! So you finally made it to me. Did Katapulta tell you about your important assignment?"

"The one where I now meet the convoys and divide the supplies for a hundred people? Yes, I'm already doing that. People are getting food and water, everything’s running smoothly."

"Excellent, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I understand that while you're sitting in the burial ground, Rzhev is in charge of your platoon?"

"Well, yes."

"Good, let it be that way. Kompas, you’ll be my senior man in charge of the entire treeline."

"How's that? I'm not even an officer."

"Doesn’t matter that you're not an officer. Everyone else is hiding in their holes and too scared to stick their noses out. But at least you always stay in contact, you’re active, running around here and there. You’ll report to me on the state of affairs in the treeline and relay orders to all the platoons."

"Understood."

"So, Rzhev is in charge of your platoon – let it be that way. Linguist and Tokar are in charge of another platoon. And what about Zerkalo’s platoon? They’re not responding to calls. Is Zerkalo the senior man there?"

"Yes, Zerkalo. But Zerkalo isn't coping. He’s withdrawn into himself."

"I'm assigning two free captains to your command: 'Shram' (Scar) and 'Robot.' Let them manage the contract soldiers. They’re experienced, but old, veterans of the Chechen war. Your task is to establish communication with Zerkalo's platoon, so that Shram and Robot can stay in contact! Understood?"

"Understood."

"Here’s a wet wipe for you, to wipe your face. You probably haven’t seen yourself in a mirror for a week. By the way, Kompas, do you have any maps with grid squares?"

This wasn't a trick question; I hadn’t misheard. Kran, who had threatened to shoot me if he saw me with a phone, was now directly asking me about maps. The command had suddenly finally realized that, apparently, soldiers needed phones to navigate using grid squares and sectors! I gave Kran my phone, and we installed maps and grid squares on it. He even showed me how to install maps on other soldiers’ phones.

Just like that, from rags to riches. From a regular soldier, I was transformed into the company commander's confidant.


Chapter 16: Kompas, Legend of the Second Treeline. Frontline. Summer of '23.


Life in the treeline began to settle into a routine. Supplies arrived every morning. They weren't enough: one squad carried supplies for three platoons. Soon, convoys began arriving in the evenings at dusk as well. They brought not only supplies but also ammunition, tools, and materials. Soldiers from all three platoons also brought me discharged radio batteries and power banks. The batteries were passed on to the supply runners, who took them to Village I to be recharged. Then, a couple of days later, they brought them back. It worked, but it worked poorly. There weren't enough charging stations in the Village of I; the batteries took a long time to charge, and they didn’t always make it back to their owners. Nevertheless, some kind of communication system had been established. Even Shram and Robot would occasionally appear on the air with their reports.

We were all sitting ducks. Even though we weren’t involved in firefights, we were harassed by drones and artillery every day. The "birds" carried grenades and dropped them on us. Shram and Robot’s platoon lost four men killed in action in just a few days. The rest were terrified and withdrew into themselves. They holed up in their shelters and were afraid to come out. These contract soldiers spent most of their time simply lying in their dugouts and praying. Only once a day would they crawl out of their holes to go to the bathroom. And only the bravest would come to me for food and water.

One of the contract soldiers, in a moment of panic, kicked an unexploded grenade (a “bell”), which was lying on the ground. A fatal mistake. The grenade exploded on impact, taking off his foot. He survived but lost his leg.

And maybe... that was his plan?

The contract soldiers were afraid to even look at their dead. The bodies of their comrades remained lying in the pits where they’d fallen until the Eva (evacuation team) came for them. The bodies were packed into black bags and carried away to the Village of I, to be sent back to Russia to their relatives.

At some point, Captain Shram also caught a piece of shrapnel – right in the ass. The old captain started acting tough and pulled the shrapnel out of his buttock with a bayonet. Kran instructed me to examine Shram.

“This is not even a wound, just a scratch!” Shram boasted. “I can't abandon my men here to go to the medics with a hole in my ass.”

“Shram, you have an infection there. Even though it’s a small wound, it needs to be treated.”

“I don't need any treatment! It’ll heal on its own!”

Of course, it didn't heal on its own. The wound was infected because any penetrating wound (both bullet and shrapnel) always introduces infection inside!

On top of that, Shram introduced even more infection when he poked around in there with his knife. On the second day after being wounded, Shram was already having difficulty walking. His comrades examined his wound and discovered that maggots had already infested it. I tried to persuade him again.

“Shram, you urgently need to see the medics. You’re not combat-ready. Hello!”

“Yeah, I understand…,” Shram breathed heavily.

“You’re putting your own men at risk by staying here. If you don’t leave today, tomorrow they’ll have to carry you.”

“You’re right, Kompas… You’re right…”

“Akhil! Escort Shram to Village I, to the medics. He needs to stay for proper treatment! Then come back after dusk. Understood?”

I finally managed to resolve this situation, and it ended well. Shram made it to the medics on his own two feet, and he was evacuated to Russia. Akhil returned safe and sound. Robot was left in command of the platoon.

If Shram had gone to the medics right away, maybe he would have been treated for three or four days and returned. But as it was, the wound became infected, and he was stuck in the hospital for several weeks, and even received his three million.

Maybe… that was his plan?

Linguist and Tokar’s platoon also had a rough time. They got a section at the intersection of the second treeline and the short spear. Everything there was completely bare, without a single decent shelter. Linguist ordered his men to fall back a bit to an old enemy strongpoint where the scouts were already stationed.

All together, they huddled in one cramped dugout and a couple of camouflaged machine gun nests. Every day, they tried to get out of their hole to dig some kind of positions – and every day, they failed. These squares were located right on the supply and evacuation route for the assault troops, so there was constant activity there. Assault troops were running back and forth, hiding at Linguist's position, the wounded were asking for water. Because of this activity, the area was constantly monitored by drones, grenades were constantly dropped, and artillery fire was constantly called in. In ten days, the platoon lost half of its personnel to injuries.

As a result, Linguist, Tokar, and all their men also fell into depression, withdrew into themselves, and stopped coming out of their hole. They didn't even come for food and water every day – fear was stronger than hunger and thirst.

Only our platoon managed to stay away from this trouble and keep almost all of its men safe and sound.

Eventually, the question of washing and laundry arose. There was much debate about how best to organize it. Kran suggested that we rotate by platoon: the first platoon, currently in reserve, would replace one of our platoons for a week, then another platoon for a week, and so on. This plan was quickly rejected. They agreed that we would rotate individually: a couple of soldiers each day would go to Village I to wash, do laundry, take care of their business, and rest.

As Kran’s confidant, I could go to Village I on my own initiative, without special permission. On the second or third day of this program, I got ready and set off on my long-awaited day off. It was a long walk: about seven kilometres. From the second treeline, across the long spear, through the burial ground, I reached the huge hangars where the supply depot and the rest area for those on leave were located. This day reminded me of our old, peaceful positions. A good hundred men on leave and in reserve were hanging around in a large crowd inside the hangar building. Music was playing from every corner, phones had been returned. There were sleeping quarters, a table piled high with food, tea, and coffee. There was a generator and plenty of outlets for charging radios. Sapog had done a good job.

By this point, Sapog had transported all our duffel bags with belongings that we’d managed to save from our old positions. Some bags had been stolen, some were lost, some had been looted. Poor Tokar had all his things stolen. I was lucky; almost all of my things were still there. Here, near the hangars, they had set up a bathhouse, and dedicated people were preparing firewood, carrying water from the well, and stoking the stove. There were even washing machines there, though I didn’t manage to use them. The line for laundry was so long… I handed in a whole set of clothes for washing: from underwear to uniform jacket. But when I came back the next day – it wasn’t washed, two days later – still not washed, a week later – still not washed. In the end, my set of dirty, smelly clothes remained in that bathhouse, and is still lying there to this day.

During that day, I managed to do everything I wanted. I got a haircut, drank coffee, and ate a delicious meal until I was full. The banya was amazing; I was lucky, and I washed alone, without rushing, not even trying to conserve water - I washed for the first time in two weeks. I didn’t even try to wash my uniform - it was completely saturated with the smell of corpses. I simply threw away everything I was wearing and changed into clean clothes.

Here, I could peacefully talk to my comrades over a cup of coffee and a cigarette. We met up with Shinel, and he told me about their work on the AGS. He and Shinel had dug in not far from Kran and prepared a position for the weapon. Another of our guys was living with the scouts at that time and using their drone to adjust fire. From time to time, I would hear Kran, the scouts, and the AGS crew communicating on the radio. They were working, shelling enemy positions from several kilometers away, and even hitting some targets. Good job, guys.

I didn't stay overnight in the Village of I. I already had a premonition that such a large concentration of people wasn't a good thing. At least I had one normal day off. Sapog loaded me up with supplies and batteries for the radios, and I headed back.

During the next couple of weeks, I ran around the treeline like a madman. I communicated with all the commanders around us. Of course, I wasn’t a real treeline commander. I couldn't give orders. But I would go to Kran every couple of days to talk, I was up to date on the situation. I was welcome in every platoon; they waited for me to tell them the news and relay instructions that couldn’t be communicated by radio. I collected requests from the platoons, listened to their needs, and reported them to the commanders.

"Sapog, this is Kompas! Send some trench candles with the convoy! Over."

"Kran, Robot is requesting a rifle to work on the 'birds.'"

"Sapog, this is Kompas! We need two shovels and camouflage nets. Over."

"Kran, this is Kompas. Robot is a '300,' light injuries. He’ll walk out himself. Over."

"Sapog, this is Kompas. Send some covering material. Over."

"Kran, this is Kompas. Robot sixteen, Linguist sixteen, Rzhev sixteen. Kompas sixteen. Over."

"Sapog, this is Kompas. We need batteries, more batteries for the radios, today! Over."

"Kran, there’s a pile of corpses in the burial ground. Can you send Eva to collect them?"

"Sapog, this is Kompas. Do you know that there’s a soldier walking around the second shelf without pants? Urgently send pants, size 50! Over."

I relayed the radio frequency change schedule to everyone (which is only communicated in person), established communication with those who didn't have radios, organized supply lines along the treeline, installed maps and grid squares on the phones of everyone who asked, explained where everything was and how to navigate using this map. All the commanders turned to me for advice and dumped their problems on me. I was a guide: I led people in and out, those who didn't know the way – and there wasn’t a single casualty among those who walked with me.

All this time, every day, drones circled above me. I had to constantly hide. I’d walk fifty meters, stop, listen. I hear one hovering. Freeze, sit down. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes I sit and wait. And it keeps hovering and hovering above me. I hear a second one approaching. "Well, this is it, I’m fucked." The first one is observing, and the second one is carrying a payload. It’s about to drop a bomb. I’d jump up and run as fast as I can to the nearest trench or dugout. And sit there for another half hour until they fly away.

One time, an F-1 grenade (a fragmentation grenade) was dropped near me. I was walking along, and then I heard a "bird." And there was, as luck would have it, not a single piece of cover nearby. I lay down, and pretended to be dead. And then, the click of the safety lever releasing. "Well, that’s it, I’m done. Happy now, are you?" Boom! Ten meters away from me, I’m safe. There shouldn't be a second grenade; they only carry one. If another "bird" doesn’t arrive now, and if they don’t have time to call in artillery fire – I’m saved. I got up and ran as fast as I could. I made it out.

And so it went every day, this damned cat-and-mouse game with drones. All this time, I walked around without armor plates in my vest – just the Kevlar. And I had long since stopped carrying weapons and ammunition – I wouldn't hit anything anyway, especially not a drone. Having shed the extra weight from my shoulders, I felt more agile. That's why I always managed to win this game with death, this game of hide-and-seek.

The most disgusting problem in this situation was taking a shit in peace. There wasn't a single place in the entire second treeline where you could take a shit in peace. For the first week, I didn't shit at all, but that couldn't last forever. One time, I went off to take a shit a little further away, on the long spear, and sat down under a bush. And so there I am, sitting in the flying eagle pose with my ass hanging out – and here comes a drone! I, naturally, am taking a shit without my armor. And now I can’t move – the drone will see me if I move. This doesn’t mean that there’s a motion sensor on the drone, no. The motion sensor is in the operator's head. The operator pays attention to movement.

So there I sit, with my bare ass, frozen with fear. I’d already done my dirty business – but I couldn’t wipe my ass, they’d notice. And the drone kept circling and circling above me. My legs went numb. How humiliating it would be to die like this. With a bare and dirty ass. And how would they carry me out then, ugh… This is the end of Kompas. Died with his pants down, literally. And they’ll bring me home with a dirty ass.

But it was alright, the drone flew away. I finally wiped my ass and ran back to the dugout. From then on, I went to take a shit at Kran’s position on the first treeline. Even though it was a few kilometres’ walk, at least I could sit in peace under the dense foliage.

Our dugout at the burial ground constantly had visitors passing through from other units, mostly assault troops. They’d hide from shelling with us, sometimes for a whole night, and ask for water and a snack. We set aside some supplies from the convoys for our guests. One time, an exhausted assault trooper stopped by and asked us to help him carry a stretcher with a wounded man to the next shelter. We all ducked our heads. None of us wanted to go out under fire.

After thinking for a bit, I agreed to help him. The wounded man had already been lying on a stretcher in the sun for half an hour. The Ukrainian Armed Forces didn't finish off the wounded like that – they waited for the evacuation team. In war, the evacuation team is the juiciest target. It’s usually four people. The enemy tries to wound one soldier so that he lies in the open and screams. The wounded man is observed; the drone operator waits for the Eva. And when the Eva arrives, artillery starts working, or the drone drops a grenade. That's how one “300” turns into five “300s” or “200s” (killed in action).

For the same reasons, by the way, some types of weapons become less lethal and more humane. If the goal used to be to kill a person on the spot – now the goal is to wound a person so that he screams. Anti-personnel mines, for example, half a century ago would take off a leg from the foot to the hip – guaranteed death on the spot. And now what? “Petals” and “bells” only take off the foot. The wounded man lies there screaming, waiting for evacuation. The Eva arrives – bam! Five soldiers are now out of action. This is how both sides of the conflict operate.

So, the assault trooper and I listened to the sky, made sure there were no “birds” around, and picked up the stretcher. The wounded man pretended to be dead; maybe that's why we got lucky. Carrying a stretcher with a hundred-kilogram man between two people is incredibly hard work. We somehow managed to carry him two hundred meters to the nearest cover where the dense foliage hid us and collapsed from exhaustion. Our paths diverged here, and I returned to my dugout.

The visiting assault troops told us about their difficult lives. They were from "Shtorm-Z" (Storm-Z): convicts – criminals who had signed contracts for amnesty. The contracts lasted six months, and they were thrown into the most dangerous assaults. If you survived six months at war – you were free. I wrote a mocking song about the Zetas to the tune of "Na nedele do vtorogo" (For a Week Until the Second, here's the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm2E1Ty25pk. The following is a LIBERAL translation of his lyrics):

(Verse 1)
Criminal, rascal,
Off to Bakhmut I go!
To storm the strongholds,
Under a rain of leaden mines.
I’m fighting for Russia,
A hero, just like in a painting.
They’ll grant me amnesty,
If I come back alive!

(Verse 2)
Criminal, rascal,
Off to Bakhmut I go!
In a zinc coffin, I carry ammo,
In a zinc coffin, a friend departs.
Yesterday was the offensive,
It was his birthday.
Don't want to go home in a zinc coffin –
Hookers are waiting for me back home.

(Verse 3)
Criminal, rascal,
Off to Bakhmut I go!
My knife and my rifle
Will show the Ukrops who's right.
Back home, I was a criminal,
But thanks to Uncle Vova (Putin),
No Russian or international law
Exists in Bakhmut.

(Verse 4)
Criminal, rascal,
Off to Bakhmut I go!
To storm the strongholds,
Under a rain of leaden mines.
I’m fighting for Russia,
A hero, just like in a painting.
They’ll grant me amnesty,
If I come back alive!

Life was hard for the Zetas. From assault to assault, from assault to assault. Without rest, without days off, without rotation. No safe positions, only assaults. Lightly wounded Zetas worked as supply runners – they weren't treated and weren’t evacuated to Russia.

Each unit had a specially trained officer who would execute retreating or refusing soldiers – “zero them out” on the spot. At the beginning of August, five hundred men were sent on the assault – by the end of August, only fifty remained. And all of this just to capture three treelines – and the third treeline was still held by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Now the fighting was taking place at the ends of the short and long spears, at their intersections with the third treeline.

Much later, I learned that the amnesty freebie had also ended. The prisoners who had signed contracts in the spring and early summer of '23 – they were sent home after their contracts expired. But in mid-summer of '23, this loophole was closed. Now prisoners remained in service until the end of the war; their contracts were automatically extended. No one would let them go home. Just like regular contract soldiers. Just like mobilized soldiers. Until the end of the war.


Chapter 17: Expanding the Sphere of Influence. Frontline. Summer of '23.


There were also idiotic requests from the personnel: for example, Rzhev started demanding a Combat Order stating that we were actually stationed here. People were asking to be paid combat bonuses – eight thousand rubles per day for being in an active combat zone. Kran was extremely annoyed and disappointed by this request.

“Their lives hang by a thread, but they’re thinking about profit…”

He explained that the combat eight thousand were already included in the mobilized soldiers' salaries. And he even showed them the Combat Order. It actually existed.

There were also idiotic orders from the command. Once, our platoons were ordered to open fire simultaneously on the third treeline. This put us at risk and drew attention to us. We could have all been killed as a result of this action – and we wouldn’t have hit a single enemy soldier. But that was the point – we were bait. We were supposed to provoke the enemy and force them to reveal their firing positions so that our artillery could then target them. Kran wasn’t a heartless bastard, so he gave the order to fire one magazine and immediately take cover in our dugouts.

This action yielded no results. The enemy wasn’t stupid and didn't fall for the provocation. Their guns and artillery remained silent. Well, all the better for us. We were even lucky: the neighbouring company was brought extension ladders and ordered to climb trees and fire from there.

Meanwhile, our battalion commander, Udar, was also awaiting his leave. He was going home for the birth of his son, leaving us in this shithole. I heard his last message on the general radio frequency: “Kran, this is Udar. Don’t know how you’ll take this news, but I’m leaving the chat! Yakor is replacing me.”

======
Music break:

Author suddenly quotes a game-related song. I consider quotation cringy but in an interest of preservation of the spirit of the original, here's the quote along with the YT link.

What if I don't wanna walk in your grace anymore
My faith is a fire, but the flame hasn't faded before
Should your cup runneth over, spare me your sympathy
My lord, you left us broken, so shed no grace on me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC8rObW6gAw
======

And all of this in a cheerful, mocking tone. Now Yakor was the acting battalion commander, and that wasn’t any better. Our battalion commander abandoned us at the most difficult time.

With the next supply delivery, KPOMs and KPTMs started arriving: devices that launch several anti-personnel or anti-tank mines a short distance – fifty to seventy meters – in front of them. These devices could be carried by hand and launched with a radio battery.

“Kran, what are we supposed to do with them? Are professional sappers coming to deploy them? Where are the ‘Dergachi’ (sapper units)?”

“Kompas, you’re my Dergach. You and Shmel were trained as auxiliary sappers, so you deploy them. Fire them off into the field to the left and right of the short spear so that the enemy doesn’t cross the field.”

So Shmel and I went to deploy them ourselves. Each of us took one device: the “hoof” (the launcher that's placed on the ground and, in fact, launches the mines), wires, a battery, and the KPOM itself. The KPOM looks like a huge, shiny cartridge casing and is clearly visible from the air. And the intersection at the short spear is completely bare, without a single piece of cover.

It was terrifying and dangerous. Drones circled above us, we hastily set up the hooves, secured them with stakes, connected the wires, placed the KPOMs in the hooves, and launched them. And all this time, we were completely exposed in the open!

Bang!

Second bang!

We didn't plan to linger there and left the hooves with the wires in the same spots (which was a mistake). We retrieved the fired KPOM casings and threw them about fifty meters away from the location, and then ran back to our dugouts in different directions. That day, artillery was working on that intersection.

When we returned the next day with fresh KPOMs, we found that we’d failed. The hooves and wires had been damaged by mortar fire and were no longer usable. They kept sending us KPOMs with the convoys, but we couldn't launch them because we had no hooves.

Over time, my routes became longer and further. It wasn’t just our three platoons that my gaze encompassed anymore. Sometimes, I would walk over to chat with the neighbouring company, Pryanik’s. They were also positioned on the second treeline, on the other flank, near the path we had used to enter the area initially. Pryanik, their company commander, lived with his company, and he always had communication problems. They didn't have enough batteries, and the radio signal from the Village of I to Pryanik's position was weak. Kran had a better communication setup – although he lived a kilometre away from us in a relatively safe location, he was positioned right in the middle, between Village I and our positions. If the signal didn't reach somewhere, Kran acted as a repeater. Sometimes, when Pryanik wouldn't respond, Kran would ask me to check on him. Pryanik was trying to solve this problem with a field telephone ("noodles"). The poor, responsible soldier spent his days crawling across the field alone, running a wire all the way from Village I, but the mortar shelling would break the wires every day, and the soldier had to crawl back out and splice the breaks again and again. It was extremely dangerous because there wasn’t a single piece of cover in the field. But the soldier was fearless and very lucky.

Once, Pryanik asked me to check on his subordinate, nicknamed Komanch (Comanche). His platoon was stationed at the short spear, much closer to the enemy than we were. They hadn’t been in contact for several days, and relations were tense. Mustering my courage, I set off for the short spear. I had never been so close to the fighting before – the enemy was only about five hundred meters away. With great difficulty, I found Komanch in one of the shelters; he turned out to be a reasonable guy. His platoon was constantly under enemy AGS fire. We chatted; he reported the situation to me and told me about the “Outcasts.”

The Outcasts were positioned even closer to the enemy. And they were having an even harder time. They had been deployed there by the higher-ups immediately after arriving and weren't given any instructions whatsoever. The Outcasts didn’t know the radio frequencies, they had no radios, no maps, no grid coordinates, no food, no water. They didn’t know where they were or where they were supposed to be. They didn’t even know who their commander was or which battalion they belonged to. And only four of them remained – all the others were either wounded or dead. And no one could help them or tell them what to do.

I was once again convinced of how Russia treats its citizens. Komanch shared his food and water with the Outcasts, but he couldn't save them from their incompetent commanders.

I gathered all the information and started heading back to make my report. On the way back, an F-1 grenade was dropped on me, and I ran for my life. When I got back to Pryanik, the phone was working, and I reported to the Village of I about the Outcasts. From then on, we provided them with as much assistance as we could.

I kept going further and further afield; my feet were covered in blisters, my boots were falling apart. And no one could issue me new boots because I wear a size 46, and boots in my size were always out of stock. I also walked along the field path, and one time I was almost hit by an AGS there. "Birds" were flying all day, and the enemy AGS had zeroed in on Pryanik's men. I was passing by them, and they warned me that they had lost three men near the path today. But I put my trust in luck and continued on my way.

And as I was approaching the path, I heard several shots far, far away. They were firing from a distance of about three kilometres. At that range, AGS fire sounds like automatic rifle fire. And the grenades fly in a high arc – for a long time, about five seconds. It wasn't until they started landing that I realized I was under fire. I quickly turned around and started looking for a place to hide. Luckily, there was a deep pit nearby under the shade of the foliage, and I dove into it. The AGS kept firing for a long time, probably for half an hour. And the whole time, a damned "bird" was hovering above me. I lay there thinking, "Well, is this where my end will come?" After waiting for some time after the shelling stopped, I climbed out of the pit and continued on my way, giving up on the field path.

Life went on. Every day, those returning from rest would bring back a load of food and water. These were small, supplementary convoys: they charged radio batteries, retrieved things from their duffel bags, and brought small comforts like condensed milk, coffee, or gas canisters. I also regularly went to Village I, and one day it ended badly.

I was calmly walking along the field path; the sky was clear. I walked along the road, across "Lavra" and the hills, straight to Village I. And as I approached the hangars, thunder struck.

Cluster munitions with shrapnel. Right above me.

Hundreds of metal balls slammed into the ground, raising a cloud of dust ten meters in front of me. And not a scratch on me. I dashed to the hangar because there was nowhere else to hide. There, about a hundred men on leave and in reserve were already lying on the floor, bracing for the shelling.

Yes, a large crowd of people living in a hangar was bound to attract attention sooner or later. Following the shrapnel, mortars arrived. Sapog yelled, "Everyone down! Everyone down! Kran, this is Sapog. Seventeen! Seventeen!"

Kran heard. Kran was stationed between Village I and the enemy. And he heard the mortar fire before the shell reached us.

"Outgoing!" Kran would announce on the radio every time, one second before impact.

We were lying on the floor of the hangar; there was nowhere else to hide. Another shell hit our roof. A whistle and an explosion. Boom! The roof caved in; the shell exploded against it and didn't penetrate inside the building. That saved us all from death ("Shame", translator's note).

"300!" someone yelled.

"Another wounded here!" yelled another.

Fortunately, both "300s" were light injuries. One had injuries to his hands, the other to his leg. There was no danger to their lives.

“Stay down! We wait fifteen minutes after the last impact!” Sapog yelled.

When everything quieted down, the wounded were taken to Bint and evacuated. And something had to be done about this hangar; we had to get out. I went to look for our men on leave and found them in a nearby garage, excitedly discussing what had happened: “This is fucked up, man. These dumbasses are walking around like they’re at home. A ‘bird’ spotted them, and that’s it, they’re fucked. We need to get the hell out of here.”

Of course, we were the same dumbasses, walking around like we were at home. While we were talking, a new shelling started. The garage wasn’t any better protection than the hangar. Soon, a large hole from a shrapnel fragment appeared in the metal garage door. We lay on the concrete floor and hoped that it would soon be over.

That day, they hastily relocated everyone who was staying in the hangar to the outskirts of the Village of I. Lines of reservists and resting soldiers stretched out, looking for basements further away from the targeted area. Now each group rested on its own. The shelling continued even when I would come to the Village of I for the next batch of supplies. It wasn’t safe here either.


Chapter 18: The Vehicle. Frontline. Summer of '23.


During another visit to Kran, I was informed that a vehicle was coming for us. I was supposed to meet it near Rzhev’s position at dusk.

“Meet the Cheburashka!”

That’s the nickname they gave to the Bukhanka van that Kran had bought with his own money specifically for the company’s needs.

By this time, Rzhev had already gotten his bearings in the treeline and found an abandoned dugout not far from our positions, right in the centre of the treeline. He moved half of our platoon into this dugout. Better to live in a dugout than in a pit in the ground. And this is precisely where the vehicle was supposed to arrive.

A dirt road ran from the Village of I to Rzhev's position, straight across the field. There wasn’t a single piece of cover, not a single bush, for a couple of kilometres. It was a risk, but the command ordered the drivers to go, and they went. In the evening, under cover of darkness, a Bukhanka arrived, and we started unloading supplies: food, water, and weapons. Miraculously, the “birds” didn't spot us, and we camouflaged everything with netting.

It was a feast: finally, we had more food than we knew what to do with! MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat), turkey, corn, stew! All of this was divided between the platoons, but we, of course, took a little extra for ourselves.

Realizing that the vehicle delivery system worked, Yakor decided to send us a vehicle regularly. Now Cheburashka came to us every evening; the foot convoys to the burial ground were no longer necessary. A few days later, I moved from the burial ground to Rzhev's dugout, leaving the distribution of supplies from the foot convoys to Zerkalo.

"Rzhev, this is Kompas. Do you have a vacancy at your hotel? Over."

"Yes, Kompas, we'll find you one. Come on in."

People started coming to Rzhev and me for supplies. We started having surpluses. Pryanik quickly found out about the vehicle and started asking Yakor for supplies to be delivered by our Cheburashka. Yakor agreed, and I received a new order:

“Kompas, this is Kran. Divide everything in half: for us and for Pryanik.”

I had to gather more data. I walked the entire treeline again and recorded the number of personnel in each platoon, keeping track of changes. Now, I was supplying about one hundred and fifty people. Robot, Linguist, Rzhev, Pryanik, Komanch, the Outcasts… A separate pile had to be set aside for each, according to the number of fighters. There was no room in the dugout. Everything had to be counted, divided, laid out, camouflaged, and distributed. And all of this out in the open, at the risk of being spotted from the air, in fear of shelling.

Besides supplies, they were sending us tons of weapons and ammunition that we had nowhere to store. Heaps of KPOMs that we couldn't launch without the launchers. Mountains of ammunition for AK-74s and PKMs, which we didn't use because there was no one to shoot at – after all, this was an artillery war. And we wouldn’t hit the drones anyway. We were also afraid to shoot – we didn’t want to give away our positions. Then they sent us two DShKs, heavy calibre machine guns. I recalled Dubina’s joke:

“Comrade instructor, what happens if a twelve-millimeter bullet hits a person?”

“It’ll keep flying.”

We needed to dig positions for the DShKs. We affectionately called the DShK "Dashka" or "Darya Konstantinovna." One Dashka was given to Linguist. They tried to dig a position for it. They honestly tried. But as soon as they got out of their hole to start digging, they were immediately spotted and fired upon with incendiary ammunition. All their camouflage burned, the machine gun nests were no longer habitable, and the dugout nearly caught fire. Three more were wounded in one day. That "Dashka" was never deployed.

For the second "Dashka," they sent us two new machine gunners – "monsieur contract soldiers." I was the one who guided them in. We met at Kran’s position, I explained the situation to them and led them through the field path. Everything went quickly and quietly; I listened carefully to the sky and brought them to their positions without incident. Now they knew the way and could move on their own. The machine gunners started digging a shelter and a firing position for the machine gun, but this didn't last long. The very next day, one of them became a "300" and was evacuated.

With the regular vehicle running, we got something else very important: they brought us a generator and gasoline for it. Finally! Now we could charge radios and power banks right in our dugout. Needless to say, our dugout became the charging hub for all the soldiers in the treeline. All I had to do was carry the gasoline – which I usually did.

During my wanderings, I finally managed to get myself a sleeping bag. The first one since I lost mine. I proudly carried it to our positions, but the bag had one drawback – it was blue. It was clearly visible from the air. When I reached the field path, I stopped, listened to the sky, and thought: the drones aren’t directly overhead, but somewhere nearby. If this big blue spot walks across the field now, I'll be spotted immediately and shelled.

So I decided to sit under a tree and wait a couple of hours until dusk; it was safer that way. While I was sitting and waiting, an F-1 grenade landed not far from me, dropped from a drone. But that’s impossible, the drone couldn’t see me here under the thick foliage. Apparently, the drone was looking for a target to attack, but couldn’t find one. So it just dropped the grenade at random. I was lucky it didn't land right next to me.

In the darkness, I finally brought the sleeping bag to the dugout and finally slept in warmth and comfort. But this warmth and comfort lasted only one night.

A storage area was organized in the open air near our dugout with Rzhev. A pile of crates, bags, and boxes lay on the ground, camouflaged with netting and tarps, waiting for the recipients to arrive. I would gather data on the number of personnel every day. Every day, about five or six groups of soldiers would come to us to receive supplies. There was a lot of activity around us.

It was only a matter of time before we were discovered.

That evening, the enemy timed their attack to coincide with the approximate arrival time of our vehicle and deployed a "listener." At dusk, we heard the sound of an engine, which meant the "listener" heard the sound of an engine, too. It would take them five to ten minutes to direct artillery fire at us.

We went out to meet the vehicle, and lo and behold! It wasn’t our vehicle at all; it was an evacuation vehicle belonging to our neighbours from another battalion! And it was driving with its headlights on!

I’d heard on the radio earlier that there was a seriously wounded soldier in such-and-such grid square. It seemed they were coming for him. They sped past us without stopping and drove out in front of the treeline on the enemy side! And they drove the entire way with their headlights on!

I ran out to them and started explaining how to get to the wounded man – anything to make them get the hell away from us faster. They seemed to understand and drove off. Then our Cheburashka arrived, and we started hastily unloading the supplies: we had to hurry, we couldn’t be spotted! But then the neighbouring vehicle returned and turned towards us. I heard the buzzing of a drone…

“Everyone into the dugout,” I hissed angrily.

It was too late to worry about the vehicle. By the time I got to the dugout, grenades launched from an enemy AGS were already exploding near the vehicles. Wounded drivers, covered in blood, were running into our dugout. They had been hit by grenades. The mortars started working after the AGS. The vehicles were done for, the supplies were done for. Our driver, fortunately, was unharmed, and our staff officer was also fine. But the neighbours were covered in blood.

They were asking for help, asking for bandages and water. There was no medic in their evacuation group, and their medical supplies were left in the vehicle. We didn't have a medic either. Everyone was panicking and didn't know what to do. But I was there – the auxiliary medical instructor, a jack-of-all-trades. I was also panicking, but people needed help. And only I could help them.

Their driver had taken several shrapnel hits to the leg. He was wearing slippers… Slippers, for fuck’s sake! He went on a combat mission wearing slippers! I cut his pant leg and examined his leg: blood everywhere, but nothing critical, the arteries were intact. I bandaged him up and put him in my sleeping bag. The guy was holding up well. Another wounded man, their senior officer, had a laceration on his arm. I cut the sleeve and saw exposed flesh.

"Holy shit!" I blurted out in surprise, but immediately came to my senses and began to calm the wounded man, "Well, overall, it’s nothing critical, you won’t bleed out. We'll bandage it up now and everything will be alright, buddy!"

They were both bandaged, but now they needed to be evacuated. The seriously wounded soldier they’d come for had already become a "200" (KIA) by that time. We went out to look at our vehicles. They were burning; the mortars had completely destroyed them. There was nothing to leave in now. We decided to wait until morning. We were attracting too much attention now; we had to move out in the pre-dawn twilight.

Most importantly, we were with the wounded, our own. We would calm them down, feed them, and give them water; we would help them. They knew for sure that they would be okay.

The next morning, I led the senior officer to the Village of I. The driver with the leg wound wouldn't be able to walk on his own. But the senior officer was walking briskly, keeping pace with me. In an hour and a half, we safely reached the Village of I and reported what had happened.

I was asked to guide a foot evacuation team and show them where to pick up the immobile wounded man. I did so; it wasn't difficult for me. There was a reason Kran affectionately called me the "legend of the second treeline." That same day, all the wounded were picked up and evacuated. I’m proud of this story; I truly managed to help someone. My sleeping bag was covered in the wounded man's blood, but I wasn't about to throw it away—it was my sleeping bag!

The staff officer who was supposed to inspect the positions, count and examine all the weapons and report to HQ about the treeline, was also guided by me. Officers were already entrusting me with their lives as a guide. Comrades from Pryanik’s company complained to me about their ailments and psychological problems; one of them plaintively asked me to go to Village I and bring back some tranquillizers from Bint.

On one of my visits to Village I, I did indeed go to Bint and asked for medications according to the list. He began to grumble and complain: "What am I, a pharmacy for you? Give this one, give that one – and what will be left for me? This is a medical station, not a pharmacy! There’s a war going on! They bring me '300s' with their arms and legs blown off – and you're asking for cold medicine and tranquillizers here in the treeline? Are you all out of your minds?"

Even though Bint was a grumpy old goat, while he grumbled, he rummaged through his supplies and in the end, gave me all the necessary medications.

"If you come again with such a request, I’ll tell you to fuck off! And tell them to fuck off too if they ask for nasal spray!”

Having taken care of everything in Village I, I started chatting with my comrades who were resting, when Sapog came up to me and said that I was being summoned to battalion HQ.

"Kompas, Yakor wants to see you!"

"Alright, what for?"

"Fuck knows, he’s probably going to chew you out for going to Village I every other day without permission. You’re supposed to be at your positions."

"Oh, I see. Do you have any Vaseline? My poor ass…”

Preparing for the worst, I went to HQ. I disliked Yakor from our very first meeting, and I didn't expect anything good from him. However, I was mistaken.

“Reporting for duty, Yakor.”

“Oh, so it’s you, Kompas? I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from Kran and the staff. They say you’re well-informed about the situation. Come on, report on the state of affairs in the treeline.”

What a turn of events! So I started reporting on everything: the positions, the weaponry, the number of personnel, the vehicle and the convoys, the shelling we were enduring.

“So, Kompas, I know about your vehicle getting burned. We have another vehicle – we’ll send it out today, during the day.”

“They’ll blow it up, too.”

“How else are we supposed to do it? Foot convoys are out of the question! We don’t have enough men! We’ll send the vehicle in an hour.”

“Sending a vehicle in an hour is definitely not an option; it’s still too light.”

“Well, you advise me then, what’s a safe time! You are aware of the situation, so that's why I'm asking your advice, Kompas.”

“The safest time is dusk. The daytime ‘birds’ can’t see well in the twilight, and the nighttime ‘birds’ haven’t taken off yet. There’s a window of about nineteen hundred to twenty hundred hours—that’s when you should send the vehicle.”

“Alright, we’ll do as you say, Kompas.”

“Incredible. Just recently, this man told me to ‘fuck off!’ And now he, the acting battalion commander, is consulting with me and listening to my opinion!”

“By the way, Kompas, have you called home recently?”

“Well, about three weeks ago. We’re supposed to be observing radio silence.”

“Don’t worry about radio silence. Go ahead and call, they’ve been asking about you in the chat. Let me take a picture of you and send it to the chat. Smile for the camera! What a character you are!”

That evening, I didn’t walk back to the treeline; I rode in a vehicle. Feeling important as hell. Though, we almost rolled over on our side on that damned dirt road. Maybe I should have walked after all?

Once, Kran and I had a short heart-to-heart.

“Kompas, why did you go to war?”

I finally managed to formulate an honest answer:

“I’m here because I’m a coward.”

“What are you afraid of, Kompas?”

“When I received the draft notice, I was afraid of criminal prosecution. I was afraid to flee the country. Because no one’s waiting for me abroad; I’d be all alone there. So here I am.”

“So, fleeing was scarier for you than war? No, Kompas, there’s something else here, you’re not a coward.”

“And why did you go to war, Kran?”

“I’m here because we Russians must stick together. We must unite as a country against a common enemy and win. If not us, then who? We must defend the memory of our ancestors and our forefathers.”

All of us, the mobilized soldiers, still had hopes that we’d be replaced by contract soldiers and redeployed to safe positions, and then back to Russia. A new rumour spread through the ranks: a whole company consisting entirely of contract soldiers would arrive and replace us. We waited for this company for the last few days of summer, saying, "They’re currently training at the training ground, and they'll be here any day now." And they did arrive, led by a former Wagner mercenary with the call sign "Katana" (The Katana).

However, the new company didn't replace us. They were ordered to take up positions on the long spear in front of the burial ground and stretch out towards the enemy. And no one was going to relieve us, and all our hopes were dashed, just like all our hopes before.

However, some shifts did begin.

We were sent reinforcements in the form of contract soldiers. A fresh squad arrived at our positions, and a squad of our mobilized soldiers was redeployed to Village I. Kran personally took care of this: he didn't disregard his men. Kran himself was mobilized, he understood our sentiments.

Naturally, those who were redeployed were the ones who spent most of their time hiding in their holes and took the least part in the life of the treeline. Rzhev and I, of course, remained at our positions—everything would fall apart without us. Kran said, “New contract soldiers will be here soon. If you want to be redeployed to Village I, prepare a worthy replacement.”

This became our new goal. Rzhev chose an assistant who began sorting, dividing, and distributing provisions. I also chose two assistants, whom I started taking along my routes. One day, I took them along the entire treeline, showed them the way to Village I, introduced them to Sapog, and then took them to meet Kran.

Arriving at Kran's position, I introduced them and reported the current situation.

“This is Kran, our company commander. You must always stay in contact with him and keep him informed and also know the way to him. Kran, these are our future guides. I’m showing them the routes, teaching them how to hide from drones.”

“Yes, Kompas is really running us ragged. But it’s safe with Kompas, if you're going to walk around the treeline, it's best to do it with Kompas,” they replied.

“Yes, Kompas is our treeline legend. Learn from him, and you’ll become our guides,” Kran praised me. “By the way, Kompas, I’ve nominated you for a state award. Expect a medal for bravery.”

Though I was immensely flattered by such trust from people, though I do brag about it from time to time, if I'm being honest, I completely didn't understand what I had done to earn such trust and praise. Had things really gotten so bad in the Russian army that such a slob and coward like myself could rise in the command's esteem?


Chapter 19: I Am Disposable. Frontline. End of Summer of '23.


In the last days of August, moving around the treeline was becoming more and more difficult. The enemy had a lot of drones, and they already understood that we couldn't do anything about them. One of our guys told a story about a captured Ukrainian who laughed at us during interrogation: "We have so many drones! Even if you shoot down ten of them a day, we’ll still have enough for another year!"

The enemy established a drone patrol over our treeline. Whereas before they would circle and search, manoeuvre, fearing our fire, now they simply hovered at high altitude above every intersection, 24/7. One would hover until its battery died, and then it would be immediately replaced by another. And so it went, all day, all night. They wouldn't let us pass, immediately calling in artillery fire.

The only safe time was dusk. Daytime "birds" couldn't see well, and nighttime ones hadn’t yet taken off. So, that evening, I was getting ready to walk around the treeline on my business. An hour before dusk, I heard five explosions in the area of the intersection at the short spear. And then it occurred to me: "Why are the explosions so quiet? Is that a new small-calibre 'polka' (mortar)?" But I dismissed these thoughts and didn’t pay them any mind.

In the twilight, I walked, as usual, alone along the path. We walked this path every day. The sky was clear. I passed by the intersection at the short spear.

And that’s when I saw it… a POM-2…

I only had a second to meet my fate. It stared at me with cold, dark eyes from a tall metal cylinder standing on several legs. And it had already spread its web in a wide embrace, ready to greet me with all its love and tenderness: "Come to me, my boy."

I looked at it, it looked at me.

A flash. A roar. Madness.

I dashed back, but my leg was already caught in the web. There was an instantaneous explosion.

The POM-2 is an old and reliable Soviet mine. An anti-personnel fragmentation mine. It can be launched remotely from a grenade launcher, from a distance of two kilometres, which is what the enemy did. The mine stabilizes itself and, after landing, automatically positions itself correctly on the ground, then fires out tripwires in all directions up to ten meters, and arms itself. As soon as something gets caught and pulls the tripwire, it explodes instantly. It’s not buried in the ground, so it can be seen – but I was walking at dusk. I saw it at a distance of about three meters. I tripped the wire and detonated it.

Truly, I was disposable. I had cleared the mine!

Cleared it with my legs…

Sharp pain and heat shot through my legs and arm. I yelped like a dog and hobbled back. I knew where to go. I had to reach Linguist. Linguist was the closest. He had a dugout. If only I could make it. They would pull me out.

My legs ached terribly, and I limped very slowly. My strength was ebbing away; warm blood flowed down my legs. I no longer cared about the drones: it was now a matter of luck.

If my bones or arteries had been damaged, I wouldn't have survived. I wouldn't have been able to apply a tourniquet myself. I wouldn't have made it. But luckily, the shrapnel only hit soft tissue.

In a state of hysteria, I transmitted the information over the radio as I walked.

“Everyone, everyone, this is Kompas. The path is remotely mined. I’m a ‘300,’ serious injuries… to my legs… heading to Linguist.”

Thank God, I had the presence of mind at that moment to transmit all the necessary information. I reported that I was wounded, that my legs were injured, where I was, and where I was going. I even had the presence of mind to report that the square was mined. Naturally, I said all of this using numerical codes, not in plain language. But from my hysterical tone on the radio, everyone immediately understood that I was in bad shape.

With the last of my strength, I reached Linguist and climbed into his dugout. I tried to sit down, I tried to lie down on someone's sleeping bag.

"Don't lie on the sleeping bag! You’ll get blood all over it!"

"Okay… Just… I’ll lie down in the middle of the dugout… on the floor… Guys… Help…"

When wounded soldiers came to our dugout before, they had a medic – they had me. Their clothes were cut, their wounds examined and bandaged. They knew what was wrong with them and the extent of the damage.

When I was wounded, there was no medic around. The people around me didn't know what to do. They searched for a tourniquet for a long time to apply it to my leg. Then they started looking for a second tourniquet.

"Fuck, here's a tourniquet!" I groaned and pulled it out of my first-aid kit.

They applied a tourniquet to my other leg as well. Actually, there was no need to apply tourniquets, because the arteries weren’t damaged. But at that moment, I didn’t know that! And the people around me didn't cut my clothes and shoes to examine the wounds. They didn't bandage me because they were afraid that the white bandages would be quickly spotted by drones. When I asked them to give me a painkiller injection, it turned out that no one knew how to inject Promedol. But fortunately, Linguist figured it out and gave me the shot.

I whimpered and moaned like a little girl. I took off my helmet and body armour to make it easier for them to carry me. I "dropped loot" again. It was very painful and scary. I had never felt such pain in my life.

There were no stretchers, only a camouflage net. They laid me on the camouflage net and four men carried me out of that cursed place. Right along the same path. Miraculously, there were no more mines on it, otherwise, it would have been the end for all of us. A couple of times, drones flew over us. My rescuers would scatter and hide under the bushes. And I would remain lying on the path, covered with the camouflage net over my head. All I could do was hope for the best.

Along the way, thankfully, my rescuers had the sense to check my tourniquets. They would loosen them, letting the blood flow into my legs, and then tighten them again. In total, they carried me for three hours, so if they hadn't done that, I would have had to amputate both legs. The promedol started affecting me. I didn't feel any pain relief. But I felt terribly cold; I was shivering on that stretcher.

Finally, they carried me to Village I and loaded me into the medics’ vehicle. Ten minutes later, I was on Bint’s operating table. They cut my clothes and bandaged everything.

“Kompas, you’re so light!” Bint reassured me.

Sapog came in to say goodbye and started joking with me.

“So, Kompas! Now you’ll get your three million! Here’s your ‘100’ form (discharge papers)! Soon you’ll be at the hospital, and busty nurses with nice asses will be taking care of you! Already figured out how you’ll spend the money?”

When all the procedures were completed, they loaded me back into the vehicle and took me to the next evacuation point. Now I was sure that I would be alright: I was going home…

(Translator's note: He wasn't).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghGiv7YLC7Q