By Anonymous (with Oliver Carroll)
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, Vladimir Putin turned life on its head for every Ukrainian – but none as much as for the soldiers themselves, including the many thousands who have joined Ukraine’s armed forces. First-time soldiers have come from every part of the country and every walk of life.
This is the diary of one of these soldiers from his month at a training camp. A man in his mid-30s, he had never seen himself as a fighter. Before the war he worked in the arts, had a taste for exotic cuisine and swanky clothes – often picked with the help of a stylist – and was averse to “taking orders or dumb-assed machismo”. But he felt compelled to enlist “to stop this fucked-up evil that’s invited itself into our homes”. He has since gone to the front line.
Day 0
Mum can’t stop crying. Any sign of emotion or tenderness and the tears start flowing. She cries when I hug Fiona, our dog. She cries when Dad hugs me. I tell myself I’ll visit them more often when the war is over. Mental note: take Dad on a trip to Portugal.
I was afraid our goodbyes would be too final, too fast, too brutal. I tell them that I’m going to be away for a while. That I’ll be studying. I try to find a way of doing it that’s less painful. I hug them in the car park outside the military registration office. Then I walk on, alone.
The army officers tell me there’s been a change of plan. I’m no longer headed to artillery school and am going to a different military academy in the mountains. They’ll fill me in on the details later. In the meantime, I should stock up on wet-wipes for cleaning up “down there”. There won’t always be showers where I’m heading.
We board a yellow bus for the overnight trip to our new base. A senior lieutenant breaks the news to us: “You’re joining the air assault forces, lads.” He cracks some joke about maroon berets. I register only a few words, and I couldn’t tell you the punch line. For the first time in four months I’m overtaken with fear.
Everyone I spoke to before I joined up told me I needed to avoid the assault units.
Day 1
The morning begins with a sludge of rice porridge, plastic cheese, carrots, sausage and an apple that has seen better decades. Good food is for when the war is over. In the meantime, I have other things to think about. First, I have to pick a specialisation: forward reconnaissance or assault forces – not a great choice. Reconnaissance sounds just a bit too scary, so I choose the assault forces like everyone else. I undergo a blitz-medical. “Are you OK, healthy?” they ask. Yeah, I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.
A soldier from another regiment asks what my specialisation will be. “Assault forces? You’re gonna DIE”
For the next 45 days, I’ll be sharing our dugout with two dozen others. Imagine a hole in the ground with high ceilings and boarded-up walls. Almost the entire space is taken up with bunk beds. The guy next to me snores, of course. It’s unbearable, so I go outside. I bump into another soldier from the neighbouring bunker. He’s being sent to his unit in a few days and has been drinking. He asks me what my specialisation will be. “Assault forces?” he says. “You’re gonna DIE.”
I’m told half of the first intake has already been killed in action.
Day 2
Team-building. The smoking facilities provided at the base aren’t well thought out: pallets dug into foliage, with just a shallow hole to protect you from shrapnel. We decide to do a better job. By the time we’re finished, our smoking hut is twice as deep, with a neat staircase, and covered with cut branches. We huddle together to see how many of us can fit. Soldiers coming back from the firing range are full of praise for the new construction. “It will be easier to collect the bodies when there’s incoming fire,” they say.
The course officer runs through what we’ll be learning in the next few weeks. It’s a mind-blowing programme, he says. We’ll get to handle weapons supplied by NATO, we’ll be “run over” by tanks (hopefully the tracks will pass either side of us) and we’ll be training using lasers. We’re excited, like little kids. It’s a bit pathetic.
Dad went back to Granny’s village to retrace some of the walks we used to do together. He’s sent me photos of ravines and wheat fields. I can see how hard he’s finding it, but he’s trying not to show his feelings and upset me or Mum. I show him our bunker on WhatsApp. I try to reassure him by telling him all about the other guys. I say the food is OK and I’m sleeping alright. “I don’t know what to say,” he writes. “I don’t want to live like this.”
There’s good news about my cousin, who has made contact for the first time since being deployed in the Donbas. Dad tells me by text. “Lyosha called to say he’s alive, healthy, but that things are difficult out there,” I sense Dad is depressed. I’m not going to tell him about the assault forces.
Dinner is stewed meat and potato, bread and butter, plain biscuits and heavily sugared tea. I never thought a reasonably tasty hot meal could make me so happy.
Day 3
The unexpected news of the day is that our training has been cut from six weeks to four. They announce the change during the morning line-up. I won’t tell my folks.
Training doesn’t start well. I’m old enough to know motivation comes from inside, but the first instructor doesn’t waste any time in being truly awful. He doesn’t even bother to tell us what he’s teaching (military tactics, we eventually work out). We check if he’s in the timetable for the rest of the week. Fortunately not.
The next guy is a change to the schedule. He’s supposedly here to talk about ethics and leadership but he’s like a hyperactive pastor. We’re treated to a sermon about the virtues and faults of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the armed forces’ commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, about the rules-based system of law and the real reasons for the Russia-Ukraine war. Christ.
Colonel Pepper, a short, red-faced man with a permanent smile, is in charge of firearms training. He marks his arrival with a thunderous boom, firing his words like bullets into the sky. The years of service have made him a bit deaf, he explains. He pulls a Makarov pistol out of his holster and unloads it. “This pistol has three safety levels built in,” he says. “First, the safety guard; second, finger not on the cock; and third, ready to fire.” He injures himself while reloading, and blood starts running down his finger. He pays no attention to it.
At night the boots are brought inside and the foot-smell of an entire airborne platoon wafts around the dugout
The colonel is very serious about wanting us to know he’s a very serious kind of guy. He calls Roman, a two-metre-tall trainee, to the front of the group. He demonstrates fighting pressure points. Judging by Roman’s reactions, not all of the points are painful. Pepper tries to break a few other trainees by shouting at them. I’m his last victim. He presses the palm of his bloodied hand against my nose. “It’s not sterile!” I say. He ignores me and presses his fingers into my chest.
Day 4
It’s baking! We were lucky that it was overcast the first few days, but now we’re going to burn.
The next day of training is better. The topography instructor is the best we’ve had so far. A focused officer who you really don’t want to mess around with. We learn how to work out where we are from local features. How to interpret contours and determine map co-ordinates. But half way through, the class is interrupted by an air-raid siren. We aren’t allowed to be inside so we complete the class under a tree. That has its uses: we learn how to determine where we are using the sun. So much information, so little time. Every day is a step closer to being at the front.
After lunch, we dismantle a vintage DShK heavy machinegun. The first of these things were produced in the 1930s, but they say it isn’t a bad piece of equipment. I find it hard to accept we’re still using weapons that require a hammer to dismantle. Some trainees are quick on the uptake and can do the job in no time. The more tender of us find it harder. At least one person breaks a finger.
I resolve to make sport part of my daily routine. It’s too hot to run before dinner, and not a great idea to do so with a full stomach, so that leaves the mornings. I’ll get up at 6am. Pull-ups, press-ups and planks in the evening. Intuition tells me the routine will save me.
My friends at home are asking how I feel. Honestly? Right at home.
Day 6
We’ve been issued with a very basic kit: gun holdalls, helmets and tactical plate-carriers with ceramic plates. On the plus side, nothing is very heavy. On the minus side, it’s not a great fit. Most of my squad have their jackets hanging around their waist. Not exactly convincing warriors. I readjust things for them so that at least the plates cover the heart and vital organs.
Our international-law classes are unique. “International law is for countries that work nine to five, and have coffee breaks,” says the training officer, who struggles to speak in Ukrainian. “We may say we are so tolerant, but in life all of us are bullshitters.” There follows a monologue about how “America never sends cash just for the sake of it”. After the class, a few guys come up to me and ask what it was all about. “He might as well be in the Russian army,” one says.
We aren’t allowed outside after 10pm, so we make chit-chat in the dugout. Sanya, a smart, cheery fellow with a story for any situation, suggests we make memorial shot glasses out of our cartridge cases. The idea is that we all engrave our names on them, then swap with each other. After the war, we’ll meet up and return the glasses to their proper owners. I almost cry. I can tell I’m not the only one.
Day 7
I want to be on my own so I head out of the bunker for an early jog. Ukraine is so beautiful. I meet three blackbirds, a hare and a magpie on my rounds. After the run I take a shower and wash my clothes there too. There are washing machines inside the bunkers but our digs are humid and stale at the best of times.
Maybe I’m romanticising war. But the alternative is too frightening.
Day 8
The sun beats down unbearably and there’s nowhere to hide. We’re in full body armour, helmet and backpacks. Our training officer barks out the instructions for the first exercise of the day. We have to walk in a column along a ditch, falling and freezing whenever a car passes. Then we have to outflank our imaginary enemy by breaking through the groves.
Fall, freeze. Fall, freeze. Fall, freeze. I adore lying on the ground. The smell of warm clay and wild flowers consumes me. This is heaven, I think to myself, as I chew on the cereal bars I’ve stuffed into my combat trousers. Reality strikes as I get up and try to fight my way through the foliage. Tree branches hit my face. Thorns prick my hands. I use my helmet as a battering ram.
We got our weapons today. My rifle and pistol have been in storage since the 1950s. I wonder if the guy who filled my pistol with grease ever stopped to think about the circumstances in which it would be removed. I have to clean out all the grease from the deepest cracks, then I have to lubricate and polish the weapons until they gleam. It’s the first time I’ve ever cleaned a gun. It takes all evening until lights out.
A blond, chubby guy from my platoon – I still don’t remember all their names – is surprised by the lack of ceremony. “You’d have thought they would have told us how to take care of it,” he says. “But no, they’re like, take the fucking thing and be off with you.”
Day 10
The stink of boots is especially strong in the morning. During the day the boots are either on people’s feet or drying outside the entrance. At night they’re brought inside and the foot-smell of an entire airborne platoon wafts around the dugout in the heavy, humid air. We sleep on bunks 30cm apart. My neighbour on the left has begun to snore uncontrollably. The snorers seem to have a deal: if one goes quiet, someone from the support group will automatically fill in the silence.
“You’d have thought they would have told us how to take care of the gun. But no, they’re like, take the fucking thing and be off with you”
In the afternoon an instructor treats us to a lecture on how great the Soviet Union was. How cheap the petrol was. How happy people were. I can’t stand any of this bullshit. We still have to clean up the mess that dictatorship left us. We still suffer from the rot that permeates our state structures. The army. People’s brains. It makes me angry when some of the cadets here sing Soviet army songs. As far as I’m concerned, the Soviet military songbook is full of contempt for the value of human life.
I’m surprised when I realise most of my fellow trainee troops actually think the same.
Day 11
The skinny colonel teaching us how to survive a chemical attack tells us he is certain his lesson will come in handy during this war. Russia will not only use chemical weapons, he says, but tactical nuclear ones too. “People were saying on February 20th that there would be no war. And I kept telling my wife: trust me, there will be.” He tells us there is no point looking up survival statistics for a nuclear attack nearby. But we do have a chance of surviving if we are one and a half kilometres away. Reassuring.
We pull on the protective gear: green elephant suits. In a battle situation we will have to do it quickly, without breathing and with our eyes closed to prevent toxins entering the body. None of this is pleasant in the sweltering heat. The rubber gas masks drip with sweat from their last use. But the worst thing is putting on the gloves. The sweat of previous cadets drips down your fingers off the black, thick, moist rubber.
Day 12
We jump in trucks to head to another training range. Rainwater pours down onto us from the tarpaulin roof. The longer we ride, the more water ends up on our heads. We engineer a makeshift solution by stretching the cover and shoving our helmets into the holes. The new structure is held in place by the butt of a machinegun. We’re resourceful if nothing else.
The task today is to learn how to drive armoured infantry vehicles. I’ve been driving for years but this piece of hardware flummoxes me. Levers everywhere. A completely unclear gearbox system. It’s like being on the factory floor at a metal plant sometime in the 1940s. I try to remember the instructions about the manual parking brakes. (If you forget to turn them off, the engine will overheat and smoke.) The training officer says he prefers driving these monsters to cars. “Every time I get behind the wheel, the traffic makes me jittery. But if I’m in a tank or an APC, everyone gives way.”
On the way back from the range we count the number of people who wave at us from their cars as they pass us. A guy in his 20s, standing by a broken-down car, holds out cigarettes as we drive by. Another driver throws a couple of packs into the truck. When two kids catch sight of us, they salute us and start a march. An elderly lady crosses herself repeatedly.
Day 13
I woke up in the night feeling like I couldn’t breathe. The dugout was filled with a kind of fog – the breath of two dozen bodies, the dampness from being underground, the odours of badly washed socks, towels and T-shirts. My head was boiling, things were floating in my eyes. Then I realised – someone had shut the door of the dugout.
One of my squad, Bohdan, has some good news today. His girl is pregnant. “Scored a goal, fuck me,” he says. But his excitement soon turns to fear. “They’re there. I’m…I don’t know where the fuck I am.” He isn’t married and that has to change. He decides he’ll buy a ring with his next pay cheque and the two of them will get hitched in the nearest town. Bohdan sits down next to me. He scrolls down his messages to a photo of a petite, smiling girl with round cheeks and a snow-white face. Next to it is a photo of her pregnancy test and the socks his girlfriend’s mother has already bought the baby.
I catch my reflection in a mirror hanging in the hallway. Some bearded brute in uniform is looking back at me.
Day 14
We learned how to shoot today. My inner teenager squeals with excitement when I’m told to run and jump through thickets, work out a plan of movement, attack and defend. But I’m appalled when I’m told to fire at anything. The only thing that attracts me less than shooting is grenade-throwing. And guess what the training programme has lined up for us next?
Things start well: a training grenade explodes while our instructor is holding it. It’s an almost controlled explosion, so not a huge deal. But that’s enough for me to lose any confidence I had. My body pumps with adrenaline when it’s my turn to pick up a training grenade. I manage to hit the targets easily enough. But when it comes to handling a real grenade, I hurriedly throw the thing to get it as far away from me as possible. I’m miles off the target, but I feel relief, not embarrassment.
As long as you have two arms and two legs, you’re an ideal paratrooper
My mother has sent me a drawing my niece Vavara did for me, showing a bearded pensioner in military uniform. Too much hair, at least if the man in the picture is supposed to be me. The beard will take another year or so to get to that state. But Vavara has the sky right. The clouds are the same colour as those flying over my range. “I love you,” she wrote. “Glory to the Ukrainian army.”
Day 15
The truck is unbearably hot. The tarpaulin overhead has created a sauna of rubber and fine dust. Sweat streams down my arm and drips from my wrist to the floor. I do my best to find some positive way of looking at the heat. “Let the pain be,” as my yoga teacher used to say.
We’re on our way to the military hospital to get our chest X-rays. The doctor inspects me more thoroughly than I’m used to. “I don’t want our army to be full of cross-eyed cripples,” he says. But his professional approach is the exception rather than the rule in my training so far. As long as you have two arms and two legs, you’re an ideal paratrooper.
It comes as a relief that we are in and out of the hospital quickly. It’s a heavy kind of place and you can easily get emotional. Time slows down when the injured pass by on crutches. It’s quiet, eerie. I watch a fragile girl with straight black hair helping a short man in uniform who can barely move thanks to his battered legs. His face is covered with scars, his eyes are expressionless – they seem to be saying that a crippled man can only focus on getting from A to B. Then I realise: the man isn’t much older than I am.
Day 16
Assault course. We have to overcome an imaginary obstacle along wooden planks stretched on metal cables three metres above the ground. There’s another wire above to hold on to. We’re in our flak jackets and helmets. Some of us have bellies sticking out. Some are too short and struggle to reach the wire. Many are out of breath, red-faced and dripping with sweat.
I feel in my element. I give my comrades a hand up to the course, and when it’s time to go myself, I scuttle across with no problem. “You can see who climbed trees as a boy,” the instructor says. I try not to smile too much.
We practise parachuting – to the extent that you can in a country where flying is too dangerous. Instead, we make our tactical descent from trucks. The height is not the important thing: it’s being able to communicate clearly and to take up the proper positions. We lie down in the grass, remembering not to go near the back of the truck, where the helicopter rotor would be: none of us wants to be turned into imaginary mincemeat.
A combat officer gives some advice about taking defensive positions in the field. “Dig deeper,” he says. “That’s the way to keep your men alive.” We’re told to dig using anything we have: spades, knives, whatever. When our hands are tired, we should use our feet. “Trust me. It’s easier than looking parents in the eye when you have their son in a body bag.”
Day 17
We’re going to come into contact with some pretty nasty mines, the kind that have long been banned under international treaties. Almost certainly, one of us will be unlucky enough to run into something known as a “witch”, an anti-personnel mine that flies upwards before detonating at human height. No chance of surviving that. Even the lucky ones among us will have to deal with tripwires. In training, we do a bad job of protecting ourselves, blowing ourselves up left, right and centre. Our problem is that we walk like “ordinary civilians”, the instructor tells us.
On our smoking break, Vlad sits down next to us. He used to be an accountant. “Do the people who start wars ever calculate how much cruelty they create?” he asks. The answer, unfortunately, is yes they do. Much better than we can imagine. The people who took the decision to invade Ukraine don’t care how many Ukrainian accountants, PR guys and doctors have to retrain as airborne assault soldiers. “I can’t understand it,” says Vlad.
The most dangerous munitions are made from improvised devices. They can look like rusty toys that roll around under your feet. Like a rock in the middle of the field that someone sometime will feel the need to lift up. We have to learn how to find and avoid this shit – and how to teach others to do the same. As commanders, we’ll need to be able to draw up mine-clearance maps. I enjoy this type of task. These are important documents.
The training officer says he’s sure Ukrainian sappers will be in demand for some time to come. “Every year of war needs ten for de-mining,” he says.
Day 18
We’re asked to work through a plan to counter-attack and liberate the Russian-occupied south. In the real world, our boys are pressing there all the time, and it looks like something big will start soon. I’d like to be there when it happens. I want to push the bastards out of Kherson. I will drag them out of the Kinburn peninsula with my teeth. I used to spend summers there with my friends. Tents, morning swims, tasty food on an open fire. Stunning. Things are different now. The Russians have set fire to everything, people say, including the national park.
Your family gets $400,000 if you die and have all the correct paperwork
“The smart learn from their mistakes,” our instructor tells us, “while the wise learn from the mistakes of others.” We analyse the lessons from Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait. The pace of our training is increasing. We are sent out to dig trenches immediately after the morning session. “When will we have time to rest?” we ask. “When you are dead,” comes the reply. Usually, our training officers don’t speak this way. Death is an extremely sensitive topic for everyone. They have fought, they have lost friends. But this is now our reality.
My friends on the front waste no time in adding me to messenger groups for soldiers. I get sober accounts of what they’re going through – and quite a bit of sensible advice. One of my friends used to bake the best chocolate brownies in Kyiv. Now he’s fighting in Kherson. “Don’t be a fucking hero, whatever you do,” he wrote. “The less romance, the more likely you are to survive. Learn to kill from a safe distance. Don’t forget your helmet and flak jacket. Keep your distance from dickheads and motherfuckers. And write a will.”
A will? I’ve no idea how this even works. I left my credit card with my parents. My friends have the key to my flat. I’ll have to tell them how to log in to my bank account and how to split whatever is in there. “You also have to work out what to do with the 15 million,” read another message. Fifteen million hryvnia, or $400,000, is how much your family gets if you die and have all your paperwork in order.
Day 19
Today is the day we’ve been waiting for: getting “run over” by tanks. You jump forwards into a ditch, then “fire” into the tank’s sight glass to “blind” it. As the vehicle approaches you throw an anti-tank grenade at it. Then, at the last moment, you lie down in the ditch so it can pass over.
In real battle we won’t be throwing grenades at tanks. There are far less risky ways to engage them these days. A Javelin missile can destroy a tank from over two miles away. It’s also unlikely that a Russian tank driver would allow you to lie down between his tracks. But the point is less to re-enact battle than to make us frightened of enemy hardware. If you’re afraid of spiders, get in their cage.
I haven’t opened a proper book in weeks. My vocabulary is down to about 30 words, most of them military commands. I’m reading, but it’s not what you’d call literature. I want to survive and I want to keep the people under my command alive. So I take in anything I can get my hands on: combat manuals, technical documentation for military equipment and books on tactics. Just before bed, I take a look from the dugout. A full moon hovers over the barracks. An owl flies past, slowly, about a metre away from me. It sees me, but it doesn’t want to change direction. It’s a big, beautiful thing.
Day 21
The whole dugout has stuffy noses. We’ve all caught the virus, whatever it is. Most of us are weak and just want to sleep, but getting released from classes involves registering with the duty officer and reporting to the medics. The medics perform only two types of diagnostic procedures here: they either check your temperature or verify if you have all your limbs intact.
I’m sick of the kindergarten around me – the moaning, the lack of application. I can feel my aggression boiling. I want to be a good person, so I take a deep breath. It’s difficult for some of the guys, I tell myself. Some people are still processing what’s happening to them. Their brains are screaming hysterically: “Where the fuck am I? What’s going to happen to me? Will I live or will I die?”
Part of the problem is the training itself. And the contrast. More than half the instructors are good at what they do. They care. I’d pay to be taught by them in peacetime. But there are also the stale, good-for-nothing, Soviet-brained officers, with their ridiculous love of military pomp. Sure, none of them is going out of his way to justify Stalin. They all speak Ukrainian and they hate Russians. But they are still “Soviet” people deep down: closed-minded, insecure, anti-human.
Day 22
I take in the strong smell of wormwood as we sit outside: relaxed, dreamy and talking about the American rockets that have been destroying Russian supply lines in Kherson. If only the whole war could be like this. Lying on the grass with good people, taking in the sunshine. If a missile had my name on it, I’d like this to be the way I go.
Today we pretend to be prisoners-of-war. I spend almost an hour with my hands tied behind my back, my mouth and hands taped. Hostage situations lend a different sense of time, and with your eyes covered it’s hard to get your bearings. I’m separated from my squad and I get thrown on the floor. They punch me in the liver, but not that hard. I’m waterboarded and they pretend to cut off my little finger. “Congratulations,” the instructor says at the end of the exercise. I struggle to see the point of it all.
I said some stupid things on the phone this evening. I was too outspoken. Too open. Too anxious. Did I ruin everything? Perhaps I did.
Day 23
Some of the training officers dismiss our tactical medicine classes. I don’t know why – they’re some of the best-organised sessions. It’s all about thinking under stress, minimising losses, reducing the number of injuries. Important, right? We sprint before every practical activity. The idea is to simulate a situation where the heartbeat and stress are increased. “The injured body is your workstation,” says the instructor. “You should be comfortable around it.” I go through the checklists on the model in front of me. I fix what I can see. I tighten a training tourniquet above the bruising. Hopefully I’ll never have to use one in real life.
My vocabulary is down to about 30 words, most of them military commands
Today they hung a sign that read “The last supper” above the door to the canteen. Very original. Given what they serve up, it’s probably a good thing. Awaiting us on the table is a soulless, overcooked rice dish. Food is just food here. Calories to consume. If you think about it that way you can just about make yourself eat it. They give you apples at lunchtime sometimes. And half a banana if you’re lucky.
Day 25
A serious, short, sunburned marine colonel is here to give us the lowdown on breaching water obstacles. As an afterthought, he offers tips on dealing with Russian assault forces. Their methods are already fairly clear, he says. First they send in their proxy forces, often conscripted from occupied territories in the Donbas. These poor buggers are cannon fodder. The regular units crawl in behind them, hoping to go unnoticed, trying to get up close while you’re busy dealing with the first wave. We’re told each squad (seven men) will be attacked by at least a platoon (21-plus). The Russian doctrine says you need a three-to-one ratio in any offensive. We’re warned that there will usually be many more than that.
The colonel tells us not to forget about health and nutrition. But he warns us that figs and nuts can cause cold feet. “You didn’t know?” he says. “They make your dick stand up, and that pulls the blanket up, leaving your feet to freeze.”
O-kay.
Day 27
Bohdan got married today. He shows everyone in the smoking dugout footage from the wedding. There’s a video of the bride, which she filmed herself with a selfie stick, and a video of Bohdan opening a bottle of bubbly. He bought a new pixel camouflage uniform for the day. He looks really happy, bless him. In the excitement, he loses a magazine full of rifle ammunition. We promise to help him look for it later.
First we have the task of liberating a fictional village that has been surrounded by fictional minefields. My squad carefully crosses a minefield, keeping the enemy busy under fire, while the other two squads take up positions on the flanks. I communicate in gestures. We’ve been warned that our radios won’t work in a real battle – the Russians can jam them easily. As we take our positions, we realise the third squad has a problem. A herd of cows are grazing where they should be starting out from. The farmers, who appear from nowhere, are friendly enough. “Glory to Ukraine,” they say. They joke about our failed operation, but ask if there is anything we need.
We return to our base in complete darkness. Vova suggests leaving our boots on overnight. “We’ll need to put them on tomorrow in any case,” he says. He’s a practical man, Vova. No silly suggestions.
Day 28
The head of the academy appears in the morning. The general, we call him, though he isn’t actually a general. He’s a mythical figure – we’d heard of him, but never seen him.
I tell myself I don’t want to take part in a circus. I try to slip away to sit on the grass and mind my own business. But the general sees me, and calls me over. He asks me what I think of the training. Did I understand everything? More or less, I say. I reel off what I know about assault checklists, fire cover, communication rules and defensive positions after battle. He says I’ve got a good military career ahead of me, that I’ll rise to become a battalion commander. Well, fuck that, is what I say. There’s too much to learn and understand. I’ll leave the operational level to the professionals.
After a 10km run, I call home. It will be difficult for them to understand what comes next. I’ll be on the front lines within weeks. Perhaps even a few days. But I believe in what I’m doing. This isn’t a war that can be fought with military professionals alone. The thought I have is simple: Russian tanks at one point in March were less than 60km from my parents’ home. You might need more arguments. That’s enough for me.
This is our last Monday as trainees. Next Monday we’ll be real soldiers. ■
These diaries have been edited and translated by Oliver Carroll, correspondent for The Economist in Ukraine. You can read the rest of our coverage of the war here
IMAGES: GETTY
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