FROSTBITTEN.

I don't know where to begin. The joy of reunion with my men, with my soldiers was very quickly swept away by reality. Dark, striking the head, the mind, seeping under frozen skin reality. 

And here, where I am, is cold. Freaking cold.

“The men have frostbitten skin, frostbitten hands,” somebody tells me. Not much imagination is needed to picture it.

“Some of them had to dig tranches in weather like this too,” he adds. And the weather? Today it are eleven degree below zero, and it will get colder. Then it will be minus fifteen.

The enemy keeps pushing without stopping. My men talk about their losses. Emotions take over. Someone shows the place where they were burned when a drone hit their vehicle. One of them lost his leg. Another was killed. There is no time to grieve, the war doesn't wait.

In the early hours we'll be heading out a little.

I thank the Media Support Fund (MRF) for supporting the post series “War in Ukraine: The Gap Between the Military and Society”