God no longer HEARS MY PRAYERS HERE.

Yesterday, the last of those I was with, during the entire month of January in the Kursk direction, were killed.

The commander. When he used to call me, every time I would ask what was needed and how I could help.

“Nothing”, he would say. “Just pray, if you can. JUST PRAY”. But God no longer hears my prayers there. Try, maybe you will succeed.

Once, some time ago, I spoke with one soldier from what was then my battalion (now-regiment) and we talked about death. About fear. More precisely - he talked, and I only listened, because asking “what did you feel” or “how did you feel” seems simply inadequate.

“That morning was probably one of those, when soldiers say among themselves: ‘I saw my own death’ that kind of morning was it. I didn't know if I would survive…” and as he was telling me about one of the hardest experiences of his time at war, the soldier was laughing throughout. “That morning I was at the front “running in” new recruits. They were all new people, not yet “battle-hardened”.

Well, to say - they hadn't yet been in direct clashes. That time the enemy's infantry began to approach us, to fire at us with small arms. My men began to panic, a very serious panic arose; I gave the command “into battle”, but they didn't even comprehend it. I understood that there was nobody to go into battle, and having emptied a magazine I understood very clearly that I needed to start moving them out of there, because the guys simply wouldn't cope, and we'd either all be taken prisoner or all become 200’s [killed]... So, I made the decision to withdraw”, - he breathes heavily, continuing his account of how behind them, some 300 meters away, there was their own position with their own soldiers. “We needed to pull back a little; we crawled some way toward them, and by then the shelling had calmed”.

He then describes in detail where each soldier withdrew, which ones began to advance. It sounds as if he were describing scenes from a film or a battle with toy soldiers. He clears his throat; we fall silent for a moment. About how he was wounded he doesn't say much. As always, the true war stories there, are told in just a few sentences, or even words. “With wounded lungs I waited an hour and a half for evacuation. It was hard; I was walking, and then my former junior sergeant arrived, although I had forbidden him to come, he came anyway. He saved my life.”

What you are reading like scenes from movies you once saw, is, unfortunately real life. Real war. And the characters, the extras in it – they are not well-paid actors, but real people, real soldiers. Real people who experienced a horror, no film will ever be able to convey. Just a few days ago, somebody wrote me a very precise sentence about the war. One sentence capturing the entire essence of this horror: “Maddening. Killing not only physically, but slowly, from within. The war”.

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