If we lose the war, OUR CHILDREN WILL FIGHT AGAINST YOUR CHILDREN.

That morning we went out with the drone operators.

Since yesterday, one thought they expressed, hasn't left my head. "If we lose the war,” they said, “our children will fight against you”.

 

Every time I come here, I see the war from a different angle. That such a scenario is possible, that such a scenario is real, honestly? I never thought about it. Because I never thought that the children of those we are now helping, could become an instrument of the enemy against us.

And what is unrealistic about that, frankly?

We all know the saying: if you don't support your own army, you'll serve in a foreign one. That applies especially to Lithuanians. It applies especially to those young men, who snuffle and weep, that service in the Lithuanian army will ruin their careers.

AND MOST OF ALL - to their parents. To their MOTHERS.

That night, or perhaps already toward dawn, I learned some great things from him. That night, generally, was not “simple”. That is how soldiers describe situations, when things are truly dangerous or frightening. But words like “frightening” or “I'm afraid” you won't hear from them there; everything is defined in words like “not simple” or “complicated”.

“Do you understand,” he says to me, ‘that if we lose, my children will go to shoot your children?”

I remember that feeling, which I could describe as “horror flooding my whole body”. I didn't immediately grasp what the father of two sons meant.

After his words I just mumbled something. I couldn't really comprehend that terrible vision, what would happen if... if they lose the war.

“You don't even need to try to imagine it anymore, it has already become reality,” another soldier added. “We have already taken prisoner a young soldier with a Ukrainian passport: born in Ukraine, grew up and came of age in the occupied territories, and went to fight against us, against his own people”.

We were sitting in an extremely cramped space; next to us, on an old iron bed one soldier was sleeping; another was on watch at the screens. The soldier, who had been telling me all this, had to leave with a short mission for a while, and we remained to wait for his return. In the corner stood assembled weapons leaning against the wall; beside them, on a small cabinet, stood a halved traditional Easter cake, the Ukrainians call it “paskha”, apparently derived from the very word for Easter. A surreal scene, disturbing the mind and making it difficult to grasp where the boundaries of reality blur. The tightly covered and blacked-out windows gave no sense of time: is it growing light outside already, or is it still dark, night?

The deceptive quiet outside began to be torn apart by the sounds of explosions. “Move! Put on your vests and helmets,” the commander present suddenly ordered, “and get away from the windows! If it gets worse, get down on the floor!” The tiny house we were in, vibrated throughout. For some reason, that one time I was especially frightened, though four years in the war seemed to have taught me everything. Perhaps because beyond the exploding reality outside the window, the soldiers had in a short time also laid out for me a great deal of other bitter reality: one, which we know existing, but this knowing is somewhere subconsciously, somewhere deep down, and which we do not dare to speak aloud. And he dared. To say it, to tell it. Clearly and very loudly, even if the man spoke in a quiet voice. In general, at war, they usually tell everything very calmly, perhaps even quietly. But that calm, it cuts you from the inside, because you understand, that the person sitting across from you, has seen everything, and knows very precisely, what will happen if victory falls to the enemy's side.

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