Today is the day when I DON'T WANT TO WRITE ANYTHING

I don't want to, because I don't know what to write.

“What is their mood?”  you ask.

“How do they feel?” you ask.

They're holding on. That's all I can say. Those who are left, are holding on. And how many are left? You don't want to know the answer.

My God, please…

I notice, that for some time now, I keep invoking God. But God? God is busy with something else right now.

Today we talked. These conversations are not cheerful, and there is little optimism in them. They, my soldiers are tired, very tired. And it hurts me to see that. To look at them.

Today I spoke with the military chaplain about God.

“Here,” he says, “here, where we are now, here is calm and almost nothing is going on, but there, There it's hot. There, things are hardcore”.

“Here” is where we were sitting and talking with the chaplain at that moment, somewhere near Kyiv, where the military unit were stationed. And “there” is at the frontline, in the war, he clarifies. “There, that's where God is close. There everyone believes in God. Here they often don’t need God, but there everyone needs him."

I ask the clergyman whether all their faith is genuine, found from deep within, or conditional, shaped by war. Whether it won't happen, that having believed out of fear, having found God and faith out of fear, well because it's war, its horrors. When there is no longer anything to hold onto, you still need to lean on 'something', but all suddenly, they will lose that faith again after the war.

“That will happen too,” he answers without hesitation. “Of course, it will happen. You cannot force faith - a person must figure it out himself, from the bottom of his heart. If the heart leads there, the person will follow the heart. Everything must be felt genuinely.”

The chaplain doesn't live in the military unit, he lives at home with his family, but every morning, at seven o'clock, he is already here.

“How late do you stay here?” I ask.

“It varies,” he answers. “I stay as long as needed. Sometimes until four or five in the afternoon; sometimes I leave for home at eleven or twelve at night. If needed at night, I come at night too. I'm here as much and whenever I’m needed. Sometimes a person absolutely needs to talk; sometimes they call me on the phone, even at night. Not often, but it happens. It happens, they write me too, but about that only I and that person know”.

Suddenly we start to speak of death. “While they are here, far away from the frontline, they are afraid of dying. But there? There - they no longer are”. To my question “why is that?”, he answers:

“I don't know. They don't tell me this, but you know, in general, nobody knows, where you will die, whether here or there. If it is destined (meant) for you to die in a car accident, you'll end up there and not die in the war. Destined to die in the war, you'll die, perish in war. Destined to go abroad for vacation and die there, you'll suddenly blow up in a plane - only God knows where and how you'll die. And all those, going there, to the frontline, believe exactly that. We don't know what will happen next”.

According to the chaplain, despite all the horrors of war, approximately 90 percent of soldiers want to go and fight at the frontline and not to sit “here”.

Tomorrow is GOOD FRIDAY.

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