I want to tell you my personal story about this war. I call them “The Adventures of Cannon Fodder” or “How I Ended Up at the Front in Jeans and a Set of Band-Aids.”

Late in the evening of March 1, I drove with my wife and child to Uzhhorod, on the border with Slovakia. In my naivety I also went along because I thought I wasn’t fit for military service. The provisional certificate issued to me as a replacement for my military ID card read “peacetime unfit, restricted military service.” When I inquired, I immediately received a summons to the draft office. I was told to call a cab and drive to the recruitment office in the middle of the night. Although I hadn’t done anything illegal—I hadn’t offered a bribe, nor attempted to sneak across the border, I was just asking—I knew from the way they spoke to me that I would never get out of there.

I kissed my son who was sleeping in the Red Cross tent, hugged my wife goodbye and went back to my homeland. “How am I going to fight with my eyesight?” I asked the man in uniform, purely rhetorically and to keep the conversation going while I waited for a cab. “There are many different jobs and roles in the army, not necessarily just shooting,” he explained.

Nobody seemed to be listening to me in the recruiting office. They told me to report to the counter, get some forms and queue for a medical exam. The kind-hearted ophthalmologist, noting that my short-sightedness had increased since the last examination, scribbled a number of medical phrases on a form, based on which the head of the commission declared me fit for duty and sent me on my way.

From interpreter to shooter

In Uzhgorod, long queues formed in front of the registration and draft office. Volunteers offered water and sandwiches, many people sat there for days and then set off in groups. I waited in line until closing time and received a new subpoena for tomorrow. On March 4th, my documents were written, I was put on a yellow shuttle along with the others who were “caught.” A priest came in to pray for us and bless us – then we drove off.

It turned out that in my group there were many people who, like me, had health problems, people who, like me, were no longer young and who, like me, had no experience of military service. “You will be something like territorial defense,” we were assured when we got to the unit, “you will stay in the Zakarpattia region and, for example, stand at roadblocks and guard some facilities.” “But,” added the soothing voice casually added, “if there is an order to that effect, you may be assigned other targets…” (Looking back after a month and a half of absurdity and criminal negligence, it can be seen that the order was already on an employee’s desk, only undated and undated ).

That’s how I ended up as a rifleman in the newly founded Fifth Rifle Battalion. I was listed as a clerk on my ID card. I had worked as an English translator for 20 years, including as an interpreter for the British military instructors of our troops in Operation Orbital. But the people organizing home defense got the impression that I would be more useful in digging trenches and shooting from AK-74s. My staff included three programmers from Kyiv. They were occasionally used to type endless lists of personal information into Excel spreadsheets. But the rest of the time they were like everyone else—lawyers, teachers, farmers, builders—learning to disassemble machine guns, dig fortifications, and throw grenades.

But it must be said that there was not much training. In the first two weeks we did various tasks: moving boxes around, getting uniforms and shoes. However, because not all sizes were available, a dozen other men and I were never outfitted with uniforms—neither “pixel” (jacket and pants) nor boots. After a month we were told to buy them for our money – “You get your wages,” remarked the company commander. Somehow I was reluctant to make these purchases (especially since the items were rarely and reluctantly given out), so I went to the front in jeans and black winter boots. But it was my own fault, as the saying goes. However, the overalls were distributed to everyone – used ones provided by the Slovak army.

The squad leader warned that there weren’t enough body armor for everyone and suggested that those who were wealthier should buy them at their own expense. But in the last few days before the hasty departure, protective vests were brought for everyone. And even old rubber gas masks and chemical protective coats OZK with holes in the seams were handed out. We had to carry this extra cargo everywhere. Shortly before marching off to the position, however, the company commander said that we could not take OZK protective coats with us (although they could also help against rain). We were also given sleeping mats and sleeping bags but they were mixed as they had all been donated by volunteers.

So for the first two weeks we arranged our way of life, mud and tobacco smoke were omnipresent as the obligatory background. The training began around the third week. The first two days were meaningful: showing how to disassemble the Kalashnikov assault rifles, then also how to use the PKM (a modernized Kalashnikov machine gun) – affectionately called “Pokemon” – and two types of grenade launchers. It wasn’t entirely clear why there were grenade launchers at the checkpoints, and why everyone in the squad was enlisted as a gunner, grenade launcher, machine gunner, communicator and medic – but extra knowledge never hurts, right?

Then it was shown how to stop heavy bleeding with a large rubber band (of the kind often attached to bicycle loads). And they explained how to move in groups with machine guns. We then spent a few more weeks “solidifying” what we had learned: walking in single file around an abandoned training ground with submachine guns, or sometimes with batons mimicking them. Or we’d just “dance” around and sunbathe when one of the so-called instructors would honestly say, “Guys, go and imitate something so your superiors don’t screw you up.” Others, more “conscientious,” insisted that we “consolidate” the “knowledge” we had acquired. They repeated meaningfully, “Guys, be careful, your life may depend on it.”

There were not enough instructors for us poor people. And those assigned to teach didn’t quite know what to do. No wonder, because almost all platoon leaders (and the company commander himself) had never served; at best they had a military department at a college. Half, if not more, of all members of our company (I’m sure it was the entire battalion) had never served.

The paramedic was a phlegmatic and indifferent guy named Anton, a former vet I think. His first lesson was, “This shit, boys, goes in this damn thing… If it’s a throat wound, there’s nothing you can do about it. Even experienced doctors can’t always help… A fractured pelvis can be recognized by a clear crunch when pressing. A special splint is used for such cases, but you won’t have one… Your job is to get the injured person to a safer ‘yellow’ area where people like me will provide assistance.’ Which was small consolation. But we weren’t too concerned about this “competence” of our medics – no one seriously believed they would be going to the battlefield any time soon. So these courses gave us the opportunity to to have fun and not get bored so much. One of the officers found combat training materials in the textbooks written in inarticulate Chancery language. I, as a man of higher education, read the general information about patrols and convoys of armored vehicles to the soldiers sleeping on the lawn.

The corporal took a more lively approach: He watched lots of videos on Youtube before the class and taught everything in simple language, with a healthy dose of swear words. But even that seemed either far removed from our duties or inaccessible without much practice. So it all turned into a friendly chat about who had heard what about mines, snipers and ambushes. When even the dense cigarette smoke couldn’t hide the tired facial expression, the foreman repeated the leitmotif: “Your life may depend on it.”

After half a month we started going to the shooting range once a week. I’ve heard that a military handbook states how many times a soldier must pull the trigger before being considered ready for action. So I’d been to the range three times and fired about 70 rounds in total (and thrown a practice grenade once – not counting the practice where we threw rocks through the windows of a landfill that used to be a tank training ground) and was done ready for active combat in April.

The three of us took turns shooting standing, kneeling and lying down. We had to remember when to release the safety, when to engage the breech, and check to see if there was a cartridge left in the gun. We got a little confused, the bosses got a little angry and yelled at the “morons”. So we tried it even faster, not caring about accuracy or aiming, just the formal smoothness of the exercise. The superior, who for some reason called himself a psychologist, was pleased and said indulgently: “There is war in the country, no time for study. So let’s go to battle!’ And right on the rainy ground we were provided with stew, apples and even chocolate from humanitarian aid supplies. That was admittedly more interesting than the sticky noodles,

Healthy is who does not fall over

In mid-March, air raid alarms apparently began to sound regularly in the distant Transcarpathian Mountains. During the alert, we had to spread out (so that one rocket didn’t kill everyone at once) and lie close to the ground (so the shrapnel would fly through without hitting us). For some reason, our unit didn’t have an air raid shelter, and we had to walk around the parade ground and sports field several times every night, crouching on the ground. Eventually we got smart and started taking pack blankets and sleeping bags, dressing warmer, and stocking up on candy and cigarettes during the alarms.

Soon almost everyone was coughing, choking on snot and running a fever. The paramedics considered any case with a fever of less than 40 degrees as a trifle. In fact, even one man who had the coronavirus was deemed immediately fit to work and sent to our overcrowded barracks. So we stoically choked back our coughs, swallowed the phlegm and prepared for the constellation ritual. We waited for the officers to confer on the sidelines and split into their platoons to convey our task ahead: ‘Anyway folks. Now we will reinforce yesterday’s lesson. Until noon. And then we’ll clean our guns.”

The stoic contempt for the mortal body in the service of a higher purpose led annoyingly to acute and chronic pain. But that didn’t stop us either. In early April, when I was already tired of swallowing every second of snot and disturbing my comrades with monstrous snoring at night, I went to see real doctors. They determined that I had chronic maxillary sinusitis and acute tracheobronchitis and prescribed antibiotics, among other things. But a march and shooting at the firing range was planned in two days, so I, along with all the other relatively healthy soldiers (since I was not on IV fluids and not getting burned in the heat), walked five kilometers to the firing range and the same distance at heavy rain back. there was no place

The first military unit, as I said, was overcrowded. The bunk beds were quickly set up, but even faster they were filled with the fresh catch from the Uzhgorod conscription office, which was sometimes brought in in the middle of the night. Once I got up in the night to go to the bathroom and had trouble making my way through the darkness between the recruits sleeping on the floor. Soon the beds filled all the rooms and closets and lined the corridors in tight rows. The glorious Fifth Rifle Battalion took full form. The soldiers had two washbasins and two showers for over 400 men of the battalion, but once a week they were given socks and trousers marked “ZSU” (Ukrainian Ground Forces, jW ).

After the rocket attacks in the Lviv region, it was decided to take the soldiers out of the easily identifiable unit and disperse them. At first they were housed in separate rooms, which were terribly cold but spacious. But after a few days we decided that it’s easier to manage the herd when it’s in the same barn, so we set up “boxes” in large rooms (apparently meeting rooms) on the ground floor. The same bunk beds were brought in, but here we had to huddle even closer—three people on two mattresses (which made our team even closer). Unfortunately, in this fraternal community there have also been unfortunate incidents: arguments over a place for a bag under the bed, or confusion about whose coat or shoes went where. But in the army you learn an important principle early on: “You don’t steal, you break it.” And it teaches personal responsibility and the careful handling of things.

Our morale was boosted not only by cheering on the formation every day, but also by the power of the art. Once Viktor Pavlik (well-known Ukrainian musician, JV) brought to the department, sang with his guitar in the lobby and took pictures with the people. The most suspicious of us thought that such exorbitant luxuries were a sign of impending departure, but that too was wrong. In general, there was a lot of rumors and speculation. ‘Well, they can’t really send us to the front, we’re zeros!’ ‘We don’t have armored vehicles, we’re deployed at checkpoints and guards.’ ‘Our people are deployed separately in other units, and only those who agree to go there.” “None of our people are trained to work with ‘javelins’ and without that they definitely won’t be sent to a combat zone,” and so on. There have been many hypotheses and conjectures, but reality has trumped them.

Three days of field exercises were on the program before Easter: digging out fortifications, building shelters, sleeping in the fresh forest air, simulated patrols and combat, and finally a day at the firing range. Everything indicated that we would spend some more time at home (or rather, out of unit) at Easter and then be sent elsewhere. There was even another cultural event that disturbed our souls: on the Sunday a week before Easter, when we had barely eaten two spoons, the conductor burst into the canteen and ordered us to form up.

We were immediately taken in pairs to the Institute for Culture and Art and took a seat in the auditorium. At first the students of this school danced in their national costumes, then other students sang patriotic songs mixing the traditional tropes “Cossacks” and “Wolf and Nightingale” with new TV jargon like “Bayraktars” and some ridiculous insults to the enemy. Then the lead singer of Shablya performed. The band, as we have learned, since the beginning of the ATO (“anti-terrorist operation” in Donbass, jW) found their niche and roams military units across the country with martial and sometimes melancholic songs to keep up the fighting spirit of the Cossacks. After the concert we were treated to cookies, pastries and coffee and then returned to our cold soup at leisure.

On the eve of the “conclusion” of the training, the administrative and economic hectic intensified: we were rushed to receive ancient OZKs, first-aid kits (only with bandages, gauze and plasters in them) and a good imported tourniquet (instead of the promised three , but thanks) that they didn’t want to give out before (“You’ll twist them and break them before you even get out!”). The military ID cards were collected again to create new lists. There are some mystical problems with these lists – no matter how many times they make them, they still issue certificates with misspelled names, mix up the dates in the accounts, forget to put stamps or signatures… I wish there were accountants and businessmen in the Army,

To the front

And so it was Tuesday, a day of lengthy training on the field. We were routinely woken up at 5am so we could patiently wait until 8am for the first group to gather and leave. On site we had already dug enviable holes, almost completed the communal shelter, built a fire and waited for the meat to cook for the Bograch when the order came to drop everything and head back. The Bograch was dumped on the ground, we made our way back to the unit. There we were lined up and told with beaming smiles: »Guys, it’s finally time that we too defend our homeland!« It was a warm evening on April 19th. “Pack up, we’re leaving tonight when the kamazes (trucks,jW ) arrive. Only take the essentials with you: OZK, gas mask, BK (ammunition set), weapons, gloves, sleeping bag, underwear and a pair of socks … Don’t take anything extra with you!«

But we couldn’t go that fast. We got bulletproof vests. Then everyone got four full magazines (120 rounds of ammunition, with no additional forms or signatures), our automatic rifles, dry rations for three days. We didn’t leave until two o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesday. In two big buses. There were also two Kamaz trucks in the convoy: one with personal belongings and one with additional BKs, machine guns, shovels, saws, other infantry tools and kitchen utensils… The bosses with pistols on their belts also rode in a pickup truck.

No one told us where we were going or what the task was. “Guys, I’m not going to tell you. Because I do not know. Honestly, I don’t know,” swore the captain, a company commander who had never served.

We drove very slowly: someone fell behind the column and we had to wait for him, then one of the trucks boiled over and the other had to be repaired. Given these delays, the commander was understandably annoyed by the soldiers’ requests to use a restroom, smoke, or eat. More than once he rigorously suppressed these whims. By the end of the first day, we had barely left the Zakarpattia region. On the second day we left Ivano-Frankivsk. Everyone guessed that the route went to the Dnipro.

We were told to only take one dry meal per bus (and where else would gas masks and other items go). The food, dubbed »Palianitsa«, was made by Britain for the heroes of Ukraine: tasteless sausages, a simple stew (no side dish or at least bread), assorted nuts, dark chocolate and a good dessert of oatmeal flavored with caramel and toffee. There was also a bag of instant fruit drinks and water purification tablets.

In the following days we had to ask for help in the shops where the locals gave us many things for free and generously brought us bottled water, coffee, groceries, Easter buns, apples etc. Some people tried to give us money. “I have a son there myself,” said one of them. It was a little embarrassing to accept this undeserved participation and help.

The landscape changed. At rest stops we wiped our bare feet with wet wipes. We finally reached Dnipro on the Saturday before Easter, but passed the city and took the Donetsk highway. Every fork in the road jolted our weary brains anew. At the exit of the city we stopped and stood for a long time. After the meetings, the commanders informed us about a plan for further action. We were almost there, but the final leg of the journey would be very close to the front line in places. “We’re going to help a unit that’s waiting for us in the morning. We’ll go out in the dark, in body armor and helmets, with loaded machine guns in hand. The bus will drive slowly and with the doors open. Some of the soldiers look out the window and when they spot flashing lights, the bus stops and everyone quickly gets off and lies down in the street behind them. Don’t go to the curb. There could be mines there!”

I was so exhausted from this endless drive that I took it all with indifference and almost fell asleep. (The assignment was clear and concise, but it still raises questions like: “What if we were lying behind the bus on the tarmac? Attack the attackers from the darkness, behind the mined roadside? Go through the night and one leave the shot-up bus behind? Where? Are you waiting for backup? From who?’) I pushed these idle thoughts aside and surrendered to the warm current of sleepy apathy.
However, for some reason my comrades grew restless. The group leader, who always seemed smart and experienced, approached me. “We will speak to the commanders that we do not agree with this order.”

“And what are your arguments?” I asked. I chose my words carefully so as not to betray my amazement: I am not the only one who recognizes the absurdity of what is happening! There are sane people around me… (no cogs obeying the system). “The order seems silly to many,” explained my group leader, Sanya. ‘Is there a connection to those we ask for support? Do they know we are coming and won’t they open fire on us themselves? And one more thing: our battery (120 cartridges) is enough for only ten minutes of combat. And then what? Some are asking how can we conduct a combat mission when many of them still don’t have ID cards to assign them to their unit?”

“What do you think, should we go or not?” he finished. “I agree that we don’t have to go there,” I said and he left.

At four in the morning I went with three other guys to guard the area around our campsite. Around five o’clock the soldiers began to gather between the buses and trucks. Officials from the authorities spoke to them. We on duty were completely forgotten. I only caught snippets of sentences being said: “I know Colonel A. personally and he would never give a crazy order… He’s worried about each and every one of you… I understand you’re scared… but out there wait guys like you…” At six-thirty I realized there was no point in standing guard. “What have you decided?” Sanya asked when he saw me. “About what? I didn’t really hear what was said.” Then came the order: “If you don’t want to go, stand here on the left,

I murmured, “I don’t think it’s worth going there with my level of education,” and wandered to the left while Sanya walked to the right. I looked at both groups with amazement. There were more leftists, but not much more, by no means an overwhelming majority. The bosses told everyone to form groups of three or four and for some reason counted the gray men in the wet morning light.

Then something was said. We got on our buses and went somewhere. “Don’t worry,” Sanya leaned towards me, “you did the right thing.”

I stared in silence, struggling with an odd mix of emotions. As time went on, the mixture of anger and laughter, an unfriendly laugh, grew sharper and sharper. “What’s changed?” I asked, in my most neutral and sleepy voice, “You were against it, and now you’re for it.”

‘There was a lot of confusion, but it’s more or less settled now. The paperwork will be sorted, and no one will be sent anywhere without their military record stamped. Our task will be to cover the artillery. Nobody’s going to put us in the front row,’ Sanya explained, adding simply and without much emotion, ‘unless they screw it up’.

The bus kept going on and on. We drove to the Donetsk region and looked sullenly out of the windows. We reached the city of Pokrovsk. Here we stopped at the end of a road bridge and everyone was ordered to get out and line up under the bridge with tanks and machine guns. In front of us were the political instructors, the commanders, the lawyer and the VSP (Ukrainian Military Law Enforcement Service, jW ). The “soft” political official answered a few questions. Then someone else spoke up, “I understand it’s scary. In the beginning everyone is afraid. But you will get used to it. Before you there were groups where some people didn’t serve at all, and now nothing…”

“We’ve got half the men who didn’t serve,” rumbled someone in the crowd. “That’s okay,” the officer said calmly, “you’ll see, after the first shot, it’s all over. You will get used to it.”
Then the VSP (or just its mouthpiece) took the floor. He began by listing crimes that multiply in times of war. He began pointing out “problems” and “eyesores.” A goofy smile spread across my face and I could barely contain my laughter. “So I want to ask you once again to think about what you vote for, I want the left to make the right decision after all,” the loving political officer called out again. “If you don’t want to go, go to this side.” Nobody moved. “So everyone is ready?” he asked in a more solemn tone. “That’s right!” answered the line, drowning out my “Sure, dammit!”

Then we got back to our buses and drove on. We arrived in the Lugansk region. We drove on. Then we reached our new “apartments,” but we still seemed to be on the move. I slept comfortably on a pallet under a lathe in an abandoned factory building. We unloaded our backpacks from the kamaz, and there was a whole feast of various canned goods. I quietly pooped in the concrete ditch and looked at the factory landscape. I found that there was still water in the boiler room and used it to wash my feet and socks. I hung them in the sun. Every little thing made me happy. I even found a generator and charged my phone to the brim. I squinted at the sun-drenched concrete and the almost perfectly clear sky. only on the horizon

Postscript
The platoon commander has just informed me that we will be resting all day today and will leave for our positions in the evening. We may also get our own generator, but when we leave we turn off our phones and turn them in. They are kept in a kind of box. “Phones won’t do much good there anyway,” he remarked sensibly, sipping on his e-cigarette.

I’m leaving the text as is, although much could be added and corrections made (I typed it on my phone at night). Just now, at 10:00 am on April 26th, there was a line-up and it was officially announced that we are going to fortify our positions tonight.

So I’m sending him as he is. I want my voice to be heard in the depths of this absurdity and hell. It’s not death itself that’s scary, it’s senseless and stupid death. If I don’t come back, maybe this text will help someone solve this crime (and probably many others).

I want my voice to be heard.

Mysterious Mummified Predator Baffles Experts

• From HERE
  

Some people may not be aware, but animals have been mummified throughout history in various places, including Turkey in the Middle Ages. Niğde, Turkey is a site were researchers have recently found mummified remains of an apparent carnivore – that has defied classification so far.

“We are examining pictures of the skeleton and it seems to be a carnivore,” Aydin Topcu, Natural History professor at Niğde University, told the Daily Mail . “But we need more time to conduct further tests. After the examinations we will be able to tell what species it belongs to and of which period of time it is.”

The Daily Mail wrote in its article that it had sent photos of the find to the Zoological Society of London, the Horniman Museum, the Natural History Museum and the British Museum, the last of which refused to comment on the photos. The news agent says the creature could be a hoax, but it resembles a cat. Some experts told them it could be a prehistoric animal.

There is a history of cats and children being mummified in Anatolia from the 10th to the 13th centuries AD, the Daily Mail said. This particular specimen, 1 meter long (3 feet) from nose to tail tip, was found by a locksmith in an old cellar of his shop in Niğde. He has put the creature on display.

Cats were revered and mummified in ancient Egypt, and some experts think Anatolia was influenced by the practice. One reason cats were so loved in Egypt was because they could eat the rodents that threatened the grain supplies. A cat could also take on a cobra, the Daily Mail says.

Some ancient Egyptians adorned their cats with gold jewelry and allowed them to eat off their plates.

Millions upon millions of animal mummies have been found in the dark, carved stone tunnels beneath the location of Egypt’s earliest pyramid at Saqqara. The necropolis of Saqqara is the burial site of kings, commoners and sacred animals.

The astounding piles of preserved animal remains not only signify a cultural and religious phenomenon, but also speak to the mammoth industry that operated to maintain a source of constant tributes to the gods.

“The Catacombs of Anubis at North Saqqara ,” a study published in 2015 in the archaeological journal Antiquity, examines the underground world associated with the temples dedicated to animal deities of ancient Egypt.

The Saqqara catacombs served as the burial places of animal tributes to the jackal-headed deity Anubis. Between this study, and other studies by Egyptologists from University of Manchester , it can be seen that the millions of dogs sacrificed and mummified to the canine deity were only one part of a wider practice of sacred animal cults.

But the Egyptians mummified many cats too, though they are not the only people in the world to have buried felines with elaborate ceremony and in recognition of status or symbolism.

In 2015, archaeologists found the remains of a bobcat in an important mound burial from 2,000 years ago. The mound was usually reserved for humans, but the feline was important enough to the Hopewell people of western Illinois to be included. The bobcat had been decorated with sea shells and bear-teeth pendants, and found with its paws placed together. It was included in the human burial mound, while dogs were buried around the village. Researchers speculate the bobcat was a beloved pet, not sacrificed or violently killed, and that it held spiritual significance to the Native Americans.

Captured according to instructions. Their commanders have already begun to agree on the surrender of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

From HERE

When there were battles for Mariupol, hundreds of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were taken prisoner, and then thousands. After the “evacuation” (this is how Kyiv came up with the idea of ​​calling the surrender) from Azovstal, it might seem that the trickle of Ukrainian soldiers ready to lay down their arms had dried up. But it’s not. Kyiv throws new units to the front line almost daily, where the vast majority of fighters are yesterday’s civilians. The mobilized are not ready to die for no reason, and the flow of prisoners from the areas of Krasny Liman, Popasna, Severodonetsk is again stable.

Warm and satisfying

“We made a decision for ourselves not to leave, because it’s scary, but just to give up. The best option for us,” says prisoner of war Andrei Kaminsky from Lutsk. He, in a group of 16 people, was sitting in the basement of the church during the shelling, they surrendered at the first opportunity. The man tells for a long time how good it is in captivity and how well they are fed, which, according to him, was not only on the front line, but even in Lutsk at checkpoints.

There are already a lot of videos in which prisoners of war talk about the inhuman attitude of their fathers-commanders, how they are not fed and armed properly, and even about detachments that shoot those who run back and surrender. Each one is about the same thing: they were forced to fight, they are thrown to the front naked and barefoot and without heavy weapons, they call themselves cannon fodder, they call on other fighters not to sacrifice their lives and to surrender. However, the stories of military personnel are about the same.

or example, UAF Lieutenant Oleksandr Lukhanin says Ukrainian soldiers have nothing to fear from Russians unless they have committed war crimes. “Nothing will happen to them if they have not committed any actions against the civilian population,” he says. “They will figure it out for you, and you will go to your families, to your relatives – children, mom, dad.”

Sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Serhiy Sidorchuk surrendered voluntarily and says that his colleagues have long wanted to do the same. “Morale has dropped. Everyone just wants to go home to the point that they are ready to lay down their arms. They were afraid of persecution, but now it doesn’t matter to them either,” he admits. Sidorchuk is sure that “it is better to go to jail than to die.” And he shares his first impressions of captivity: “How did I get here, the guys said: “That’s it, we fought back. Lucky you will live. Our conditions are normal.” The sergeant was surprised that the prisoners were not only fed, but also given warm clothes and blankets, because the room was a little cool.

Increasingly, the Ukrainian military come out to surrender in groups. As a graduate of the Kharkov Phystech Valery Grishko . He himself enlisted in the defense to avoid mobilization. He says he thought that he would “sit at the headquarters at the computer”, but he was thrown to the front line. IT specialists were instructed to scan radio frequencies and listen to the conversations of the military. The newly-minted radio intelligence understood the whole delusional nature of the task – household walkie-talkies cannot detect closed channels, and they did not show official zeal. But they quickly found the positions of the NVO troops and five of them surrendered.

We must surrender together

Among the Ukrainian soldiers, and not only on the front line, instructions on how to surrender correctly walk from hand to hand. Three rules. Advise to go en masse, entire military formations. So there is less chance that the command will write down the entire unit as deserters. But before doing this, it is better to “isolate political officers from the national battalions and the SBU.” And also unanimously record a video message led by an officer. Well, the route of capturing should be chosen carefully so as not to run into a detachment of nationalists.

In practice, especially when artillery is constantly working, it does not always work according to the instructions. But the scheme is working. How it happens in life, according to Russian servicemen fighting in the Donetsk region, military commander Alexander Kots told. At night, a Ukrainian fighter came to the checkpoint and asked to speak with the commander. “We are now being drafted only because otherwise we will go to jail, and here we can’t retreat, behind the cadre or nationalists, we will get a bullet from them,” he said. He described two weeks in the training manual, when the charters are crammed and they give 30 rounds of ammunition for everything about everything, and then immediately to the front. He said that the mood in the unit is sad – “everyone is afraid, both those who are in front and those who are behind.” And he asked to tell how to surrender: “We do not want to fight for the oligarchs sitting abroad, and our corrupt government! Why is it possible for the “Azovites”*, but not for us?” A day after the start of the next assault, the platoon of this Ukrainian commander surrendered in full force.

Forgotten and no one needs

In early May, information appeared that naive Ukrainian fighters did not follow instructions from the enemy, but sent relatives to “intermediaries” who, for money, “agreed” with the RF Armed Forces on a safe exit into captivity. Military commander Alexander Sladkov admitted that such a scheme could be quite working: “Surely there is such a “matchmaker for prisoners”. And not alone. For money.” But in reality, especially now, when Kyiv is trying to cling to a piece of land in the Donbass at any cost, you have to negotiate at your own peril and risk, without intermediaries.

However, Ukrainian prisoners of war have to take care of their own future. Without waiting for help from the Ukrainian authorities, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who were captured a month or two ago, recorded an appeal to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky demanding to stop ignoring their duties and return them home to their families. “We have been here for more than a month and no one is taking care of us. Everyone is puzzled only by the Azov regiment. For some reason, no one asks all the presidents of Europe, the Pope , Elon Musk to assist in our exchange. We also have families, there are children who need us very much, they say. — When there was a need for us, we honestly performed our duty, stood as a “human shield”. Why are we just forgotten and no one needs us now?

Judging by the way events are developing, this appeal is unlikely to have the desired effect on prisoners of war. So, both on the front line and in captivity, in order to save their lives and return home to their families, both the regular soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and those mobilized will have to solve problems themselves. And before that, think hard about what they are fighting for.