Journalist changes profession
I signed up for the defense on the second day of the war. On the first day, I also went to work, hosted my radio program. By the way, before the war it was published in Russian. This is about the alleged oppression of Russian speakers and their nightmarish situation: every day I made a program that aired on the national radio in Russian.
But after the first day of the war, I realized that I could no longer broadcast as usual. I had a very difficult feeling, I tried to convince myself that I could be useful to the country as a journalist, editor or reporter, but I could not. Because when you live in a city that is attacked by a completely insane crowd of sadists and rapists, it is very difficult to find a use for yourself in a peaceful life. One of the first rockets fired at Kyiv hit a house seven hundred meters from mine. After the victory, I'm going to go back there.
When I realized that I could no longer be a civilian, the very first thing I did was I took my black reporter's helmet with PRESS written in big white letters on it, I went with it to the Gaza Strip, to Iraq, Syria and a lot of other less fun places. I took a black marker from my daughter, smeared over those white PRESS letters, and converted a journalistic helmet into a military one. He is still with me, they gave me another one, but I refused, I just took a camouflage cover and pulled it over it. I can imagine what would happen to me if I found an excuse to remain a civilian, continued to go to the radio, write notes or make videos for channels.
There must be something selfish about it. I joined the army largely in order not to feel like a coward and a traitor. I think that's where I belong right now. Despite the fact that, from the point of view of Ukrainian legislation, I am not subject to conscription at once for three indicators - I have a minor daughter, whom I am raising without a mother, because her mother left her; secondly, I have asthma, which does not allow me to serve; and thirdly, one of my jobs gave me a reservation for the army, because I am badly needed in this job to cover the war.
Every time I hear complaints from former colleagues from Russia who fled to Georgia, Armenia or Serbia that we would have joined the struggle of the Ukrainian people, but we have wives, children, parents, I want to say to them: well, guys , I have elderly parents, a minor daughter, I have a lot of jobs from which I left and I don’t know if I can return.
I am not speaking as a reproach to those who remain civilians or have left and live in more or less safe regions, although they are only conditionally safe, because they fly to both Lviv and the Ivano-Frankivsk region. I could not find a place for myself in civilian life, so I wrote in our work chat that I was leaving for the army, and my co-host wrote the same thing.
The next day, he and I went to the same military registration and enlistment office, signed up together in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, received weapons and were immediately sent to the position - that's when the Russians made their way to Kyiv. We took this position and held it for several days. It was terribly cold, what we came in, and that was the first couple of days - we did not have a uniform, military shoes.
From the military, we had machine guns and several dozen rounds of ammunition for each, then they brought hand grenade launchers, then machine guns. And when the Russians were driven back from Kyiv and they were defeated in the northern territories, in central Ukraine, Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, our command decided that since there was no danger for Kyiv right now, our skills in journalism and knowledge of languages can be used to help foreign journalists who come to Ukraine.
And so, for a couple of weeks, my colleague and I, in addition to outfits and duty at checkpoints, accompanied foreign journalists, explained what was happening, gave them the opportunity to drive through that part of Kyiv in which our battalion was stationed, showed them what was not secret, and found interesting speakers for them, and now there are a lot of them.
We will mourn after the victory
In the early days it was very scary when the Russians rushed to Kyiv, and we held one of the entrances to the city in our position. It was just heavy fire, tanks, explosions all around, trembling windows, there were houses shaking, an endless number of ambulances passing by you. And you just lie in position with a loaded machine gun and pray that you don’t confuse the ambulance, which is carrying wounded Ukrainian soldiers, with the car in which Russian saboteurs are trying to break into Kyiv. Although I am not a believer and I don’t know how to pray, I still said such things - first understand that this is the object on which you need to open fire, and then shoot.
Often we found ourselves in those places where artillery shelling, arrivals of Grads, Tornadoes, Hurricanes and other deadly muck were constantly taking place. Yes, it's scary - it seems that there is a bulletproof vest, but you understand that nothing will save you even from a mortar bomb, especially when you see people who were seriously injured. Or, when you know, you see and hear how the guys with whom you served together or crossed paths are dying. This is an incredibly difficult feeling, but you understand how flexible the psyche is and how it does not allow you to get hung up on the bad and get attached to some bad emotions. Otherwise, all the people who serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine would go crazy.
The psyche relegates all this to the background and third plan. I talk a lot with the guys and with the commanders, and I understand that people are focused on victory, on resisting the enemy. I even heard such a phrase when believers and non-believers remembered their dead comrades: "The kingdom of heaven to them, but we will mourn for them only after the victory." Unfortunately, we cannot afford to mourn these people now, but we will do it after we drive away the Russian monster.
Everyone will be buried, mourned, everyone will be rewarded for his or her deeds, and every Russian creature that came to kill Ukrainians, that supports these murders, that rejoices in these murders, this violence or looting - they will all answer for what they have done. One way or another, all of them will appear either before the court, or before what will turn out to be more terrible than any earthly court.
The playwright guards the barracks
I am a Ukrainian citizen, I was born in Kharkov under the Soviet Union and have always considered and realized myself as a Ukrainian. The annexation and the beginning of the war found me in Syria. Of course, it was very difficult and psychologically impossible for me to be far from my homeland. I returned from Russia to Ukraine, worked in the Ukrainian media, sent my child to a Ukrainian school and lived until February 24 a normal life of a Ukrainian person who loves his homeland and wants only good things for her, who wants to live and grow old at home and dreams that his children and grandchildren lived happily on their own land, and did not try to get out of there.
Ukraine is a peaceful country. Contrary to all the statements of crazy Putin and people from his entourage, no one was going to attack Russia, even there were no plans to forcefully return the temporarily occupied territories in the Donbass and Crimea. Until February 24, politicians both in power and in opposition considered only diplomatic ways of their return.
It was this peacefulness and calmness that allowed the Russian Federation in 2014 to seize Crimea, part of the Donbass and unleash a war. Ukrainians, like all peoples, measure others by their own standards - if we don’t want to go to war with anyone, if we don’t want to capture anyone’s cities and destroy anyone’s lives, then no one will come to us to kill our old people and children and talk about what we really nonhumans. And Russia has taken advantage of the peace-loving Ukrainians, the culmination of which we have seen in the last hundred plus days.
We were forced, and we went to war - I went, my co-host, Max the playwright, served as a mime clown in the next company, there was also one of the advisers to the Minister of the Economic Block of Ukraine, a very young biochemist girl who had just graduated from the university served there and did not even have time to feel an adult independent life.
Starting from February 24, a lot of people came to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who before that had nothing to do with military affairs. One of the main Ukrainian playwrights served in our company: he writes plays, puts on productions, and attended various theater festivals with his performances. One day I got a call from the New Yorker magazine and asked: “Do you know such and such?” - "Of course I know, he is now standing at the gate and guarding the barracks, where the soldiers rest." - "How? This is the future of the entire Eastern European theater, how can he guard the gates and not write plays? “- In his free time, he writes a play about the company in which he serves, he writes about the war in which we now find ourselves against our will.”
“This is the future of the entire Eastern European theater, how can he guard the gates and not write plays?”
"I feel like I'm on vacation - I don't make any decisions"
For more than three months I have been sleeping in a sleeping bag, which lies either on a concrete floor, or in some kind of rented apartment, if I can find housing, then simply in a bunker or a trench.
I traveled a lot on various business trips to far from the most pleasant places. I had to circle for 5-7 or more days without a shower, without the opportunity to sleep on something soft and eat something hot. But this is a business trip, about which you know that in 2-3 weeks you will get to the airport and fly home, where there is hot food, hot showers and all that. And if you are in a situation where you have nowhere to fly and there is no such possibility, you understand that yes, you haven’t showered for a couple of days - nothing, wash yourself out of an eggplant, dry yourself and move on. I didn’t have time to come for lunch or dinner - nothing, I’ll chew on stew, dig into the jar with a plastic fork, which I have not parted with for three months.
The value system is changing. Yes, you want to go home, it’s natural, to your room, to your cats, hug your daughter, come to your beloved, watch some funny videos on YouTube in the evening, drink cold beer, gnaw cheese with cats and enjoy life. But you understand that now is a completely different stage in life, so you put on your sleeping bag, machine gun, several magazines for machine guns, some clothes, fit into camouflage, military boots and go where the command sends you.
Sometimes you stay somewhere for two weeks with the guys who are now guarding and protecting the peace of Ukrainians as much as possible. Here you do not decide how to manage time and where to go, but you are a soldier, you have a command, and this command sets tasks for you, and you solve these tasks. One guy with whom we stood in line at the military registration and enlistment office together and served together for the first month and a half said: “I feel like I’m on vacation” - “What do you mean?” “I don't make any decisions. Usually I make a lot of choices every day, but now there is no such need - I wake up when they wake me up, do what I am ordered, and go to bed when the lights out are ordered. He is not the only one, many people perceive the military service as a serious change in their lives, which, with all the complexity and danger, makes it possible to reconsider and comprehend a lot.
Emptiness Shock
The other day, in one of the parts, we met a magical uncle who played Ukrainian folk songs on the harmonica. And he said that when he gets sad, he plays - he remembered some melodies from childhood, some he learned after 2014. The kids love it, it makes it easier for them. When longing overcomes, you can not even sing, but just sit next to him.
Recently, I was in the Donetsk region right at the very front, a few hundred meters from the position of the Russian invaders, with the guys in a bunker in a dilapidated house - they made a gym for themselves, they have dumbbells there, mandatory duty with putting things in order, a clean kitchen, clean sleeping quarters, they have a gun cleaning routine. Their company commander keeps everyone in good shape, does not allow them to become overgrown with dirt, to hand over physically, and as a result, all this supports them morally.
I was told by one of the leading religious scholars of the world, who spent several hundred days in captivity with the militants of the so-called "DPR" how they, sitting in the basement, tried to keep themselves in good shape. They agreed that they would do exercises, read books, that they would not become overgrown with dirt, that they would cut their hair, shave and make sure that their nails did not grow back, that is, in general, they would not succumb to the pressure of the circumstances in which they found themselves, and try to lead a normal life to the maximum. . And this saved them in captivity, people were able to maintain a healthy psyche, tried to wake up according to their usual routine, greet each other, say goodbye, take an interest in how their health is, how their plans are, and so on. This keeps afloat not only people who are held hostage by terrorists, but also those who voluntarily went to defend their homeland.
For me, the most difficult was the arrival in Kharkov, in my hometown. We drove in the evening, and there was not a single car on the streets in the city. Only tanks. And every few minutes shells flew into the city. I was able to get to my apartment on Saltovka. I wanted to see if she was intact. It turned out to be intact, but the area where tens of thousands of people once lived was completely empty. And everywhere there are traces of shelling: charred houses, craters from shells. Such a striking difference from the Kharkov to which I am used to, from Kharkov in which it is always noisy, always crowds of people, children run around playing football, young people drink beer on the benches, which was directly shocking. In general, the biggest shock is not from the death and destruction that Russia has done here without number, but from the emptiness that it creates when it approaches. 70% of the inhabitants of Chernihiv left the city at the beginning of the war, half of the inhabitants of Nikolaev. You walk the streets of cities and see that they are empty, no one turns on the light in the windows. There is no life, Russia literally pushes it away from itself.
Cameras, microphones and machines
When it became clear that the Russians had finally left the Kyiv, Chernigov and Sumy regions, the command came up with an additional job for me, my co-host and another former journalist. Those of you who have seen the film "Full Metal Jacket" probably remember one of the central characters, nicknamed Private Joker - on the one hand, he is a military man with a machine gun, in a helmet, but also a bit of a journalist, and it is not clear who he is more - a journalist or a military man .
Here we are in the same situation - we have not only cameras and microphones, but also machine guns, and a huge ammunition supply is always with us. We are mainly engaged in journalistic work, but this does not relieve us of the need to use weapons if necessary. Recently, we have been visiting those brigades of the Ukrainian armed forces that are either on the front line, or have completed military training, are on alert and will go to the front to fight the Russian aggressor right now.
At the same time, I am, in principle, a pacifist. I traveled a lot in the Middle East and Central Asia and saw what aggressive wars lead to. I covered the Yazidi genocide that ISIS unleashed, I worked in Syria, in Iraq and I know a lot of things. I have suffered and forced pacifism, but at the same time it coexists perfectly with the understanding that if you were attacked, if an enemy came who is determined to destroy you physically, culturally and demographically, you cannot continue to portray a pacifist and tell the world around you about that violence is not the solution. We cannot resist.
If you are attacked, you can no longer play a pacifist
People came who do not want to negotiate, they want to rape, kill and loot, so the only and natural choice for me was to take weapons. I had no hesitation, no moral or spiritual anguish. I understand that these people came to destroy the country that I love, which I will never give up in my life, they came to kill people close to me - with whom I am friends, whom I love, they came to rape Ukrainian women and children. They came to destroy Ukraine as a nation, as a cultural entity, as a political entity. It's a choice to be human or to be, and I don't have any other definition for these people right now, motherfucker.
About former colleagues
All political decisions in Russia are made fucking by definition, because these people seriously believed that they could capture Ukraine in three days, they believed and continue to believe that the Ukrainian people are under some kind of oppression of Bandera or National Battalions, they are serious believed that the Russian occupiers would be greeted with flowers. And all three branches of power - both the executive and the legislative, and even the judiciary - are in the hands of the same motherfuckers who pass sentences on people with children's drawings or the inscriptions "For Peace!", fine them or send them to prison. And the head of state is the same fucking, continues to lie about some kind of special operation there.
Another story is the media, the triumph of fucking bism. I'm not even talking about Skabeeva and the like, all those people who, in all seriousness, use words like "Ukroreich" - I'm talking, for example, about my former colleagues from the Kommersant publishing house. A few days ago, one of them wrote a Facebook post, simply stunning in its stupidity and meanness, in which he tells how sorry he is for the unfortunate Russian prisoners who ended up in the hands of the Ukrainian military. The murdered women and children in Bucha, the bombed Mariupol, thousands of destroyed houses, including schools and hospitals in Kharkiv, did not anger him, the brazen and unjustified violence that caused thousands of civilian casualties did not anger him, but the fact that the Ukrainian military from time to time they treat rapists and looters the way rapists and looters should be treated, which angered him.
There are two options here - either the person is really outraged, and then he is a natural fuck, or he just really wants to get into the first league of fucks and join Skabeeva and Kiselev. Another revealing story: there is an interview of Zelensky with the so-called. Russian liberal media, where another former colleague of mine from Kommersant was present (in which, by the way, this interview was not published). It was a very pitiful sight. The impression was that he had no questions, that he was not interested in everything, but he just needed to voice stuffing from the presidential administration of Russia, like: “What about denazification?”, “Do you refuse denazification?”
These people seemed to be for freedom and liberal values, and now, with pleasure and without visible torment, they pick up the narratives that the fuckers are spreading - they either have already become them themselves, or they pretend to be fuckers in order to continue to remain inside the Reich, to look like their own. and don't risk warm spots.
After the war
I am quite sure that after the war Ukrainians will have a completely different attitude towards Russia and the Russians. It is clear that all pro-Russian parties and other rubbish will disappear forever. Maybe they will remain in some niches, inventing new names for themselves and appointing new chairmen to replace Medvedchuk, but their political future is doomed. This is the main lesson that Ukraine and the Ukrainians have learned - you need to stay as far away from Russia as possible, you need to build all your policies with an eye to the fact that next to you is a crazy neighbor who declares your physical and cultural destruction. The expiration date has expired for pro-Russian politicians. Now I'm seeing a boom in interest in my own culture. I can’t imagine how I will be able to conduct programs in Russian when I return to the profession.
