Soldiers Choose White Flag

It's a small honour to be a marshal sitting in a bunker.

A soldier carried a marshal's baton in his marching pack only in the times before. Everything has gone and has been long forgotten. The leadership is making marshals of court servants. Also, wars are not the same as they were previously. Not to mention all sorts of special operations. A backpack is filled differently. And there is no place for any batons. Quite different attributes have become necessary today.

A field hospital somewhere in the Russian rear. Hastily adapted building. Forced by bunkbed to the outset. They expelled all out of there. Or just called them. To get rid of all aliens and snide people in the room. And only one stubborn did not obey for some reason. Curved. Crooked. But he kept his rightful place. He doesn't have a care in the world. And a guy in a vest is already standing at attention, the culprit of the sudden nix, on a small spot among the hospital bedside tables and beds. Wounded, obviously. The left arm is missing above the elbow. And he has no right hand up to the shoulder.

Next to him, some fussy dense mister in an unfitting white coat is busy. He is hardly a doctor. More like a paramedic or a medical brother. Or maybe a supply manager. Or a military commissar. He seems to know that there is no good. He hurriedly fills a modest beaker with brown liquid from a dark bottle. He gives it to the guy. He, leaning slightly forward, obediently drinks the potion.

The gloomy mister, with a deft gesture, slightly pulling the vest on his chest, clings to the guy some kind of medal. He immediately famously fills the beaker again, and the recipient, stretching out his lips, empties it instantly. That's it. The ceremony is over. The Motherland paid off its soldier. No one owes anything to anyone from now on. And the surly mister in the white coat can leave. He still has so much trouble!

There was a regular program on a well-known Ukrainian TV channel. The journalists were reviewing the latest frontline news and answering questions from the audience viewers. They showed another story: the crew of the Russian BMP surrendered. The vehicle escaped from the forest at high speed, turned around on the field road, and recklessly substituted the side. But not a single grenade launcher took aim at it. The armoured vehicle stopped. The crew left the vehicle and with raised hands went towards the chain of Ukrainian fighters.

And then the chat exploded. Don't you see, this is a fake performance. The remark that the terms of surrender were agreed upon in advance did not convince the angry. Reporting from the front must exactly repeat the Soviet films about that war. Then the host advised switching to another channel. The viewers were confused by the soldiers' underpants, put on the barrel of the Russian armoured vehicles. How could this happen? Why not a white flag?..

It is a rather futile exercise to find out why the soldiers, having started the surrender, did not sew the cloth of the proper quality and did not cut the shaft gracefully and diligently, as in the movies. However, the message in this story is much more pragmatic and definite. If you want to live - give a signal. There are no guarantees, but still... And a soldier must have something white in stock by all means. Because the new war has little in common with that distant one. Many have already understood that it is ridiculous and stupid to die in vain.

Sasovo, Ryazanshchina. Recruits crowd around a bus. Evil. Gloomy. Riot. Healthy men of different ages, isolated from work, and from family. You can't get them for a penny. Everyone has long understood what's what about this mobilization. They don't need this war. They have other concerns.

A strong and powerful boss and a noisy woman clerk came together to pacify these unreasonable ones. Сontempt and hatred on both sides, nothing to say about any kind of dialogue there. An off-wall collision could erupt at any moment. Expressions of anger are short and clear. They were speaking about cannon fodder loud and openly. As well as "no one believes your government anymore". And, finally, a middle-aged mobilized soldier squeezes in from the crowd and dumbfounds the representative of authorities with his seemingly compelling question. “Who will feed my family?”

But Putin's Russia is unshakable even in the provinces. There was a reason to send this limited group to suppress the rebels. They clearly know their role and place in this ferocious and determined world. They won't give anything to anyone. The official, without even moving, says evil words right in the face of the rebel, in a woman's manner: “Let your wife go to work!”

She clearly knows that these rebels have no other way. They will quarrel, they will make some noise, and they will go where they are supposed to. To some unknown settlement of Valuiki. And even further. They have little chance to come back. Is it only under the universal name the "two hundredth" (Dead - Ed.). One way or another, they will no longer demand their rights. If you're lucky, the family will receive a medal. The special operation is designed for long. Battles do not cease. They are to plug the holes in the exhausted troops with someone. A new wave of the same evil, indomitable is already being prepared for dispatch by all military commissariats. They did not get together and rebelled yet. Still hoping for something. Catching rumours. And packing up.

The bag is heavy, there is little space there. And there's so much more stuff to put in. There are no good misters to give anything to a soldier. You need to find everything by yourself, get it or buy it. A bulletproof vest, helmet, padded jacket, sleeping bag and other means of salvation from freezing autumn rains.

And also bandages, tourniquets, medicines. And even some tampons, which were advised by some military woman in the military commissariats to plug shrapnel and gunshot wounds. A curious country, nothing they have. As in the early Soviet times. Not because a new war or some kind of special operation collapsed suddenly. But it's because everything was stolen a long time ago. If it continues like this, the new conscription will have to wage war at its own expense.

The soldier's bag is unbearably heavy. Therefore, everything is superfluous - away without regrets. There's no reason for some obscure baton to appear in it. Will not need it. There is no need for it in this absurd and senseless war.

It's a small honour to be a marshal sitting in a bunker.

Uladzimir Khalip, exclusively for Charter97.org

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