A Ukrainian soldier’s diary

From: The Economist IE Sep-15-2024 11:19:am

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September 10th 2023

The Extraordinary Story

Long reads and life from 1843 magazine, delivered every Sunday

UKRAINE

The secret diary of a Ukrainian soldier: on the counter-offensive

As troops blitz through Russian lines, they see the trauma of occupation and the relief at freedom

This is the third part of a diary written by a Ukrainian paratrooper. When war broke out in 2022, he was a civilian. He volunteered to fight and, after cursory training, found himself on the front lines, in charge of a platoon of equally unprepared men. He made new friends but lost comrades in chaotic early battles in Donbas, a region in the east of the country. This instalment begins in August 2022, as our diarist was recuperating in the forests of the north of the country, waiting to begin a secret new operation.

Day 67. August 29th 2022

Never in my life have I slept so deeply. When I wake, I inhale the scent of pine needles. Everything that went before feels like a dream: the shelling; the shooting; the dead; the base in Dnipro; scoffing four pieces of cake; the drive through the night across marshlands; the sight of new artillery pieces lining the roads going east. Clickety click. Someone is tapping on the window of the truck. It’s Raccoon, my company commander, who has come to wake us up. I last saw him yesterday lunchtime. It feels like a month ago.

There are a number of units dispersed in the pine forest. This is the place where we are massing our forces before the battle begins. I know this isn’t the time to relax, but I can’t help it. The warm sun of late summer has melted away my circumspection. My fellow soldiers too are resting on the ground. With their little camps scattered among the trees, they look like overgrown boy scouts.

We haven’t been taught what we should be doing during the waiting phase. I try not to get worked up with thoughts of a bloody apocalypse. I dig a foxhole. It’s a quick and easy job. I remember what they told us during our training: the ideal depth of any trench depends on the density of the soil. If you dig too deeply into soft ground, and a shell lands nearby, you will be buried alive.

The whole world seems to be talking about a counter-offensive in the Kherson region in the south of the country. We’re right at the other end of the front line. I’ve no idea what I’m meant to be doing. So I keep digging.

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