The forest that early morning was bright (though cold) as sunbeams filtered though the trees. A young man was working on a machine that had broken down. He was a tank driver named Dmitriy. His tank was not working as it should and if that were not bad enough, he and his comrades were lost. He would work for a bit, then think of his girlfriend Katrina and the синий-lamborghini he would buy from his wages as a conscript.
A loud crashing noise was unexpectedly heard as a projectile flew through the strand of trees as swift as an arrow before exploding. Screams pierced the soft murmuring of the trees as smoke poured out of the burning tank. All of this before the other soldiers were able to understand that they were under attack. The young Russian soldiers in the area might have been confused by a disinterested observer with the members of any one of a number of youth organizations in Russia, such as Dawn, Plastun, Volunteer or Bright Rus. But confused the young soldiers were and gun shots were heard an instant before another boy soldier fell while the remaining ones croched down and looked around trying to see where the fire was coming from. If only there was an adult there–someone who knew what to do to make the firing stop.
The screams from the tank continued as different youth called out to each other, their eyes as wide as dinner plates. One of the boys said that it was Dmitriy at the T-80 tank working on a repair, but that he was badly hurt. However, no one could get to him, or knew what to do if they could. Two more shots from an unexpected direction caused two more boys to fall. Another piercing rocket, another piercing scream from the direction of the tank.
A week earlier, Dmitriy had phoned his mother to tell her he was part of a military exercise on the Belarus/Ukraine border, but that she should not worry because he and his unit were repeatedly told this was all just an exercise. This is what they were told, this is what the world was told, this is what hi mother was told. But his mother worried anyway, like mothers do. By the day of the attack, his mother felt very anxious and called his unit. They assured her that he must be fine because he had never left Russia! His mother scolded the officer on the phone for deceiving her when she knew for a fact he was not in Russia, but the officer hung up. Nor would anyone in Dmitriy’s unit speak to her again.
Синий Lamborghini
Dmitriy was a conscript, what we would call a draftee. According to the BBC, “Men in Russia aged 18-27 who do not have an exemption – such as studying or looking after young children – are drafted into the military for a year.” When Dmitriy was approached by the military recruiters at his school, he was promised that if he joined, he would get a salary, learn how to drive and be able to retire early. Dmitriy asked his girlfriend Kristina what she thought. She did not want Dmitriy to leave. But he thought “Maybe I could buy a blue Lamborghini like in the song we listen to? It was a favorite song for them that they sang as they walked the streets of Moscow together, two young people in love in a crazy world. Dmitriy thought “With such a fine car, I could drive Kristina–we wouldn’t have to walk.” The words to their song went:
“I was searching, I was searching for myself,
and now, I’m here.
But I’m still following the dream to the dark forest.
I stumbled upon a false trail.
There is still time to put everything in their places If want to — do it yourself, just do it yourself.”
https://lyricstranslate.com. Lyrics and music by Rakhim
As the minutes creeped by, the screams gradually taped off while Dmitriy now just mostly whimpered and moaned, with occasional labored words like “Помоги мне” (help me) and “Kristina.” But the boy was sadly beyond help, and his friends could not in any event hear him above the mortar and RPG fire, as four or five explosions snared his fellow soldiers as they huddled together in a shivering mass.
Dmitriy looked up at the trees, and the forest gotten dark. His mind became clouded and he thought he must have taken a false trail to their objective. He looked around him. The forest got even darker. He tried to focus on the blue Lamborghiini, something that had once brought him pleasure. But the vision of the Lamborghini became dark, too. Then, he thought of his birthday which was on February 28, only a few days away. He vaguely remember how his mother baked him a cake last year for his birthday. There were sixteen candles on it, and Katrina laughed as he blew them out. It was a wonderful cake, a wonderful day. He weakly summoned up the image of the cake, but the candles were no longer burning. They were black as well.
Dmitriy’s two remaining companions had finally started to return fire, but they quickly ran our of ammunition. They raised their hands in a gesture of surrender. They were ordered by an older man, someone in a Ukraine army uniform with an AK-47 who spoke fluent Russian to kneel down on the ground with their arms behind their heads. He was joined by seven other Ukrainian soldiers who approached from different directions. One of them yelled to the man with the gun “Hey, Dmitriy, what have you got?” The man’s name was Dmitriy, too.
Dmitriy heard him name called and the adult’s voice talking to the other boys and thought they were being rescued. He tried weakly to call out, but no one heard him say “Помоги мне.” Nor could they hear the last word that pased his lips; “Mama.”
Boyz II Men
This is a ficticious story based on recent events in the Ukraine. The first “soldiers” that Moscow deployed were mostly young conscripts according to news accounts and they died by the hundreds. They were not the cruel mercenaries that followed, or soldiers in Wagner’s private army. They were sent on a mision of death for which they were not physically trained nor psychologically prepared for. We all saw video on the news of captured conscripts being hugged by Ukraine women as the soldiers sobbed, or Ukrainian men allowing them to use their phones to call their mothers.
From Russia with Love?
Then, the atrocities followed. The precision bombing of a maternity hospital and shelters. The many offers of safe passage which led to the deaths of even more Ukranians. Then, there were hundreds killed, some buried in mass graves, some just left in the street. Today, Moscow even bombed Kivj as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was on an official visit there. Talk about optics–deliberately attacking a location where the elected representative of Planet Earth is meeting the Uraine government, trying to bring peace to the region!
President Putin seems greatly offended when an alledged Ukrainian air strike destroys a fuel storage facility or military target in Russia, but has no reservations about launching the war with a full scate invasion of a sovereign nation. Meanwhile, young ment will continue to die, and peace, and the Синий Lamborghini seems as elusive as ever.
