Christmas on the front lines

“DANCE”

It is his favorite music. Though I do not know whether he admits it to himself.

The melody starts usually with automatic gunfire, then machine guns join in, then thuds of underbarrel grenade launchers get superimposed on this background, followed by mortars of 80 and 120 mm calibers...

Everything is on the rise. Until the crescendo, the loud “booom!” of self-propelled artillery.

The whole “dance” continues like this for about two to three hours...

And then?

Then comes a break. Lasting for like 20 minutes...

Both our lads and the enemy need to reload.

He has been performing this dance for the third year running. For two years, he was stationed near Volnovakha and Bohdanivka, and since October, he has stayed near Horlivka, where his 72nd Brigade has moved in.

He is actually an associate professor at Chernivtsi University and a Doctor of Law. He is still involved with the legal clinic which he founded and where his students help the poor with legal defense.

Here, meanwhile, he defends everyone, poor and not so poor, by keeping this infernal fiery dance on.

The last big fight was just before the New Year. There were no losses on our side.

It was really hot past fall. Once the “dance” had three sides, because the enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups attacked on both flanks and at the front at once, and one of them infiltrated the rear area of our forces.

But thank God, we had no losses then as well.

The opposition, meanwhile, dragged away their dead and wounded. A lot of them.

They came back twice for one casualty, despite the barrage of fire from the Ukrainian side. He probably was a representative of the “brotherly people” who they just did not dare to leave at the forefront, whether he was killed or wounded.

The strong point is surrounded with multiple craters and mortar bomb fins. One can see where a shell flew through sandbags and stopped before the entrance to the dugout, failing to detonate for some reason.

CHRISTMAS EVE IN A DUGOUT

But the associate professor does not complain... They had no losses, after all.

The position has been rebuilt and fortified.

Here, he is in charge. A first lieutenant. The commander of the 9th company.

However, his soldiers still look like students for some reason.

Their learning matter, however, is different.

He has a nice smile and truly steely handshake.

His family comes from somewhere in Bessarabia. His ancestors were of many ethnicities, temperaments, and callings. However, he says, there were no servicemen among them. Not a one.

However, there were many priests.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Today is Christmas Eve. I have some kutia (festive cereal) in my sack for his soldiers, and Olena Mokrenchuk, the brigade’s spokesperson, has a lot of presents and a candle in the shape of a Christmas tree, which is somehow similar to an F-1 grenade.

The similarity has been noticed by the soldiers, and they like laughing more than anything else.

The youngest is 19 years old. He joined the army at 18, and cracks jokes all the time.

When asked where he was going from the dugout, he pointed to the east and said he intended to take Rostov by storm. When reminded that he was alone, and thus unable to take that city, the lad replied: “Why? Three of us have signed up already.”

He knows what he likes in this life, and we now know it as well. To cover the last kilometer or two to the strong point, we asked him to drive Mokrenchuk’s Nissan, because roads are so bad as to be non-existing there. We would have never done it on our own.

He was happy at easily shifting gears of the Nissan, while we were happy to be able to drive through the places usually visited only by his IFV. I kept his assault rifle from moving in the car and thought that the chances to meet a future Ukrainian Michael Schumacher here looked absolutely zero just an hour ago.

***

We are getting seated at the Christmas table in the dugout.

It is a frosty, annoying rain above. Meanwhile, here is dry and warm. The lads doubt the enemy will shell them tonight.

“Because it is Christmas Eve?” I ask. “The truce and all that?”

“No, it is due to a strong rain. The separatists are mostly passive in such weather,” they reply.

The rain transforms the red clay of the trenches above into a liquid mud. It does not stick to the boots as much as black earth does, better withstands impacts of mortar bombs and shells, and is generally a quite helpful kind of soil, even though it is hard to dig.

LEONID DERHACH, COMMANDER OF THE 9th COMPANY OF THE 72nd INDEPENDENT MECHANIZED BRIGADE, AND OLENA MOKRENCHUK, THE BRIGADE’S SPOKESPERSON

For example, the Spanish buy this clay here, make it into fine Porcelanosa tiles, and then sell it back to us for 50 euros per square meter.

So if you have an apartment somewhere in Pechersk or Obolonska Waterfront and own just such tiles, know that our lads at the frontlines completely share your taste.

The sweetest dreams come while sleeping on this clay.

Schumacher, for example, dreams of his old Zhiguli car which he tormented to exhaustion while on civvy street. And, of course, he dreams of his mother who he also tormented to exhaustion while growing up, and has still not admitted to her where he actually is now.

***

With us, it is getting crowded in the dugout. People have to queue to get to the dish with kutia.

But it is clear that our company is fine with the soldiers, just like each new person and every new story. They have occupied the dugout since October. All news come only from the Internet...

“We have heard that it is minus 20 Celsius and blizzard in Kyiv, yes. Poor people, how will they cope with it?” they react after watching another news.

Shkvarok (Greaves in English), the company’s cat, has just brought a new mouse. Schumacher says that the damned cat was not fasting at all.

Shkvarok ignores the accusation, sits down and begins to crunch the mouse.

Sasha from Cherkasy likes the cat precisely for this good appetite. He says that the cat can eat a bucket of mice at one go, they tested it, and given that no one laughs, not even Schumacher, I think it is true.

Sasha is probably the oldest. He looks to be 50, with a gray beard and warm, fatherly look. It was he who supervised the construction of a bath here, and he now feels responsible for the bath and the combat company’s sanitary conditions in general.

Every creature that can eat a bucket of mice will always have his respect...

We light candles and sing Christmas songs.

ON OUR OWN, GOD-GIVEN LAND...

“...To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for 10 seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and again and often forever.”

No one, probably, has ever said better than Erich Maria Remarque on the earth’s meaning for a soldier who must survive and win.

What does the earth mean for the Ukrainian soldier?

The commander of the 9th Company says that even the red dust of this clayish Donetsk steppe saved his men when it covered them from enemy eyes, bullets or shells.

When digging trenches in summer, his soldiers planted a few carrots, tomatoes, and onions nearby. Having examined what they dug and planted, an older soldier said that the dug out was just fine and fully livable, vegetables were coming to a good harvest, so he had just to get a goat... and a wife.

How many times the earth took in its dugout chest his soldiers, while an Armageddon unfolded above? Look at those trees cut down by shrapnel. Could anything survive there then?

The land then helped to survive and fight for it again. Only occasionally would it take one in forever.

For it is ours. God-given.

The company commander now knows it very well, and to get others know as well, he tattooed it on his shoulder...