His Name Was "Warrior"

Sometimes it comes to the mind that there is nothing easier than to say: "That's it. I am tired. These people do not want to live differently." Then to take a suitcase, to pack the cloths and children's toys, to throw my resident's card into the purse compartment; to write down a quotation of one of my friend's grandfather as the epigraph in a diary, who was the officer in the Polish Army, survived the Hitlerian captivity, fought together with the UIA (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army) and spent 25 years in Stalin's camps; as there is no reason to panic, to call for something or hope for anything, because the ethnic Ukrainians are almost destroyed and those, who are left, are the children of swine herders, serfs, traitors, but not of warriors or leaders.

I probably should call my sister and hear her candid happiness in response to my words: "Meet me, I am coming back..." And in two days I could drink Chateau Bellevue wine being chilled and listen to the sounds of the cicada, while sitting on the veranda of her house that is located in a small town in the southern part of France.

Sometimes it comes to the mind that there is nothing easier...

I will never be able to do it! When I think about that, I don't see the fields of lavender in Provence, the vineyards in Burgundy or the roofs of the Gothic castles in Ile-de-France...

I see the face of a young man, whom I hardly knew, but who became for me the embodiment of my people being destroyed for centuries.

"14.02.2015... I met this young man in the evening just before leaving "Delta", where I came to talk to the new recruits of our battalion. He sat on a short stool in a small corridor and put firewood into the stove...He didn't participate in the conversation and tried to avoid camera, he looked kindly at fire and smiled at some of his thoughts... Andriy, a soldier of the 93d Mechanized Brigade, who lived in the same building with the fighters of the 7th UVC RS Battalion, thought that if he was not "a right-winger", then more likely I wouldn't be interested in talking to him. Later when he realized that he was mistaken, he eagerly answered the questions. He could share his story that he was from the Kyiv Region and a driver of the armoured vehicle, he received the draft notice and had already been at the forefront for 4 months, more likely he wouldn't be rotated until March, he didn't have a radio, and every time when he was supposed to drive out a messenger came for him. Then there was the order: "Hole!" We stepped down into the basement where I could make a couple of pictures of him. Modest, quiet, very young... He died next day from mine shrapnel, next to his small armoured vehicle.

He was a Warrior".