The secret diary of a Ukrainian soldier: death and drones on the eastern front

By Anonymous

This is the second part of a diary kept by an anonymous soldier. You can read the first part here

July 24th 2022

I’m graduating today from a course that was supposed to turn me from an office manager into a platoon commander in four weeks. Our tactics instructor gives us a valedictory speech before we are sent off to our new units. “I wish you the best of luck, that we are victorious, and I hope you will survive,” he says. “The enemy will judge just how good you are.”

Roman looks puzzled. He can’t quite understand the randomness with which we are assigned to particular units. “How can they know who to pick? They haven’t even seen us.” This uncertainty is more unsettling than the prospect of being sent to the front line. “It’s like we’re a box of puppies,” says Roman. “Waiting for our owner to come and pick us.”

One of the high-ups has decided our graduation is missing pageantry. So we are ordered to line up on the parade ground and subjected to some more speeches. One bigwig looks and sounds as though he’s been imported from the Soviet Union. A priest urges us, in very un-Christian terms, to find “our inner rage”. Then a group of officers starts singing a paratrooper song called “Nobody but Us”. They sway in rhythm as though they are playing Wembley stadium. I don’t understand what is going on. What the hell is this cabaret in aid of?

The process of assigning us to our units is over in a flash. We are told which brigade we are being sent to: half of us will be with the marines, the other half, including me, are to be assault troops. Roman is summoned first. He leaves without even having a chance to say a proper goodbye. Soldiers are whisked away in cars, almost as quickly as the vehicles arrive. Viktor has excused himself and is sitting on his own by our dugout. He lowers his battered, sun-wrinkled face.

“It’s just so sad,” he says. “I have a lump in my throat.”

July 25th

The first step of my official military career is to go to my new brigade’s headquarters in eastern Ukraine, where I will be introduced to the men under my command. I tell myself I won’t be fighting for some time yet. The unit needs to be equipped and we’ll surely receive a few more weeks of training.

Our chaperone, a fat, grumpy officer in his 50s, clears the corridor at the railway station. “These aren’t any old guys; they’re servicemen,” he chides a group of girls who are trying to sell us drinks. In the sweltering heat, we jump at the chance of pouring ice-cold Coke down our throats. It wasn’t on the menu at the training camp.

I feel as if I’m headed to my first music festival. I’ve got front-row tickets at this show. Booming bass. Blazing pyrotechnics. I know I’m not going to like it

We’re travelling on the night train. My perch for the journey is the top bunk in a 2nd-class sleeping carriage. I have a mattress, though no sheets – these aren’t included in a soldier’s fare. But I can’t complain. The conditions are a massive improvement on the dugout I’ve been sleeping in for the past month. I have my own bed, rather than wooden planks. I’m not sharing with a dozen other men. Here no one can roll over in the night and smother me.

Two guys from my training course are travelling in the same compartment as me: Dima, 28, and Max, who is 42. Max has two children, and he tenderly shows me their photos. He is evidently fearful and doesn’t understand why everyone else his age has been assigned to reserves, but he is headed for a combat brigade.

I’m also scared. My greatest fear is losing my girlfriend. We’ve only been together a month, but it already feels serious. Who wants to be with a man who can be sent to the front line at a moment’s notice? I ring her. The line is terrible. I hear hissing instead of the voice I love. When we manage to speak, I strain to control my emotions. The reception is too bad for us to talk properly. Afterwards, I try not to cry.

July 26th

We’re met on the platform by Dima’s father, a gentle man with a neat grey beard and kind eyes. He has driven up from Zaporizhia to spend some time with his son before he goes into battle. He hands me a piece of shrapnel. “This is what you’ve got to watch out for,” he says. The small, chipped piece of metal is a lot heavier than I thought it would be. I shake his hand, and thank him for raising a fantastic son. Dima is his only child and his father can barely hold back his tears. (A few months later, Dima was struck in the head by shrapnel. I don’t know if he survived.)

I get a reality check when we arrive at the brigade headquarters. So much for keeping us away from the front lines: a young staff soldier tells me we’re off to Bakhmut in two days. The town is being pummelled by Russian artillery fire. Mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a bloodthirsty private army run by a friend of Vladimir Putin, are among the enemy forces. Many of them have been plucked from the criminal underworld.

“What’s my battalion commander like?” I ask the soldier, a studious-looking man busy filling out forms.

“Good reputation, though the rumour is he got injured. Have you been given a flak jacket?”

“Affirmative.” (My friends gave it to me.)

“A helmet?”

“Affirmative.” (It was donated by a policeman I know.)

“Well get yourself down to the stockroom and pick out what else you need.”

“Affirmative.” (I know there won’t be anything in my size, so resolve to buy the rest myself: shirt, combat trousers, sunglasses, a torch, rucksack, thermals, balaclava, you name it.)

I ask where I’m supposed to sleep. We’re not allowed to stay in the barracks given the likelihood that they will be subjected to missile attacks. “Go wherever you like,” he answers. “In the forest, a hotel, wherever. Just don’t be late on Friday.”

July 29th

I arrive at the deployment office as instructed. I’ve put all my gear in one backpack and tried not to take anything unnecessary. I place my helmet on the top and hang my sapper shovel for digging foxholes on the side. My sleeping bag dangles uncomfortably underneath. I can barely lift the thing onto my shoulders and look like a clumsy tortoise. I feel as if I’m headed to my first music festival. I’ve got front-row tickets at this show. Booming bass. Blazing pyrotechnics. I know I’m not going to like it.

As I huddle in the corner of the smoking hut, everyone can sense I’m green. My travelling companions are experienced soldiers, and it’s clear that the war is beginning to eat them up. One man, significantly older than me, says, “I’ve started fighting in my dreams.”

We head towards the front line on cramped yellow minibuses. Within an hour, everyone is too exhausted to talk. Those who are returning to the front try to get some sleep. They know there won’t be much opportunity further on. As we approach Bakhmut, I see a wheat field burning.

July 30th

“How the fuck do you get blood out of a flak jacket?” asks Mario, a short, black-haired sergeant I got to know on the minibus. Mario is not very happy with his new armour. He lost his last set when he got wounded in April. Soldiers in need of replacement equipment don’t have much choice. You have to rummage through the left-over kit piled haphazardly in the back of your company’s support truck. What we have left over once belonged to the wounded or dead. I hope Mario will be better protected than they were.

I’m issued with a modified Kalashnikov rifle. It’s supposed to be more adaptable than the ordinary one. In reality, it’s the same metal tube that spits lead and rusts before your eyes if you don’t clean it religiously.

I set off to introduce myself to the company commander, who is stationed in one of the many abandoned homes on the outskirts of Bakhmut. As I enter the bungalow, I see someone who looks like a boy sitting on the floor. He’s tall, very thin and has a shaved head. I realise this is the man in charge.

There are rumours the Russians destroyed our battalion’s headquarters. There are rumours they have already entered Bakhmut. There are rumours Russia is about to launch tactical nukes. It’s all bullshit

Despite appearances, Raccoon is 25 years old. He graduated from the same training centre as me, just before I arrived – we even lived in the same dugout – and has been rapidly promoted. A few days ago, the company to which I’ve been assigned was heavily depleted in a Russian attack. The company commander was wounded and the acting commander received a concussion. Raccoon had to step up.

Raccoon asks me what my call sign is.

“I don’t have one,” I reply. “Only just got here.”

“That won’t do. You’ll need to respond when you’re out in the field.”

Navigator, a sergeant, tells me in a loud and irritating voice that the company will call me “The Writer”.

“I’d prefer to be called ‘Kevin’,” I say, after the ingenious booby-trapper played by Macaulay Culkin in the “Home Alone” films.

I don’t get my way. Navigator continues to call me “Scribbler”, just to piss me off.

There are rumours the Russians destroyed our battalion’s headquarters. There are rumours they have already entered Bakhmut. There are rumours Russia is about to launch tactical nukes. It’s all bullshit. Rumours in the army go viral in no time.

There is a rumour our battalion commander isn’t just wounded, but dead. This one turns out to be true.

July 31st

We tune in to LNR Radio, the mouthpiece of the Luhansk People’s Republic, a breakaway statelet with a puppet government backed by the Kremlin, which was created when war began in eastern Ukraine in 2014. It’s top-class broadcasting, as you can imagine: several reports on the opening ceremony of a new park and some patriotic music that feels like it could have been written a century ago. Every 30 minutes, an advert urges people to sign up for the republic’s armed forces. “Excellent benefits and rewarding work,” it claims. The lads leave the station on since it’s the only one we can pick up around here.

A pause in the bombardment and the heat of summer makes me sleepy. I lie on a mattress, looking up at a carpet hanging on the wall that has been decorated with a spent rocket-propelled grenade suspended on top. The peace is broken with an order, barked from the streets outside. “Time to move. One hour to get your things together.”

Why do we have to move? The thud of rockets provides a quick answer. Each successive volley lands closer. I wonder aloud if we should not get out of here quicker. “We’re not pigs,” insists Misha, our quartermaster. “We clean up after ourselves.”

A blue-and-white bus draws up alongside our base. The windows are missing and it is covered in shrapnel scars. We throw our rucksacks into the metal carcass and then our comrades jump in. It’s a miracle the bus restarts. I check that no one has left anything in the yard, and toss an artillery shell we’ve been using as an ashtray into the ammunition truck. My men laugh at me for doing so, but in time the shell will become our company totem.

As we drive away, the rumble of gunfire fades behind us. When we arrive at our destination – another small, abandoned, godforsaken village – we hide our trucks and the bus in the bushes. Our new base is a dilapidated hut. There are holes in the walls and the veranda has tilted to one side. You hit your head whenever you walk through the front door. But it’s fine. We can rebuild the walls. We’ll settle in.

August 2nd

The heart of any self-respecting Ukrainian military base is the kitchen. Walter, our machinegunner, is a dab hand at bricklaying, so he is building a stove. I took the decision early on to forgo the standard fare provided by the battalion headquarters. The cooking isn’t great and it always arrives at our camp cold. We get our own ingredients instead. Some of the men are excellent chefs.

Sasha, who has suffered several concussions under Russian bombardment, is finding conversation difficult. After the last concussion, he forgot how to write the letter K, he says – somewhat of a problem since it’s the first letter of his surname. I realise that I find it hard to talk with soldiers who have been in the heat of battle. As for those who have been wounded, it’s even harder.

August 6th

If a unit has a spare day it’s supposed to train and recharge. We’ve been assigned a training officer called Vlad. He’s 22, but he joined the army when he was 17, so has experience. His specialism is reconnaissance. He is thin with a shaved head and looks like the kind of hoodlum you’d find hanging around street corners in my hometown.

We practise working as a platoon in defence. Everyone learns their positions and how to camouflage themselves to prepare for an attack. Vlad lays out a few scenarios for us. The rules say we have access to basic weaponry and the support of an artillery battalion.

Mario, who has a turn commanding, makes his task more complicated than it needs to be.

“Enemy infantry,” says Vlad. “1,800 metres away.”

“Roger, continue to monitor,” says Mario.

“So cover them with mortars,” Vlad suggests.

“We don’t have mortars.”

“I told you we had basic weapons.”

“We never have mortars! And even when we do, they never fire.

”Mario’s eyes turn red. I can see he is re-living the battle in which he got injured. If things didn’t work out to plan then, why should they work out now? “I’m not going to command people,” he declares. “I’m not going to take that kind of responsibility!” When the exercise requires Mario to evacuate wounded soldiers under his command, the poor guy simply throws down his radio and walks off.

August 15th

Reinforcements arrived today from training in Britain. Seven lads. There are two twins among them. Originally, and a little confusingly, both take the call sign Twin. Max gives them the last of our automatic rifles.

August 16th

Our truck driver is called Uncle Lyonya. He is the other side of 50 and gangly, with a braid sprouting from his shaved head, Cossack-style. “I had to pick up two boys from my village today,” Lyonya says. “One of them was a corpse and the other crippled.” The men weren’t just fellow soldiers. Lyonya knew their families well, and their relatives had asked him to look after them personally. You can tell the big guy is really hurting. He’s actually wounded himself – there’s shrapnel stuck in his shoulder – but he won’t go to hospital until he has delivered the boys’ effects back to their relatives.

“I had to pick up two men from my village today. One of them was a corpse and the other crippled”

I’m getting used to the grimness of war. Today we are sorting out the belongings of some of our fallen comrades and those who have been wounded. We’ve been driving their things around for a while and they have been soaked through with rain multiple times. Bags and backpacks are full of dirty clothes. I’m not sure anyone needs them.

I open one of the bags in the hope of finding documents or a name scribbled on the inside. I find a prayer book, a dirty towel, a notebook inscribed with pages of rap lyrics, a letter to Mum and Dad. The soldier who owned the bag was clearly a Russian speaker, but you can see from his writing that he was trying to switch to Ukrainian. He’s still not entirely fluent. I can’t make out his surname.

August 21st

The neighbouring village was hit by cluster munitions. Some of our guys were hurt. The artillery is getting louder with every passing day. There are reports of Russians nearby. We step up security on the checkpoints and add patrols.

I forgot to wish Mum a happy birthday yesterday. The days are merging into one.

August 23rd, morning

Raccoon wakes me in the middle of the night. “The order has arrived. We leave in two hours.”

We line up under the walnut trees. Raccoon reads out the formal combat order with all the jargon. Then he translates it into ordinary Ukrainian. We are being transferred to support another brigade and will arrive at our new position, on the front line north of Donetsk, at dusk. “Anybody who is not ready to follow the order, get out of line!” he says.

Two men step forward. Moses, predictably enough, is one of them. He’s the most problematic character in our company: always ill and grumpy at the best of times, and that’s when he’s not drinking. The other refusenik is Teacher. He’s one of the grown-ups among us. Teacher has three children under 18, so is not legally required to fight. He’s filed a request to be demobilised, which is entirely in his right.

We arrive at woodlands on the outskirts of town and wait. It’s almost daylight, but we’ve not been ordered to advance to our positions yet. The town wakes up before our eyes. Locals scurry around. There is no plumbed water here so people draw it from wells. They pass by on bicycles and carts. A woman approaches us. “Tell your bosses that I’m ready for any government,” she says, “as long as we don’t have war.” She keeps repeating it, like a mantra. Another man rides by on a bike. He’s talking on the phone. “The place is swarming with soldiers,” he says. To whom he is speaking, we don’t know. One soldier remarks that the locals who have stayed are clearly not rooting for Ukraine.

I try to sleep in the truck, but just as I nod off a girl approaches us. She’s crying and says that we have already been betrayed. She heard one of the townsfolk talking about our positions. I immediately hide all our equipment in the bushes and disperse the men. We’re almost invisible. Then – boom, boom, boom – the mortars start flying in. A few of them land nearby.

Raccoon arrives after lunch. He’s been trying to scope out our future position. His report isn’t encouraging. Our troops aren’t where we were told they would be. That part of the front line is under enemy fire from machineguns and small arms just a few hundred metres away. Raccoon says he’s already seen the body of one of our men.

The plan will have to change. Most likely, we’ll have to approach in small groups and drive the enemy out. Reconnaissance by fire. I thought it was just the Russians who did that. Only volunteers will go. I put myself forward, even though I’m filled with fear.

August 23rd, night

We get the order to move. It takes a while to gather the men together in the dark. They complain and squabble. “Our commanders are fucked in the head,” Vova shouts.

Incoming! A fiery hail of rockets lands just 70 metres from us. “To the ground!” I shout. The men scatter. As soon as the shelling stops, we jump into the trucks. We get lost several times in the dark, before reaching the designated point where our advance will begin.

My head isn’t working properly. I don’t understand what is happening, how it is happening, why it is happening

Someone has decided I will be in the rear guard, not leading from the front. The decision infuriates me. Still, I take a caffeine gel and try to focus, as I walk through the forest to gather my squad. I explain that we will advance and secure positions wherever we can. It’s not a full-on assault, I say, trying to reassure them.

The battalion commander asks me to report how many haven’t volunteered for the attack. Thirteen, I say. You can appreciate their reluctance. The guys don’t understand where they are going and are not ready to attack when the plan keeps changing.

August 24th, Ukrainian Independence Day

I speak to the fighters who don’t want to go. I’m nervous but I try to sound sure of myself. I’m honest with them, and admit that I’ve never been in a battle before. I just explain the plan, patiently and in detail, again and again. Believe me, this is not something that I do naturally.

At 5am I report to the chief sergeant of the battalion. My voice trembles with pride.

“Everyone is going,” I say.

“Wha—? Balls of fucking steel. How did you do it?”

“Happy Independence Day,” I reply.

We jump into the pickup trucks, and drive at full speed along roads pockmarked with missile craters. At our destination we quickly chuck out our gear. The less time our vehicles stay with us, the less likely we will be spotted by drones and therefore hit by enemy artillery. We break through the brambles and then wait in silence for further orders.

The advance group is being led by Contractor, a 21-year-old professional soldier from near Kharkiv in the north-east of the country on the border with Russia. They are about 600 metres ahead of us and have begun to establish their positions. Suddenly, I hear shelling and a barrage of missiles. The Russians are targeting the advance group. This is my first battle, but I can only hear and imagine what’s happening up ahead. The radio does not stop chattering. I think that everyone in that team must be wounded. A 4x4 that’s been turned into an ambulance drives past us back and forth.

Drones buzz overhead. My heart is pounding. I practise breathing exercises. “I lost my whole group,” says Contractor, whom I accompany as he retreats. His face is frozen. “I lost my whole group.”

We receive an order to establish a new position. I dig my first real trench, something I had only ever done before in the cadets at school. I didn’t get to practise this in officer training. Unsurprisingly, my one is ugly, oval and has uneven walls. I’m ashamed of myself when I come to inspect Chestnut’s effort. Before the war he worked as a decorator, and it shows. All he needs to do is put up some wallpaper, and he could rent it out for the price of a one-room apartment in suburban Kyiv.

I throw my sleeping mat down and stretch out hoping to get at least an hour’s sleep. I’m there for, at most, 15 minutes when the radio near my ear crackles repeatedly: “Forward, forward.” Other soldiers are replacing us, and we are being moved elsewhere on the line.

August 25th

I head out with Raccoon to scout our new position. We scuttle through a dense forest and fields, moving quickly so as not to be noticed. The Russians have been in control of this area since 2014. They know it like the backs of their hands.

Contractor heads out to meet some reconnaissance officers. They’ve been in the area for some time, so they will surely be able to tell us everything. But they don’t even show up for the meeting! They don’t answer calls. There isn’t a soul around. This war is a bullshit mess.

I return to pick up the rest of our men. The long column of soldiers resembles a line of ants. They are tired and walk slowly under the scorching sun. We don’t just have to consolidate our own position. Another unit is advancing into the forest ahead, and we have to send a group to support them, our commander says. My group doesn’t get far before coming under mortar fire. “Rollback! Rollback!” comes the order over the radio. Less than half return.

My head isn’t working properly. I don’t understand what is happening, how it is happening, why it is happening. I sit down to catch my breath. A mortar volley lands from the other side, trained on the positions taken by Contractor’s group. He returns with his men a minute later. They look frightened and are covered with earth and leaves. The machinegunner sits down next to me and starts vomiting. “I’ve two KIAs [men killed in action],” says Contractor. “Twin and Clover. Everything is burning.”

I ask for two volunteers to help evacuate the bodies. The other Twin is staring at me, dumbfounded. What can he be feeling right now? What is he thinking?

We reach Clover first. He’s lying on his chest with his hand underneath his head. He looks like he is resting. But his grey face is tinged with green. Neither Clover nor Twin had the time to dig a proper dugout.

I take pictures of the bodies, making sure it’s clear both were wearing the proper armour. Not that it helped in Twin’s case: the shrapnel pierced his helmet. I’ve heard stories of families who were denied compensation because they couldn’t prove their loved ones had protective gear on. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s better to be sure.

I try to avoid handling him in places from which he’s been bleeding, but it’s impossible. My trousers, body armour, shoes and gloves end up smeared with blood

I’ve never touched a dead person before, let alone carried one. Clover is tall and heavy. I try to avoid handling him in places from which he’s been bleeding, but it’s impossible. My trousers, body armour, shoes and gloves end up smeared with blood. A female medic called Bouncer arrives in a pickup to help with the evacuation. We load the bodies onto the truck. Their legs stick out as she drives away, leaving a puddle of blood on the tarmac.

I don’t feel much, just empty. Mechanically, I reach into my pocket for a biscuit. I realise I haven’t eaten for more than a day. I munch away without noticing I’m still wearing the same gloves I wore to handle the bodies.

Swish! Boom! I drop to the ground. Several missiles crack the earth near me. The soldier next to me seems to be shouting something, but I can’t understand a word. My hearing’s fucked. Medics rush to the scene. Blood is spurting from one man’s leg. They save his life with a tourniquet, but the leg will have to be amputated.

As the sun sets, fatigue catches up with me. My head gets heavier. My eyes start failing. I’ve heard you can get hallucinations from fatigue, but this is the first time it’s happened to me. At night, trees start looking like the graphics in a creepy version of the computer game “Minecraft”. I start to see outlines of people coming towards me. I hear them. I sense the branches crackling under their feet. I see Russian uniforms and assault rifles. I clench my teeth, close my eyes and shake my head – anything to make the visions disappear.

August 26th

My men are asking when we will be rotated out. We’ve done what was asked of us: consolidate a position. The battalion commander promises that replacements will arrive by 6pm, but I don’t believe it.

I’m pleasantly surprised, therefore, when, after lunch, a couple of guys emerge from foliage behind us. They look the part. Built like Rambo, they have the coolest helmets, headphones, and are filming everything on a GoPro video camera. The commander introduces himself as Tiger. “We’re supposed to be replacing you right now, but we decided that it would be more sensible to check things out beforehand,” he says. We agree that we’ll switch over at twilight, when the drones can’t spot us.

Tiger goes to inspect the unit alongside us – these men, too, are due to be replaced – and we prepare to retreat. A small group of us heads off to retrieve some machinegun ammunition. On the way back, we pass our neighbours’ observation point. They offer us coffee. It’s comforting to think that hospitality still exists, even on the battlefield.

Bang! Mortars hit the road ahead. We fall to the ground and run to the trenches. Then comes a second volley and a deafening third one. I hear someone screaming behind me. A soldier is holding his leg. I jump out of the trench and try to drag him into the pit. Now comes Russian rifle fire. Their assault has begun. We keep our heads down. We can’t see the Russians advancing but we hear reports of their movements over the radio.

I hear a Kalashnikov machinegun nearby. This is a very bad sign. My unit uses a German machinegun. It’s clear the Russians are already among us. We fire grenades in their direction, which seems to have the desired effect. Their assault peters out.

We check the battlefield. It is important not to move around in large groups, so we can’t all be ambushed at the same time. I head off by myself, though this means that I’m screwed if the Russians are lying in wait. Just a few hundred metres from my trench, I see a corpse, naked and face-down on the grass between two maple trees. I call out to some Ukrainian soldiers I see approaching from the opposite direction. Carefully, we step closer. Don’t move the corpse, we’d been taught, it could be mined. But I don’t have to be standing over it to see that it’s Tiger.

We drag Tiger away with a rope. The Russians didn’t have time to mine the body but they have taken his equipment. His GoPro included footage of our positions.

We won’t be rotated out that evening and the enemy has our co-ordinates. The men are understanding, but I still feel they blame me. I gave them my word, after all. Will we be lucky or not? I’m so tired that I don’t even have the strength to be afraid.

August 27th

Raccoon radios me at midnight and I make my way over to him. He is trying to look composed while clearly on his last legs. He tells me to collect the unit that is relieving us, the one that Tiger had led.

The rendezvous point is 5km away. We have to get there at night, while Russian reconnaissance teams are probing our positions. Not exactly a stroll in the park. Sumy, a short, good-natured guy with uneven teeth, volunteers to come with me. I plot a route along disused railway tracks and hope for the best. A pink moon is shining brightly. As I run, I try to land on the concrete sleepers so as not to twist my ankle.

We’re almost there. Just a steep descent and several hundred metres of forest to go. The foliage scratches my face and sharp branches slice through my trousers. The Moon illuminates our rendezvous point in the middle of a wheat field. Two black figures emerge from the shadows. I hiss the password to them, just like in the spy films. “Don’t celebrate just yet,” one of them replies. It’s Petrukha, a commander in the unit alongside ours. He’s here for the same reason as I am – to accompany a rotation to the front.

Don’t move the corpse, we’d been taught, it could be mined

After half an hour of standing around, a nervous voice whispers in the radio. We have a new rendezvous point, much closer to our original positions. We run back the way we came, exhausted, dripping with sweat and with an extra helping of scratches. No one is waiting for us at the new spot either. I’m damp and freezing. I wrap my arms around myself and try not to shiver.

When the new unit finally arrives at day break, I move them into position, group by group, doing my best to avoid the Russians’ attention. After a while incendiary shells start landing near the position we occupied. But I’m relieved. I’ve already got the last of my men out. Anyway, the field is so wet from the rain we’ve had recently that not even Armageddon could ignite it.

As we drive back, I look at myself in the wing mirror. A weatherbeaten figure looks back, smiling like a maniac. At the camp, I begin to feel a bit more human. A bowl of hot soup awaits me and I wash myself in cold water from a makeshift shower. My legs are bruised all over. My feet are cracked like honeycombs. There are ugly, white zits all over my shoulders and back. My helmet has left a deep furrow across my head.

It’s a six-hour car journey back to our brigade headquarters. We are taking Twin to attend his brother’s funeral. He’s sitting alongside me in the front seat.

“Why didn’t you tell me my brother was dead?” he asks placidly.

“I told you right away, when I was asking for help with evacuating the bodies.”

It turns out that Twin was so disoriented that he hadn’t realised what had happened. He had kept asking the guys where his brother was, and they just lowered their eyes.

August 28th

Our company is being redeployed. Raccoon doesn’t say where we are headed, but I have good sources. Over a dinner of falafel in my favourite local restaurant, Navigator tells me the battalion’s rear support has already been sent to the Kharkiv region. We’re headed there too.

Several of the bridges along our route have been blown up. Google Maps isn’t aware of this and so tries to get us to cross them. Heavy rain has washed away tracks through the forest, making them unusable. By trial and error, we reach our destination in the middle of a wood.

I don’t have the strength to unpack my sleeping bag so I fall asleep in the truck, under the pine trees. “What are we here to do?” I might have wondered, were I not so exhausted. ■

This diary has been edited and translated by Oliver Carroll, a foreign correspondent for The Economist

COLOUR IMAGES: SOLDIER’S OWN. ADDITIONAL IMAGES: Dmitri Beliakov/Eyevine, Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo, Metin Aktas/Getty, Chris McGrath/Getty, Celestino Arce/Shutterstock