A small room with a king-size bed, red wine in disposable cups. We’re on vacation. My husband and I are talking. I am lucky that my husband is really interested in my opinion. Especially when I’m shocked. Shocking news catches you even on vacation. Sometimes you’re not ready to get it, understand it or absorb it.
My old acquaintance Sergey*(a Russian man about my age) shared his opinion.
I was appalled by learning it, but … this is a different opinion, and it has a right to exist.
Sergey called it: The aspirations of the future soldier
I know what war is. I served a mandatory military duty and got into the heat of the 90s. The collapse of the USSR and the slaughter on all fronts, including Afghanistan.
I lost 4 toes, but none of us ran or hid.
War is not always a massacre, it’s more a job.
One is fighting, and at least 5 are serving/helping him.
We are not eager to go to war, but we will not run away from it. There are many like me.
Our country has been trampled into shit, and we have to fight.
My wife left me because I dress out of fashion and don’t take her out to a restaurant.
Half of Moscow (population) is like that.
When the war is over, a new stratum of society will appear and we will beat the crap out of all the golden youth and pacifists.
I’m tired of watching how everyone wants to live without working, how they take bribes and deceive people.
I’m tired of living for this.
It’s time to live for the idea.
Maybe I won’t see it, but it’s ok. So it will be.
I hope that the war will also affect the Baltic States, these cringing Europeans.
Well, I hope that Europe will understand that you can’t anger the Russian bear.
And you won’t believe ,Elena, pacifists and golden youth will come to war, and they will become patriots when they taste all the delights of war.
And pseudo-patriots in the war will also show their true faces and will be worse than the former golden youth.
The war will show everyone who is who.
I asked: what are you going to fight for? Ukraine is defending itself, but what about Russia?
It’s all advertising.
Nobody knows the truth.
But when they told me that Russia was the aggressor, I said that in any case I would be on Russia’s side, even if it was wrong.
When NATO bombed Serbia, Libya, and Iraq, the Americans were not against their country.
Do you think we will go against Russia?
That’s when US citizens speak out against US aggression against other countries, then we’ll talk.
I really don’t know what will happen next, but Russia has gone through even more difficult times.
Although it may be sold and betrayed.
Then we will live in sold Russia. Let’s see what will happen in a year.
In the war, they pay $4,000**. Whereas the usual salary is $500 (per month)***
On the same day, my sister sent me voice messages.
She said her brother-in-law has been mobilized, and another brother-in-law is getting ready for it. So I also asked her opinion. That’s what she said:
I have a twofold feeling. On the one hand, there are people to protect. When they show on TV how children die under bombing, that’s scary. The people (4 Regions) have joined Russia, we need to help them. On the other hand, I worry about our own, those who will be taken to the front. It should be professionals instead.
The mobilized brother-in-law doesn’t have his cell phone. Men are allowed to have push-button phones without the internet. He managed to send a couple of photos to his wife from someone’s phone. Hopefully after the paperwork is properly done, he will return home. There is a big mess right now in the military enlistment offices.
In the end, here’s what I saw on the Russian state TV.
In the news they showed 30-40-50-year-old men going to the military enlistment office. They came there on the order of the army, came quite calmly: we do what we have to do. Just like my acquaintance Sergey.
Here is a photo of a peaceful sky. Feel free to leave comments. I need to go and do something positive.
*I have a rule that if a Russian person asks me about America, I’m trying to find an answer. How else can people from other countries get information? It was how I met Sergey.
**The government promises to pay.
*** The average salary of the Moscow region. I don’t think it’s the same in Buryatia, for example.
