By: Derick Zhang
In late February, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine. From that period to now they have already lost 5,185 soldiers. And this seems to only be the beginning of this bloody war.
With 15,000 soldiers lost, this means that 15,000 letters have been sent to friends and family, and as people do, anger, sadness, agony and the thought that ‘Will I ever see them again? ’ exploded inside their mind. Many of these people were just like any other person, they had a job. They were living a life, then suddenly they have an AK-47 in their hands, and they hear gunshots the screams of fallen comrades. Then, the world goes black, and no one know where they go next. These families are aware of that, and they can’t contain their emotions and these very people are the people Russians are afraid of. Because if these people’s stories are leaked into the world, Russia’s government could be in trouble. Only they could even see their loved one’s grave because the Russian Government is not authorizing public memorials for the dead, in fear that it would down the moral and would lower the people joining the Russian armed forces.
There are already many sad stories shared by the families of these fallen soldiers. For example, 24-year-old man Yevgeny Chubarin told his mother he was joining the fight for the Russians. In May 15, he was on the way to the front line with only 4 days of training and was killed the next day. Another example is Vladimir Krot a 59-year-old Soviet-trained pilot, a retired Afghanistan war veteran and repeatedly asked the Russian government until finally. He was sent to fight, and he died in his SU-25 jet that went down during a training flight just days after he was let into the Russian Armed Forces.
These are only 2 of the 5,000 casualties and many of these families stayed quiet, in fear that their own country would hunt for them, but some defied the authorities and told their stories, loud and proud. Yevgeny Chubarin’s mother said she cried and begged him not to go. She said “He knew it was dangerous” he left on May 11, sending happy goodbye messages and videos. “That was it. That was the last time we spoke,” she said. The military told her he was found dead near Mariupol on May 16. “He was a very brave guy, was not afraid of anything.
He was so cheerful and open and so kind.” Sergei Dustin’s daughter, Alexandra became a widow at 19 when her husband was killed as a Marine. He was furious and shared his pain on Facebook, he said “massacre started by crazy old men who think they are great geopoliticians and super strategists, incapable, in fact, of anything but destruction, threats against the world, puffing out their cheeks and endless lies.”
These stories have spread over the internet like wildfire and these people have put themselves at risk just to have their stories to the world. If the Russian people believe what these few brave people have to say, then that could end the war a lot sooner. Maybe no one else has to experience what they did.