I don't know what those who go to their deaths feel

The story of Vitalii Skakun is very painful for me. He was a sapper of the engineering and demining unit of a detached battalion of the 35th Marine Brigade named after Rear Admiral Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi.

Vitalii Skakun was killed on February 24. He was blowing up the Henichesk road bridge to stop the advance of a tank column of Russian troops. One of the most difficult places during the defense of Ukraine was the Crimean Isthmus.

Vitalii mined an important strategic facility, but he did not have time to leave. He was only able to call and managed to report that he was blowing up the bridge. There was an explosion immediately after that.

Vitalii Skakun died on the first day of the war. He was 25 years old.

You see, the man almost deliberately went to his death! He was a military man who took an oath and fulfilled it in full.

He didn't have a salary of 100,000 or 65,000 hryvnias. Maybe he had about 10,000 at the time. There was not supposed to be a war. Western intelligence was bluffing, and they were ruining our economy. That's why we f*cked up the work of military factories and switched them to a 2-day workweek. That's why we f8cked up the production of Neptunes and Harpoons.

“He didn't have a salary of 100,000 or 65,000 hryvnias. Maybe he had about 10,000 at the time. There was not supposed to be a war. Western intelligence was bluffing, and they were ruining our economy. That's why we f*cked up the work of military factories and switched them to a 2-day workweek. That's why we f*cked up the production of Neptunes and Harpoons.”

Now we are killing ourselves arguing about what to do with the military's extra payments. Those who are concerned about the country's economy are right, of course. The economy is about the same as the preparation for the war.

People criticize that UAH 65,000 for civil servants is too little. Because we don't care about the elite. Because the laws are such that you definitely break them in the civil service, and then you won't have enough for a lawyer. Because the savings are not enough even for 1 day of war. Because then the government officials will throw everything to hell and leave your civil service.

Many reasonable and fair arguments. The calculation. Counting. Everything is clear and weighty. I believe.

And then I start thinking. UAH 65,000 for a country at war seems to be not so little. Of course, it's hard to maintain a 650-square-meter house and run a Mercedes-Benz for that kind of salary.

But people write to me that it's hard to be honest for such a sum. If the state does not pay, there is always someone who pays instead of the state and gives tasks instead of the state.

That is, officials can only be tied to their official duties by exorbitant salaries and bonuses? Even when the country to which you also took an oath of office is bleeding to death at war?

“People write to me that it is difficult to be honest for such a sum. If the state doesn't pay, there is always someone who pays instead of the state and gives tasks instead of the state. You mean that officials can only be tied to their duties by exorbitant salaries and bonuses? Even when the country to which you also took an oath of office is bleeding to death at war?”

Well, thousands of little-known persons should die for free. Because it's our duty, our Constitution, and we have to save Ukraine.

And they are saving it. Hundreds of thousands of unknown people. When we sent humanitarian cargo to Kharkiv in the first 2 months, for example, the Nova Poshta (Ukrainian delivery service - ed.) drivers went not because they were paid outrageous salaries, but because they had to, because they knew that no one else would do it but them.

And when our trains flew through the night and saved our people, it was not for their salaries that our railway workers did it.

Did you know, for example, that 54 employees of Ukrainian Railways were killed in just one month of the war? They didn't have UAH 65,000 in salary.

Yes, yes, the responsibility is different, not like officials. Officials have a scale! And here, there are little people who change the bedding and wake you up at your station. Yes, 100 people were squeezed into a place where 18 people had always traveled. But it didn't last long, did it? What is there to remember now?

It all tears me up. Something is going on with us. It's not right.

Source

About the author. Zoya Kazanzhy, journalist.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.