Killing in war

We are human beings. The Sixth Commandment and so on. Although... in the Sixth Commandment, the Lord God forbids not only murder, that is, taking the life of another person, but also taking one's own life (suicide) in any way. And when you do not kill the enemy in war, it is tantamount to suicide. Because the enemy will not hesitate to take advantage of your hesitation and will definitely put a bullet in you at the first opportunity, or throw a grenade, or both, especially when it comes to these bastards in dirty green uniforms with the letter 'z'. 

It seems that this has already been written and rewritten, but in every war, everyone decides for himself. But only once, and once you have made up your mind and taken up arms to defend your homeland, all hesitation is gone. The law of war is either you kill or you are killed. And then it is already at the level of reflex, sometimes even one movement in the right direction, in the direction of the enemy, is enough.

“Once you have decided to take up arms to defend your homeland, all hesitation is gone. The law of war is either you or them. And then it is already at the level of reflex, sometimes even one movement in the right direction, in the direction of the enemy, is enough.”

These thoughts were prompted by what I heard from my neighbor in the morning.

“…Today, another thousand!” he said from the bench under the walnut tree, when I was just leaving the entrance.

But it was not to me, it was to the 'taxi driver'. She did work as a taxi driver once, then she went to her daughter's house in Italy or America, but she came back before the full-scale invasion and has been here ever since.

“A thousand and twenty,” she clarified. 

“...and four tanks, and twenty armored personnel carriers…” the neighbor added. “Armored combat vehicles,” he deciphered in the tone of an expert.

My neighbors, and probably not only them, now often begin their morning dialog by recounting the statistics of Russian invaders killed in the previous day and their destroyed equipment. It's almost like having a morning coffee.

“It's not enough,” the taxi driver summarized, “there was more.”

“Wait, the Russians are also…” the neighbor began, maybe even saying something in their defense, but never finished his sentence.

Apparently, he remembered his many years of traveling to Moscow to work and the fact that because of this he now lacks the length of service to retire, and he told me about the years he wasted. And he cannot forgive them for this, as well as for many other things, not to mention the war.

“The habit of seeing every morning three or four-digit numbers of Russian soldiers killed per day is not only a good immunization for many years against their deceptive 'brotherhood' for us, but also an instructive warning for them and for all others who wish to 'repeat'”

And I also thought that the habit of seeing, every morning, three or four-digit numbers of Russian soldiers killed per day is not only a good immunization for many years against their deceptive 'brotherhood' for us, but also an instructive warning for them, and for everyone else who wants to 'repeat'. And maybe if we had succeeded in doing this a century ago, at least after Kruty, then all these years Russians would have been ‘blowing on the cold water’ and would have thought a hundred times before messing with Ukrainians again.

Special for Espreso

About the author: Oleksandr Vilchynskyi, writer and journalist. In 2016-2017, he volunteered and fought as a private in the 1st Detached Assault Company of the Ukrainian Air Force.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.