90% of men in the Donbas are in uniform. That informal statistic, which I have only as hearsay, is probably not too far from fact. Almost everyone you meet, apart from the aged and the very young, is in camouflage fatigues.
It is generally accepted that there are too few men in the Ukrainian army to repel the huge numbers which Russia sends into the fray. Call-up for military service has been extended to the age of 60, so now, apart from the elderly, all Ukrainian men are expected to serve. There is no conscientious objector status; you are required to fight, whatever your scruples. Few exceptions are made, and even those who are normally non-combatant, like chaplains, are expected to fight when needs must. One of our associates in Borova, Andrei, was involved in a bad car crash and as a consequence of his injuries is hardly able to walk. He pointed this out when he received his call-up papers, but the reply was, “you can still hold a gun, so we need you”.
Because the army is under-resourced for manpower, soldiers get little leave, and you can see fatigue deeply etched into some faces. However, the fact that they are fighting for their own land and for their families and homes is an enormous motivating factor which does not apply to the Russians. They rely on people from distant parts of their country and its satellites, and even from other states, for whom this war can have little personal meaning.
One soldier, a platoon leader, whom we spoke to, said that the fact that Ukraine and Russia are neighbouring states might suggest that the two armies have similar cultures, but they don’t. He said, when our trench has been attacked, and things have calmed down, I get everyone to help clear away the bodies and the bits of bodies, and try to get back to normal, because the men need to feel that our environment is decent. But when we over-run a Russian position, we find that the same does not apply there. There are heaps of bodies, and bones, and decay. It’s awful. Their commanders just don’t care.
It's tempting to say that decency is at stake in this war. However, you can’t simply lay claim to the moral high ground by generalising, because there are variations between battalions on the Russian side. Some are, indeed, brutal, as the atrocities at Izium and elsewhere testify; but others are not.
The son of one of our team is fighting near Kostyantynivka. One day, he was out on patrol in his vehicle when it broke down. He left it, and made his way back to his unit on foot. That night, he went with a comrade in a second vehicle, to recover the one that had broken down. The Russians caught them, and searched both vehicles, which they found to contain ammunition and mines. They set them on fire, and the ammunition began to explode, spectacularly. The two Ukrainian soldiers stood by under guard, deeply apprehensive about what would happen to them, but whilst everyone was watching the fireworks show, their guard said, “Go home now, go quickly, go quietly”. So they did, and lived to tell the tale.
There are also stories on the Ukrainian side about how the ethnically Russian, Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Donbas, who have been pursuing independence for a long time in uprisings that long predate Russia’s ‘special military operation’, have changed their position now that they have seen the effects of Russian forces in action. Many places behind their front line are utterly devastated.
Combat, and the ever-present threat of attack takes a severe psychological toll, as can be imagined. One of its worst aspects concerns those who have killed in the course of their duties, and now find it hard to live with themselves. Many feel themselves to be in a state of mortal sin. The despair involved needs a pastoral approach to address and overcome, but unfortunately the Ukrainian army has a limited system of chaplaincy, in which the chaplain is less available to individuals. To compound this, there are too few chaplains. So, the care that is actually delivered to the troops is not in the depth that is required. We have asked ourselves what can be done about this, but of course we are limited to the fringe of the military, supplying Bibles, and praying with those we encounter.
This picture was taken on a previous mission into Ukraine by
our colleagues from One Step Towards Salvation.
It’s difficult to expand such occasions, because the Russians have good information systems, and if they thought there was going to be an assembly of any sort, they might target it. For that reason, we are very careful and sparing about what we publish in advance; we put nothing on social media because it is monitored. We also have to choose meeting places so that they are less obvious to reconnaissance drones.
Those few words, “praying with those we encounter” are for me the abiding lesson of our trip. Material aid is important; raising morale through visiting and expressing solidarity with those who suffer is very important; but the power of prayer to reconcile the uneasy and self-doubting to God, and its ability to unite and reassure all involved is irreplaceable. What can be done on our fleeting visits is hugely helpful, but we need to mobilize more resources within Ukraine, to make more of a consistent presence, and minimize language problems. It’s a challenge. We have an associate in Borova, a small town that was bombed and part-evacuated. We have the use of a house there. I wonder if this resource could be expanded as a hub for a local effort.
© James Mather, Sept 2024
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