the price of moving forward

The days are growing shorter, the nights colder, and the air reeks of smoke and steel. The 11th Army is grinding forward, meter by meter. The Moravian-Silesian horizon is already in sight, and the Czech border seems within arm’s reach. To someone at headquarters far in the rear, this might look like a successful advance on a map, but down here we know the true cost of this push. We are paying for it in blood. An outrageously steep price.

I see it every day. I see the faces of lads who were still joking by the field kitchen yesterday and are no longer with us today. My heart aches in particular when I go through casualty reports from units formed predominantly of our Turkic brothers. Bashkirs, Chuvash, my fellow Tatars… Entire companies vanishing in a storm of fire. These aren’t just figures in a spreadsheet. They are our sons, fathers, keepers of our traditions and languages. Every fallen soldier from these smaller nations is a blow straight to the very heart of their culture. It is a loss that will echo through these communities for generations. Entire villages back home are dying out from afar.

And then there is another matter troubling me. I see some of our soldiers trying to take shelter and rest in the abandoned homes and apartments of locals. I understand the longing for a bit of warmth and a roof overhead after a month spent in the mud of a trench. But listen to me carefully, you young lads, and those of you with combat experience alike.

First, it is a mortal danger. Those who fled didn’t leave keys under the doormat out of love for us. Expect booby traps anywhere—in the bed, the fridge, behind the door. NATO and local partisans will stop at nothing. Walking into someone else’s apartment is walking into a trap.

Second, and for me far more important, it is deeply unworthy of the legacy of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet Army I remember so well. When the Soviet soldier liberated Europe from Nazism, he slept under the open sky, in a dugout, or in his own tent. He was not a looter or a parasite making himself comfortable in private civilian homes. We are fighting a just war, not a raid. Our strength must stem from our resilience and discipline, not from hiding in other people’s beds.

If we want to respect ourselves, and if we want future generations to respect us—especially those from our smaller nations bleeding so heavily out here—we must maintain our dignity. Fight hard, but remain human. Our path to the border is paved with immense sacrifices; do not debase them with conduct beneath the standards of a true soldier-liberator.