The Flag

The armored personnel carrier sped along the dirt road, bouncing over bumps like an eager hooker. Vasiliy sat next to the metal doors at the back of the vehicle, gripping the cold metal handle. The early mornings in Eastern Ukraine were brutally cold this February. He clutched his AKM in the other hand as if it were a magic wand that could protect him from what lay ahead.

“Are you pissing yourself already?” call sign Bochka (which means “barrel” in Russian), a heavy-set guy who used to work as a butcher in a Siberian village before the draft separated him from his wife and two young daughters, asked him. “Don’t you worry, we’re all dead meat here.”

Vasiliy didn’t look at him; he noticed his hands sweating and his knees shivering, as if the Ukrainian cold had seeped under his body armor and padded jacket.

The APC kept moving forward, but now the sounds of the barely functioning engine coughing and groaning were replaced by the rhythmic staccatos of machine guns and the occasional whine of stray bullets zipping past outside the steel shell of the vehicle. Vasiliy kept asking himself why the fuck he had believed the recruitment officer when he said they were being drafted into the territorial defense units, far from the front lines. But then again, when did his Motherland ever care about honesty? The elections were a joke, the politicians were a bunch of greedy fucks. His whole life, he had been stepped on and treated like no one. And now he had the order to attack waste heap number 5 near the coal-mining town of Avdiivka, in Eastern Ukraine, and to put the Russian tricolor flag on top.

The APC kept moving forward, but now the sounds of the barely functioning engine coughing and groaning were replaced by the rhythmic staccatos of machine guns and the occasional whine of stray bullets zipping past outside the steel shell of the vehicle. Vasiliy kept asking himself why the fuck he had believed the recruitment officer when he said they were being drafted into the territorial defense units, far from the front lines. But then again, when did his Motherland ever care about honesty? The elections were a joke, the politicians were a bunch of greedy fucks. His whole life, he had been stepped on and treated like no one. And now he had the order to attack waste heap number 5 near the coal-mining town of Avdiivka, in Eastern Ukraine, and to put the Russian tricolor flag on top.

“Everybody, out, out, out,” shouted the unit leader. Vasiliy’s comrades hurriedly crawled outside through the back doors, stepping over those who were alive just a minute ago. Then the unit leader’s face appeared in front of shell-shocked Vasiliy. He was shouting something at him, but soon realized that Vasiliy was deafened and pushed him outside.

The battlefield was a hellish landscape filled with craters from artillery shells, and groups of soldiers seeking phantom refuge in these craters. Most were lying on heaps of their fallen comrades, with new ones crawling over them and dying as their winter uniforms were pierced by relentless machine gun fire from the defended positions on the slope of the waste heap. Vasiliy grabbed the flag that he had to carry across to the top of the heap, where Ukrainians were mercilessly repelling the attackers.

He thought of his family, of his childhood dreams for a second. “How did it come to this?” he wondered as he crumbled to the side of the APC. There was a quiet whining noise coming from somewhere above. Vasiliy looked up and saw a drone carrying hand grenades. It positioned itself right above the APC. There were audible clicks, and grenades were detached from the drone. Vasiliy dropped the flag and began sobbing like a child. The explosion quickly ended his endless sadness.