Beliy and mysha [mousy]

Why the weather is fighting on our side.

Ukrops’ Telegrams have been reporting on an invasion of mice in the trenches for the past few weeks. The question was even asked during a live broadcast. I wasn’t particularly interested in this topic, so I responded by stating that our soldiers are not sitting in the trenches now. They go forward; therefore, I don’t know anything about the mice invasion yet. But the other day, the 1st battalion's Deputy Commander, Beliy, came to Monakh’s dugout with a bandaged thumb.

- Can you imagine, comrade commander, I was sleeping and when I woke up, there was a mousy sitting on my hand and eating my finger, it tored out a piece of meat...

A person who is living in war and witnessing everything with his own eyes will dive into the abyss of informations after hearing this short phrase. For example, the one who is living a normal life and can afford the luxury of eight hours of regular uninterrupted sleep, cannot imagine how it is possible – a mouse is eating one’s finger, but the person continues to sleep. I will try to describe that, but we will have to start from the very distant beginning.

Beliy was recently awarded the title of Hero of the DPR. Those who follow our project know that we often filmed Andrey. Here it is on the poster under this material. He is only 28 years old, he has been fighting for almost 10 years. Since the age of 19. He started out as a simple private. All over the front fate took him, but then, at the beginning of the SMO, he ended up in the first battalion of Slavyanka [First Slavic Guards Brigade], with the heroic battalion commander Misha Shaman (I also photographed him often last year). Beliy became first a platoon commander, then a company commander. Now here is the deputy battalion commander for combat work. And for a reason.

In early September there was a strong attack on the battalion’s armored group. A car with mines was hit, "PeeMs" got scattered throughout the base. “PeeM” is such a nasty thing for remote mining, it sticks into the ground and is ready to explode even with a blow of wind. And these little deadly surprises got scattered throughout the burning base. The people naturally fled and began shouting that everything had burned down - no one dared to go inside the flames overwhelmed territory, and check what happened in person, as the place was thickly seeded with PeeMs and fire was blazing everywhere. Beliy arrived together with Normulj. They sneaked past the mines into the hangars, and it turned out that there were mostly passenger cars that got damaged, but the armored vehicles had survived. As a result, Beliy personally brought out six “behs” [BMPs] and “motolygs” [MT-LB – multipurpose, tracked armored fighting vehicles] through mines and fire. The funniest thing of all is that before that day Beliy had never driven an armored vehicle and didn’t even know how to start it.

This guy knows how to fight. And that’s why the battalion’s combat work is under his leadership, even though he isn’t in his thirties yet. This means every day and night, morning, or evening. In a word, at any appointed time, he takes his drone and rushes somewhere forward, to the very front line, beyond zero. Sometimes walking, sometimes crawling. The infantry crawls forward, and he sits three hundred meters behind and commands the work from his drone. Who is supposed to run where artillery strikes, where tanks drive up. And then after the battle, he oversees the evacuation of the wounded, personally meets them, and leads the consolidation group. Or vice versa, if everything went to shit - the infantry retreat, covering them with fire... and if everything is okay, then he will definitely climb into the recaptured positions, will be carefully rummaging around there and interrogating the captives. Then he walks around the no longer used positions near Vodyanoye and Opytnoye - the battalion went ahead, leaving some stuff behind and Beliy collects ownerless radios and unloading equipment. And, in general, everything that might be of use in their work. Fighters tend to forget a lot in the heat of battle – they can throw things away, for example, the equipment of the wounded - they will grab weapons of course, but will easily unfasten everything else and leave it right there… But Beliy tries to retrieve all that. Combat is still howling two hundred meters away, but Beliy, who spent all night planning and commanding, is crawling through the trenches together with the soldiers, collecting the abandoned belongings. Of course, this task better suites the company commander, but he is still in the heat of the fight, together with his company. And Beliy, as an experienced one, clearly understands, that in a day or two, some other, as prudent as him will come and collect all that stuff. Because it’s war, and war cannot be done without skills, and this skill will be grown by everyone, sooner or later, just like bristle. After returning to the rear, Beliy debriefs the combat with battalion commander, but then goes to the brigade for a general review. Then – task setting for the next night, then he must manage to check everyone’s weapons, and only after that, if lucky enough, he can get couple of hours sleep. But not for long – as when darkness comes, Beliy will definitely trample to the front line again, to “purloin the equipment” - as he calls evacuation of damaged armored vehicles.

And so, it goes on day by day. The brigade is working and there is not time for sleep. And it’s like that not only for Beliy, but for everyone around. While Beliy was presenting his finger to Monakh - deputy brigade commander, right here, on Leonydych’s cot, battalion commander Typhoon was sitting with his back against to the wall – hard to tell was he sleeping or not. The head hung on the chest, the eyes were closed, hand, which fell limply on the blue military blanket, held the walkie-talkie, where the battalion continued to fight. Typhoon snores, then, without opening his eyes or raising his hand, he presses the tangent and speaks in a loud, sprightly voice, the tangent unclenches and without the slightest pause the snoring resumes.

This is how they fight – those thirty years old boys-in-command. Without sleep. Because war never sleeps, and the battalion stays awake too, along with it. But battalion commander, despite being a living human and having natural obligation to sleep, does his best to comply. What are other options, if at any moment everything may go such a belly-up, if comrade commander overlooks… In a nutshell, he has no time to sleep, as well as everyone else in the battalion. That’s why they don’t sleep, only somehow manage to close their eyes in between.

The evening before I used to witness a scene in one of the command points: Hermes – 4th batallion’s commander, Den – commanders of the “Storms” – both are of a good bear size, square shaped, therefore pretty stable, were sitting in front of each other behind maps-covered table and tried to overseeing each other. Normal life of combat control point was swirling around - the walkie-talkies were shouting, guys were smoking continuously and shouting back. From time to time the commanders [of the battalion], stopped snoring at a very precise moment and gave short order, and then turned on snoring regime again. It looked like some sophisticated musical part - suite, simphony, even damn rhapsody. To be honest – something unknown, but still, solo of those two was very harmonious and somehow meaningful.

This is how the war looks like. So, my dear reader, now when you hear: “our troops have seized control over another enemy strongpoint”, you know what lies beneath this phrase. Just like a fact, that a mouse can be calmly eating 28 years old warchief’s finger without him even noticing that. In a minute he will jump up, shake the nasty beast off and will rush to fight further. And he will crack jokes along at the same time. Yes, dear reader, provided that these warchiefs lack sleep they all are very concentrated. And they always have strength for a joke in store. Our warriors are like that. Their humor is quite specific, not everyone can understand, still, it’s humor.

And, in the end I must mention the weather. As it turns out that this finger story is about the weather too. Or, it looks like our commanders are very capable of cooperating with it. When I saw Beliy’s finger, I remembered the mice and went to sage Google for answer. And I found out that loads of cheeky mice in the autumn are the main sign of a harsh winter. Just like now. And I remembered winter and spring of 2022 again. Beginning of SMO at the end of February seemed illogical. It’s the South. Long, early and warm Spring is ahead and it will be already slushy in March – conditions far from ideal for a fight. But, on the contrary, untypical chills remained here until May holidays [1st to 9th of May] and then sudden heat emerged, without any “rasputica” [thaw]. And our troops have very much advanced thanks to it. As if they knew. And now it happens again.

Ukrops [Ukrainians] were waiting for a thaw like it was manna from heaven, hoping that it would allow them to quit their “counteroffensive” and have a rest, while mud holds our troops. But the autumn turned out to be unbelievably warm, no “rasputica” is to be seen and we go on fighting as we were. But now mice are predicting harsh winter. And we are very good in making war at wintertime. So, there are two options: either the weather is on our side or our commanders are pretty good at getting on with it. Except for dumb ukies.

A thought suddenly crossed my mind – if the weather sided with us, then the God is on our side too. Right? So, that’s the story behind one mouse-bitten deputy battalion commander’s finger.