Consider This from NPR - Boredom Followed By Unexpected Tragedy: A Ukrainian Soldier's Life At War

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Quote – "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." That statement, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the U-S Embassy, came two days after Russian missiles began raining down on his country two years ago.After weeks of speculation and warnings Russian President Vladimir Putin had declared war.Fueled by grit, patriotism and billions of dollars from the US, Ukraine has waged a fight no one expected they could. But nearly two years in that could be changing. US aid is stuck in Congress. This week, Russian forces captured their first city in 9 months. And that plea Zelensky made for ammunition in February 2022 – he's still making it. Ukraine has waged a war against Russia that has exceeded expectations. Can it continue to stand up to Russia if western aid doesn't come through?We get the view from the battlefield from a Ukrainian writer turned soldier.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

quote, the fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride. That statement from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the U.S. Embassy came two days after Russian missiles began raining down on his country. After weeks of speculation and warnings, Russian President Vladimir Putin had declared war. The same day Zelensky turned down the evacuation offer, he struck a defiant tone on the streets of Kyiv. We are all here. Our soldiers are here. The citizens are here. We defend our independence. That's how it'll go. The expectation was that the Russian assault would be quick, devastating and decisive,

that the Ukrainians would not be able to withstand the attack. Take this military expert interviewed on Sky News in the early days of the war. I think it's a bit early to draw conclusions about the success or otherwise of the Russian campaign. We're actually only four days into the conflict. I think it's possible that the Russians have some logistic issues, and it is likely that the Ukrainians are fighting back hard.

But I also think that at some point, it's likely that the Russians will take control of Kiev, but not without a fight. Today, Kiev has not fallen. Fueled by grit, patriotism, and billions of dollars from the U.S., Ukraine has waged a fight no one expected they could. But nearly two years in, that could be changing. U.S. aid is stuck in Congress. This week, Russian forces captured their first city in nine months,

and that plea Zelensky made for ammunition back in February of 2022, he's still making it. At the Munich security conference, Zelensky just linked losses on the battlefield directly to the lack of weapons. He's saying we don't have enough weapons, especially enough long-range weapons, and Russia has them. That's why our main weapon today is our soldiers and our people. Consider this. Ukraine has waged a war against Russia that has exceeded expectations. Can it continue to stand up to Russia if Western aid does not come through? Coming up, we check in with a Ukrainian writer turned soldier. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Thursday, February 22nd. It's Consider This from NPR. Back in 2022, a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, I called a Ukrainian man named

Artem Chompai. He's a writer and had just become a soldier, a private, fighting in the Ukrainian army. We caught him on a break, sitting under a tree. You could hear shelling behind him as we spoke. And I asked whether he was managing to get any writing done. Well, to be honest, today was a hard day. I can't go into details. You just are afraid at this animal level where your stomach hurts. You're just afraid for your own life, and you don't know if you will survive. I tried writing something like war diaries, but I'm not sure I basically stopped it. Since that interview two years ago, I have wondered about Artem Chapae, how he was getting on. So today, we called him again. Hello.

Hi, Artem. It's Mary Louise in Washington. Hello, Mary Louise. Hello. Nice talking to you again. And to you again. I can't believe it's been two years. Yeah, me neither. Yeah. How are you doing?

At the moment, better than before, I would say. Yeah. Artem, I'm so glad to speak with you again. Where are you, can you say? Well, as usual, it's unadvisable to say the exact location, but I can say that at the moment I'm back from the front lines. So at the moment I'm in a safe place. Okay. And you're in Ukraine? Sure. I've been in Ukraine all this time. I was able to get out several times,

but generally I've been serving these two years. Have you seen combat? I mean, tell me what you've been doing. I can now talk more or less freely about what I have been doing in a previous unit. I was in the military police, including in Donetsk region. So basically, it's not fighting, it's patrolling. And it's very different. Like, as I'm trying to watch, like, Hollywood blockbusters now, I understand how different they are from the reality basically what war was for me is it's like routine and sometimes even boring and then unexpected tragedy the worst thing that happened was when my best friend was killed by Russians

in August and I was of, pretty much depressed after that. And I can say that I have been working with a psychotherapist for a year now, and I have been on antidepressants for half a year. Well, basically, since my friend died. Yeah, there's nothing good about war. Nothing good about war. No, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. Were you with him? We were about half a kilometer apart at the moment. So I saw the first rocket and I ran away to the shelter. And then I heard the second rocket.

And at the moment, I didn't know about it, but he was killed by that second rocket. And what I feel sorry about is that at the time, I didn't come up and hug him. Of course, I didn't know it would be his last mission. Yeah, I know it's irrational, but I feel pretty sorry that I didn't show my love for the last time. Yeah. As you say, how could you know? Yeah, yeah, of course, I couldn't know, but still, it's in my mind for the last time. Yeah. As you say, how could you know? Yeah, yeah, of course I couldn't know, but still, it's in my mind all the time. Yeah. Have you managed to get any writing done at all since I spoke to you a couple of years ago? Well, I tried several times because there are periods of time when you pretty much have a lot of leisure which is forced upon you.

But fiction didn't work somehow. However, about a year ago, I took two or three weeks. I was then basically on checkpoints. And so between shifts, I was able to write and I wrote a short nonfiction book basically about this war or rather about the motivations of people to fight and not to flee and this book has been published in France now and I believe it's being translated into English by Seven Stories Press. What's it titled? In French it's titled if I translate it into English it's titled something like ordinary people don't carry machine guns because it's titled, if I translate it into English, it's titled something like,

Ordinary People Don't Carry Machine Guns, because it's about civilians who were forced to become soldiers. So it's autobiographical on a certain level. I would say it's partly about me and my family and my motivation, but largely it's about my, well, we call ourselves brothers. There's a Ukrainian word on the front lines, scanning your phones for news on whether the U.S. Congress here in Washington is going to send more money, more weapons to the war. Yeah, I have a feeling that Ukrainians follow this news from the United States more closely than Americans do, because it's very important for us. Like, I wasn't in Avdiivka at the time when it happened, like lately. This is the town, the city that Russia just took. Go on. Yeah, so I was very close to Avdiivka until basically November 2023.

And already at the time I was surprised that we are still holding this. And I feel that partly it may be because of the lack of or the delays in sending ammunition. So at the moment we were near FDFCO, we were really hoping that at least, well, this may sound egoistical, but we were hoping that at least it will be held until we are redeployed to the rear. Because it was scary already like half a year ago or three months ago. So I'm actually rather surprised that we were able to hold it for so long. And this is great what these guys were doing. And yeah, I was like maybe 20 kilometers to the rear and we were scared.

Do you still believe in your heart that Ukraine will win this war? You know, as I'm trying to philosophize and think about history, I don't remember any other, any precedent when an empire lost its colony and then regained it back. I don't know, maybe this is wishful thinking, but I think the historical tide is on our side, something like this. Last question. When you and I spoke a couple of years ago at the beginning of the war, we talked about how beautiful your country is. You'd written about Ukraine, you described it as unimaginably beautiful. Do you maintain hope your country will be beautiful again, that you'll be able to describe it that way in your writing, and it will be true. For me personally, it has become even more beautiful after what's happened, because I remember pretty well that when the war was just starting, a lot of people,

including in Ukraine, thought that we would collapse in just a few weeks or months. And I must say that I was one of those. I thought that I would be like forced to become a guerrilla fighter. And the fact that hundreds of thousands, like I think half a million people actually went in the first days and volunteered in the army. It makes it even more beautiful for me now. So I realized that not everybody, but there are a lot of real people among my people. We've been speaking with Ukrainian writer and soldier Artem Chapa. Thank you, Artem. Be well. Thank you for inviting me again. This is an honor for me. And thanks to most of the American people for all the support that you have given to us. That was Ukrainian soldier and writer Artem Chapa. This episode was produced by Erica Ryan and Karen Zamora with audio engineering by Kwesi Lee.

It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.