The prayer of a five-year-old girl for her father, a Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine: “Lord, give her a cool tent and a great grenade launcher”
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Valeria, replaying the dialogue with her husband:
Every day, Valeria wakes up at 5.00, to take her daughter to the kindergarten and arrive on time at the brick factory, where she works. More painful is the evening, when he reunites with the little one, Olga.
“Lord, save Daddy!”
“He’s only five years old, but he’s affected by the situation. Now the child is praying before bed. ‘God, save my father. Give him a cool tent and a great grenade launcher,’ explains the mother, worried about how her daughter is growing up without a father.
After President Vladimir Putin declared partial mobilization on October 21, 2022, countless reports emerged of the Russian military’s modest endowments.
The fact that the military equipment is outdated was confirmed by a retired Russian colonel, Mikhail Hodarionok, who declared: “Our mobilized soldiers have been receiving helmets since 1941 and a wound from the same era, and that’s not good at all.”
Oleg Katkov, the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian military portal Defense Express, said that the mobilized Russians receive rusty Kalashnikov assault rifles and military uniforms used in the First Chechen War (1994-1996).
The Support Fund of the City of Lihoslavl, Tver region, the west of the country, presented pictures from the families of the mobilized Russian soldiers and transmitted that the recruits were offered bulletproof vests for children, which are used in airsoft, and plastic helmets!
By March, Valeria’s husband had been mobilized in the Crimea, and the woman went to visit him twice. with her daughter: “When we returned, the child repeated in the car, ‘I want to stay with my dad, live with him.'”
The mother says that she explained to the child that “her father is in the army, where he runs a tank and protects everyone, first of all, her.”
Kill “to live”
Valeria says Nikolai has begun to repeat that she does not know when she will return home, “not soon anyway, maybe in five years’ time”.
The woman admitted that she does not care what territories “will join and be considered Russia” and says she could never imagine that her husband would take up arms and go to participate in hostilities.
Asked if she thinks her husband could kill people in the war, Valeria replied that she tried to imagine how she would feel in such a case and even wanted to discuss this issue with her husband.
“But I explained to myself this: it’s a war and you probably have to kill to live,” Valeria says.
Nikolai began to call home more and more rarely. Every night, Olga puts a chair at her window and waits.
Em