It’s the best place we’ve been so far during our deployment and we feel completely safe inside the fence that skirts the perimeter. The trouble with this war is that we are in a permanent state of encirclement and can expect a shot in the back at any moment. But here we are sheltered. Two automatic mounted grenade launchers are positioned in the administration block and cover the whole street from the gates. There are two more launchers on the roof of the factory’s meat-packing section and a machine-gun nest on the second floor of the gatehouse. This way we completely control the surrounding area and feel relatively secure. We relax. April has arrived and the sun is already beating down. We walk around practically naked, wearing only our cut-off long johns and army boots, and we are alike as brothers. And brothers we are, for there’s no-one in the world closer than emaciated soldiers with lice-bitten armpits, sun-browned necks and otherwise white, putrefying skin.
What do You think about One Soldier's War In Chechnya?
