Babchenko Views
navoine.ru fmdash; Presenting your attention Arkady Babchenko reportage from the zone of hostilities. Arkady reached their Dzhavy to Vladikavkaz, then to Tskhinvali, participated in the assault as a war correspondent in Zemo-Nikozi, then with the battalion e"Vostok_" in the direction of Gori and already on the way back there at pinwheel of the wounded. Aug 14, 2008 View in Crawl 4
Arkady Babchenko fought in both wars cndash; first as a raw, untrained 18-year-old Moscow conscript, later as a volunteer regular soldier during the second conflict. One Soldiernrs"s War in Chechnya is the extraordinary result, as damning as it is harrowing. It tells all those stories that were never allowed to appear in the press at the time: the bullying, the brutality, the incompetence of the military leaders and the appalling conditions in which young Russians conscripted from the villages fought and died.
Babchenko does not spare the reader. Much of the violence early on was meted out by older soldiers on new recruits: the terrible, age-old pattern of hazing, known in Russian as dedovshchina. In one recent scandalous example a conscript had to have his legs and his testicles amputated after they had been beaten to a pulp by bullies. Babchenko tells us how he was hit, kicked, sent out on futile errands, had his lip split, his face smashed and his sanity all but destroyed by notorious sadists in his unit. He never fought back: he knew the consequences.
Babchenko, like the best war reporters, is able to report war how it is, but also to reflect on it. He understands the Chechens, he even feels sorry for some of them. And he learns the eternal lessons of survival, passed down by one soldier to another: /ld"You have to look after three things here: your feet, your teeth and your head.lrd" He also knows the reek of fear, the agony of lying all night, hungry and freezing, in a marsh, waiting for the unseen attack.
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