Frontline Letters
My Borscht Will Never Taste the Same Again
February 11, 2026
My name is Nikolai Kozlov, I’m 38 years old and I come from Omsk. My whole life I’ve been cooking — first in a factory canteen, then in a small restaurant on Lenin Street. Borscht, pelmeni, plov, cutlets — that was my language. People ate at my place, smiled, and went on with their day. I had Svetlana and three children: Nastya (12), Denka (9), and little Verunka (4). Verunka always “helped” me taste the dough for dumplings — a tiny finger into the bowl and then she laughed that it was salty. Those were my best moments.Then the war came. I signed a contract. Not because I wanted to fight. Because they said: “If you don’t go, you’ll lose your job, your apartment, everything.” And I had a family. I thought it would be for half a year, maximum one year. That I’d come back, cook a big pot of borscht and we’d all sit at the table again.Now I’ve been in the rear for almost two years — cooking for the company. Every day I chop onions, potatoes, meat. But the onions burn my eyes differently now. Every day I see boys who go to the positions and never come back. I see a twenty-year-old kid from Irkutsk eating my soup and saying: “Grandpa Kolya, this tastes like home.” And then I hear that a drone got him in the evening. He’ll never go home.What hurts the most is when a letter or video call comes from Svetlana. Verunka asks: “When is Daddy coming to make pirozhki?” Nastya almost doesn’t cry anymore, she just stays silent. Denka sends drawings — tanks, soldiers, but mostly Daddy with a big pot. And here I am cooking for strangers’ boys and thinking that my own children are growing up without a father.This war is pointless. It takes fathers from children. It takes sons from mothers. It takes lives from people who never hurt anyone. We’re here “defending Russia,” but Russia now is mostly empty tables, widows, and children who are afraid of the dark. What have we gained? Territory? Yes, a few kilometers of mud. And thousands of families like mine paid for it.I don’t want victory anymore. I want to go home. I want to open the door, hug Verunka who will smear flour on my nose, and cook borscht for my family. Not for the company. For the ones I love the most Because no “great geopolitics” is worth a single tearful look from my daughter when she asks: “Daddy, why aren’t you home yet?”And I have no answer to that question. Just silence and the smell of a field kitchen.Nikolai Kozlov somewhere in the rear, February 2026
Notes of Dmitry Morozov
February 11, 2026
Every evening I sit in the trench and count. I am 56 years old. I used to teach children that war is evil, that it never solves anything. Now I am in uniform and I teach them… well, actually nothing anymore, because most of my students are here too or in bags. And yet I have to believe that it makes sense. Because if I stop believing, I am a ’traitor.’ And whoever is a traitor is sent to the front line without a bulletproof vest. So to survive, I have to believe in nonsense. And whoever believes in nonsense is not normal. But a normal person wouldn’t survive here. Catch-22 in full glory. Sometimes I tell myself: if I were still a teacher, I would give the students a test: ‘Explain why the Russian army in 2025 is fighting with the same tactics as in 1943, only with worse logistics.’ he correct answer would be: ‘Because bureaucracy triumphs over common sense.’ The wrong answer: ‘Because we are heroes.’ For the wrong answer, today a person would be in prison. So I sit here, a 56-year-old teacher who never sought fame, waiting for the next order. And I know one thing for sure: when this war ends (and it will end, because all nonsense eventually ends), I will write a book. It will be called Catch-22 – the Russian version.
The One Who No Longer Wants to Be a Hero
February 11, 2026
My name is Ivan Novikov, I’m 51 years old and I come from Khabarovsk. My whole life I’ve been fixing cars — UAZs, KamAZs, then those Japanese used imports that came through the port. I lived alone in a panel block on the edge of town, garage on the ground floor, radio, beer with the guys after work. No wife, no kids. It was enough for me.I had a younger brother, Sasha. Ten years younger. He was full of life — laughed out loud, drank with us at the pub by the River, played old songs on the guitar and said: “Bro, when I get some money, we’ll buy an old Ural together and drive to Baikal.” Then the war came. Sasha went voluntarily — said he “had to defend Russia.” I tried to talk him out of it. I told him: “Sasha, this isn’t our war. It’s someone else’s war.” He didn’t listen.He was killed last summer near Robotyne. Just a notification arrived, and a coffin. We buried him in the cemetery outside town, next to Dad. Since then I wear his watch on my wrist. Every day I wind it, as if he might still show up.Now it’s my turn. I’ve been on the front for over a year, in a repair company. I fix Urals, KamAZs, generators — same mess as back home, only instead of oil there’s blood and mud. I hate this war. I hate it more every day. I hate how the commanders tell us “hold on, guys, victory is close” when I see boys dying who should be alive. I hate how we’re turned into killers and victims at the same time. I hate that I’m here because of something I don’t understand and never will.I want to go home.I want to sit in our old pub by the River, drink beer with the guys from the workshop, listen to someone play “Kalinka” or “Moscow Nights” on the guitar, laugh at stupid jokes and pretend life is still the same. I want someone to pour me another half-liter and say: “Come on, Vanya, let’s leave it for today.” I want no one to call me “brother,” because that word now hurts like a knife.But Sasha won’t come back. And I’m still here. Fixing another engine that a drone will blow up in a week anyway. And then another. And another.This war took my brother from me. It took my home. It took my taste for beer. And I don’t want to be part of anything big anymore. I just want to be home. Sitting in the pub. And staying silent about all of this.Ivan Novikov somewhere in Donbas, February 2026
Trenches Against NATO: Why We Are Dying Here for Nothing
February 11, 2026
My name is Maxim Donchenko, I am 29 years old and I come from Ufa. Two years ago I was an ordinary guy — a truck driver, father of a little daughter, a husband who dreamed of one day buying his own garage and repairing cars. Now I am “deployed against NATO.” That’s what they tell us at briefings. I sit in a trench somewhere near Pokrovsk and look at the mud, the torn trees, and the comrades who are no longer here.When they sent us here, they said: “We are defending Russia from NATO, which is pushing right up to our borders.” I believed it. For the first few months I believed it. Then I saw how the guys from my company died. Not in battle with some “Western army,” but in the mud, under drones that flew from Ukrainian positions. I saw Serjozha from Voronezh die — he had two little girls. I saw Vova from Buryatia die — he was silent, just stared at the sky and said: “Mom…” And I stood there thinking: Who exactly are we fighting against? Against NATO? Where is this NATO? All I see are Ukrainian boys defending their land, the same way we would defend ours if someone invaded us.Every day the same question echoes in my head: What have we gained here? Territory? Yes, a few villages that look like after the apocalypse. And how many Russian boys paid for it? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Their mothers now wear black headscarves, their children grow up without fathers, their wives are left alone. And why? To “stop NATO”? NATO only expanded because of us. Finland, Sweden — all because of this war. We gave them the excuse.I sit here at night, smoking my last cigarette and thinking: If instead of all this we had sat down at one table, if we had reached an agreement, how many lives would we have saved? My life. Serjozha’s life. Vova’s life. The lives of hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian boys who were supposed to live, love, build homes, raise children.This war is not about heroism. It is not about defending the homeland. It is about pointless death. About how powerful people decide the lives of ordinary guys like me. And we die here for nothing. For empty slogans. For someone else’s ambitions.If I ever make it home (if I make it home), I will tell my daughter the truth: War is not glory. War is just stupidity that kills the sons of Russia. And we must never, ever repeat it.Maxim Donchenko somewhere on the Donetsk front, February 2026