I received from Kherson this poem written by a captured Russian soldier. I translated it with the help of the wonderful Bessarabian writer Dumitra Kruda (highly recommend the mural novel Mykhailo Mykhailovych’s birthday) as part of the EFOR #UkraineNotRussia series. I also left the original for those who know Russian.

………………………………………… .. …

Mom, I’m in captivity, but you don’t cry.

I was repaired, now as good as new.

A doctor from Kherson cleaned me of blood.

He healed me, gloomy and bad.

/

Healed me, mother, listen, he healed me

I who shot them

I shot them with Degrees,

I shaved half of the hospital,

/

But he cured me, mother, do you hear?

Saying that this is how it happens.

Mom, I’m a monster; cruel,

We are entangled in an outright lie.

/

I will carry this cross all my life.

The fog cleared from my eyes.

In those places I crawled like a dead man,

Which we bombed from Grad.

/

I can’t believe what I saw:

What we did in Kherson scared me:

I filled the hospitals with the dying

Every Russian is cursed here.

/

Father is as thin as a thread

She cradles her murdered child. Slightly.

Mom, I’m a monster, I’m a zombie.

Mom, you hear me, there are no terrorists here!

/

Only moaning and crying can be heard here.

We are worse than fascists, I tell you.

The commanders sent us to our deaths.

We are worthless to them.

/

A soldier from Kherson shouted to me:

Stand on the ground, rush! Oh, so many flies.

And then out of nowhere he scolded me.

He didn’t want to shoot me, mom.

/

I, an unscrupulous, obscene murderer.

Being wounded, he took me to the hospital.

Do you hear, mother, I came out of the shell,

He is a man, I am a criminal.

/

Mom, I’m in captivity, but you don’t cry.

I was fixed, I’m like new.

A doctor from Kherson cleaned me of blood.

He healed me, gloomy and bad.

/

The Hippocratic Oath was more important to him.

With his head, suddenly thinking,

Burning with shame, I asked myself:

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