Fractus Europa: Stories by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Organized Crime, Political intrigue, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Geopolitical Thriller, Dystopian, Anthology
Publisher: Dunn Books
Published: 2020-05-04T20:00:00+00:00

UKRAINE:

Frontier sans Medicine

by Daria Sapenko

EDITOR’S NOTE: We lost contact with this author during production, and her whereabouts and status remain unknown at the time this book went to press. We wish her all the best.

A howl, unlike the wind or a wounded animal, and certainly a noise no human would emit regardless of physical or emotional condition. A howl that evoked fear through the ages—the air-raid sirens of London and Berlin, tornado warnings for Oklahoma, tsunami alerts along Japan’s eastern coastlines. A howl that had now come to Kiev.

For elderly pensioners, the noise revived memories of Nazi occupation and Soviet air-raid drills. The youth had only television documentaries and war films to startle imaginations, to trigger fight or flight.

Thus it was the treachery of being born too late that found medical student Ivan Dragonov standing on a curb unsure what to do or where to flee. Five decades of a Soviet nuclear umbrella left Kiev a city bereft of mass evacuation plans or fallout shelters. There was no bunker in which to bury one’s head in the sand. Reality arrived unfiltered.

No rational Ukrainian expected a Russian attack. Shit, Kiev had been all too happy to cooperate in Western efforts to rid its territory of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. Who needed such weapons in one of the world’s most productive bread bowls? Fields of wheat and other grains sheltered from European meddling by a looming Russian presence. Ukrainians were much like Canadians—why worry about what is not going to happen? The Americans will never strike north; the Russians would not drive south.

Until they did.

Reality came calling for Ukrainian youth in much the same way World War II, Korea and Vietnam entered the psyche of American males—conscription. Mandatory mobilization. Ivan’s academic career—dreams of graduating from medical school at the University of Lugansk—came to an abrupt halt.

All men to arms.

Ivan was called up to enlist in the Ukrainian army. Given the circumstances, Ivan expected no less—he despised the Russians. But that made him a minority. Most residents of Lugansk were pro-Russian. Cognitive dissonance in the ranks from day one. A cadre that would willingly die in the name of Ukrainian nationalism, compelled to train with an equally large collection of men who were raised to respect “Mother Russia.”

Cognitive dissonance that certainly spent limited time confined to barracks. Within forty-eight hours, he found himself and fellow students rushed to the battlefront. Well, perhaps not the physical battlefront. In truth, they were held some fifty miles behind the lines for training. A distancing that news reports revealed was grounds for further fear and confusion. Had the borders been violated by Russian troops or simply pro-Russian separatists?

Not that this really mattered; Ivan and his fellow conscripts shared little more than film fantasy when it came to armed combat, bloodshed and dying. Truthfully, most of the new enlistees had never held a weapon until it was issued upon departing their initial barracks.

Point, pull the trigger, and hope an intended target stopped moving. Not courage-inspiring guidance. Nonetheless, Ivan found himself a new member of the mechanized infantry.

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