Ukrainian Armed Forces (7ee4f3aa)

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are represented through soldiers on the road and at a checkpoint, and through Petro, a Ukrainian serviceman who visits Sergey Sergeyich in the grey zone. The novel presents an institution encountered at close quarters: its members offer practical help and companionship, but also enforce borders and inspect the words used to describe the conflict. Sergeyich’s experiences make that tension personal, connecting the army’s protective role with the suspicion and narrative pressure generated by war.

Identity and Presence

The evidence identifies the soldiers Sergey Sergeyich meets as belonging to the Ukrainian army, while Petro is specifically described as Ukrainian and as a member of that army. The scenes do not provide a broad account of its command structure or policy; instead, the institution becomes legible through the actions of individual servicemen, from a young guest carrying a letter to armed personnel working at a checkpoint.

This limited, personal scale matters. For Sergey Sergeyich, military presence is neither an abstraction nor a single uniform experience. A soldier can be a visitor who helps maintain a connection with home, a friend who crosses a dangerous landscape to see him, or an official who requires him to explain himself and submit his belongings for inspection.

Practical Help and Friendship

A young Ukrainian soldier visits Sergey Sergeyich, who asks him to buy a stamp and mail an envelope addressed to his wife and daughter. The soldier agrees, checks the address, and puts the envelope into his jacket pocket. Sergey Sergeyich explains that the letter is for his family before asking politely whether things are quiet where the soldier is stationed. The exchange joins civilian longing to military uncertainty: the soldier replies that if it were loud, Sergey Sergeyich would hear it, and says his rotation is coming soon, so they may not meet again because he will probably be sent elsewhere.

Petro’s relationship with Sergey Sergeyich gives the army’s presence another, more intimate form. At a later checkpoint, Sergey Sergeyich explains that Petro told him to enter by the route he has taken because it was safer. He identifies Petro as a Ukrainian soldier who comes across the field to visit him in the grey zone. The visits are described as solitary; Petro has also taken Sergey Sergeyich’s mobile phone to charge it and left him a number. A military connection thus becomes an ordinary exchange of visits and practical assistance, carried out across a field in a place shaped by the front.

Checkpoint Scrutiny

The same friendship that offers reassurance becomes a source of questions at the checkpoint. After examining Sergey Sergeyich’s passport, one soldier asks over a walkie-talkie whether Little Starhorodivka is in the D.P.R.; another asks why he is entering through the O.R.D.L.O. Sergey Sergeyich answers that Petro advised him to use this route because it was safer. One soldier accepts the explanation tersely, but the other immediately asks who “our Petro” is, demands Petro’s surname, and challenges the idea that a Ukrainian serviceman would visit Sergey Sergeyich alone in the grey zone.

Sergey Sergeyich cannot give Petro’s surname. He remembers that Petro is from Khmelnytskyi and explains that Petro has lent him practical help, including charging the phone and leaving his number. The stern soldier then demands to see the mobile and takes Sergey Sergeyich’s passport as well, while his partner orders him to pull onto a shoulder blocked with concrete so the next car can pass. The inspection turns a private acquaintance into a matter of scrutiny: the phone and passport become objects through which the soldiers test Sergey Sergeyich’s explanation and movements.

As he waits, Sergey Sergeyich’s mood collapses. Evening has fallen; a military van glows yellow through its small windows, and the headlights of the queued cars form a long chain stretching into the distance. He goes to the bees and puts his ear to the nearest hive, hearing their buzz as tired and despairing. The soldier eventually returns with Sergey Sergeyich’s passport and phone. The episode does not resolve the uneasy contrast between Petro’s personal trust and the checkpoint’s suspicion; instead, the restored documents mark a temporary end to questioning while leaving the strain of the encounter intact.

The Language of the War

In a media interview, Sergey Sergeyich is asked why he came from Donbas. He points toward his trailer and explains that he brought his bees from the grey zone, where there is a war and people are shooting. He describes Ukrainians on one side and Russians on the other. A young man standing nearby interrupts and instructs him to repeat the answer without saying “Russians,” challenging how Russians could be present there. Sergey Sergeyich revises his wording, naming Ukrainians on one side and, on the other, separatists from Karuselino.

This exchange complicates the army’s portrayal without turning the interview into an official statement by the institution. The words are Sergey Sergeyich’s, but someone nearby polices their acceptable form. The distinction between his plain description of the opposing forces and the corrected terminology exposes a pressure surrounding public speech about the war. Read alongside Petro’s visits and the checkpoint questioning, the interview shows the Ukrainian military context as one in which protection, personal contact, security procedures, and contested accounts of who is fighting all meet in Sergey Sergeyich’s path.