Читать книгу Confessions of a fighter. Revelations of a Volunteer - Bondo Dorovskikh - Страница 2

Bondo Borovskikh was born in 1974 in Dushanbe (Tajik SSR) into a traditionally military family. His great-grandfather on his mother’s side had fought, and his grandfather on his mother’s side was an air force pilot. All the men in the family had been involved in military matters in one way or another. It was not surprising that Bondo should want to be where it was dangerous, where a war was going on, where people and states defended their interests to the death.

Before the war, he led a normal life: school, faculty of chemical technology and cybernetics in an institute. Business. Yes, Bondo started his own business as long ago as 1992. First they sold cloth, then organized cotton deliveries from Central Asia. Since 2000, an oil business has been added: a gas station, a petroleum storage depot…

In July 2014 the family tradition made itself felt. As a member of the “Phantom” Brigade, Bondo took part in armed conflict in the south-east of Ukraine, and later in battles in defense of Nikishino village while in the First Slavonic Battalion of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Bondo Dorovskikh told of what he had seen and how it all was in a Radio Liberty interview in 2015. Subsequently he spoke out in various media, commenting on the situation in the Donbass.

Since October 2015, Bondo has been recruiting volunteers to support the Kurdish operations against ISIL (an organization banned in the Russian Federation). And on his Facebook page, he solemnly warns of the possible consequences of doing this. “You should remember that to go to help other people, risking your life, is a serious decision. The conflict is relatively intensive by modern military standards, with a death rate of over three per cent. If you are wounded, there will be no medical evacuation to an up-to-date military hospital. There will be no military pension or support. ISIL sets a high price on your head: $250,000 for each volunteer from abroad. And if you’re taken hostage, your chances of survival are very low.

“You will return home alone, with a few photographs to recall your everyday combat life, you may meet new friends, you may have to spend the rest of your life with post-traumatic stress disorder or you may suffer intense depression.

“Think about it. Do you really need this? Is this really your calling??”

At present, Bondo Dorovskikh is living in Russia but working abroad. The international crude oil trade, mostly with the countries of West Africa, takes up all his time.

However, the theme of war has not gone from his life: his interest in it has not only remained, it has increased. But the author cannot write about that, not yet anyway.

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indisputable meaning is, for rulers, nothing other than a weapon to achieve their power-seeking and selfish ends, and for the governed, a rejection of human dignity and conscience, and a slavish subordination of oneself to those in power. That is what is preached everywhere that patriotism is preached. Patriotism is slavery.

Leo Tolstoy: Christianity and Patriotism.