The commander told us to find a chaplain, though the reason wasn’t entirely clear. It wasn’t our place to question it. Our job was simple: get in the red Ford and drive. The city, scorched by the July sun, seemed to pulse with its own green lifeblood. Pickup trucks, vans, and camouflaged KrAZs roared through the streets in every direction. Our red vehicle sped toward Lyman in search of the chaplain.
“You may also want to find yourself a beater”, the sergeant quipped from behind the wheel.
“I’m up for it,” I said. “But I still don’t drive too well. I’ll figure it out.”
Through the tinted windows, we saw concrete posts, flashes of green foliage, coffee kiosks, and shawarma stands to zoom past. Amidst the greenery, a black lightning bolt of the Azov emblem glinted on a concrete anti-tank barrier. The uneasy steppe horizon was shrouded in a thin grey mist.
“There’s Lyman,” the sergeant said, sharply turning the wheel.
The car navigated the battered road, weaving through potholes toward a massive white mound that loomed from the earth like a giant iceberg.
“Chalk mound,” the sergeant muttered.
“That’s quite something,” I commented.
We rolled through the village, which was almost deserted. Every now and then, a blonde teenager in a West Ham shirt zipped by on a bicycle or an older guy in pixelated pants and flip-flops shuffled along, his bare torso glistening in the sun. Our troops had taken over the settlement, hiding their vehicles under trees and camouflage nets. The chaplain had to be around here somewhere.
“We need to keep moving,” the exhausted commander said, pointing toward the old two-story buildings. His unit had clearly taken a hit. He hadn’t slept in days, and his eyes had a distant, almost resigned look—like he was ready for whatever came next. “You should find his van over there somewhere.”
Dust billowed from beneath our wheels, trailing behind us like a ghostly haze as we approached a building with peeling crimson plaster. Near the façade, a woman in a bright, floral robe was tending to something—likely watering flowers. But among the weeds, what flowers could there be? Maybe it was just her colourful outfit giving that illusion. She pointed us in the direction where we might find the chaplain.
We pushed open the door to a building with charred black walls and climbed the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor. The place had clearly seen better days; it looked as though it had burned from the inside out. Yet, miraculously, the wooden stairs and railings had survived. The battered door to the apartment looked as if it hadn’t been touched in twenty years. We knocked and walked in. The door creaked open, barely hanging on its hinges. In the cramped hallway, amid a chaotic mix of items—combs, magazine pouches, and notebooks—there sat a bowl filled with what looked like either canned meat or jelly.
A dark-skinned young man with slicked-back black hair emerged from the doorway covered with a makeshift curtain.
— Where can we find the chaplain? — asked the sergeant.
The young man shook his head and turned on a translation app on his phone. The sergeant repeated the question, leaning closer to the mobile.
— Ah, padre… Padre! — he called towards another doorway covered with a blanket. A moment later, the fabric fluttered, and a shiny head with a neatly trimmed black beard appeared from behind it.
The thoughtful gaze, filled with surprise, shifted between us. He might have wondered what we needed, though that seemed unlikely. He had come here so that anyone could approach him.
— Hello. Will you be blessing the guys before their rotation today?
The sergeant probably thought that finding the padre was precisely for this purpose.
— Yes, yes… I will bless them, — he replied in Ukrainian, carefully choosing his words.
They arranged a meeting time over the phone.
As twilight draped its purple veil over the landscape, our red Ford sped along the familiar road once more. A soldier in a snazzy cross-patterned uniform greeted us with an unexpected offer of tea and sandwiches. Just as we were starting to settle in, the padre appeared—no longer in the casual black T-shirt and shorts from earlier, but decked out in full-on pixelated combat gear, complete with an icon-shaped patch on his shoulder.
With a nod of recognition, he joined us in the shadowy courtyard nestled under a camouflage net. The night was alive with the faint crackle of his cigarette as we waited in suspense for the rotation that never came. After a good half-hour of uncertainty, the word came through: there would be no rotation tonight.
As dawn broke, the sun blazed fiercely over the square near the crematorium. A diverse gathering of mourners filled the scene: some perched on curbs, others lounging in a minibus with the doors wide open and their booted feet dangling onto the street, while a few sipped coffee at a nearby shop. The crowd was a melting pot of nationalities—Ukrainians, Brits, Irish, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, and, of course, the deceased’s fellow Colombians.
— Did you snag the battalion’s Lanos from Lyman? — a voice inquired, directed at a slim, dark-skinned young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty.
— And what if I did? — he shot back with a grin. — I even topped off the tank with my own cash.
A sleek black hearse rolled up, carrying a lacquered coffin draped with the flags of Ukraine and Colombia. The air crackled with the sharp reports of ceremonial gunfire as comrades exchanged tight embraces and firm handshakes. The Ukrainian national anthem filled the space with its sombre notes, while the Colombian anthem wove its mournful melody through the crowd.
The requiem began with the Ukrainian chaplain leading the solemn chant, the padre joining in now and then until he took over completely. He spoke in Spanish, his words reaching out not just to the deceased’s dark-skinned comrades but to everyone present. His tone wavered from calm and reflective to impassioned and commanding as if rallying the troops for a grand battle against global darkness in the name of the Lord. Then his voice cracked, and he wept, his words growing more poignant and raw.
Nearby, a close friend of the deceased, with a thin moustache above parched lips, filmed the farewell on his phone, perhaps streaming it live for the family back home. As the soldiers were finally allowed to approach the closed coffin, they gathered around it from all sides, kneeling and pressing their foreheads against its smooth surface in silent tribute.
The last to arrive, just as the padre was finishing his speech, was a figure in black glasses and a leather coat adorned with a medal cross. He placed a pitch-black hat on the coffin and clasped it with both hands, his grief palpable as he embraced the final resting place of his fallen comrade.
“Goodbye, brother,” murmured the slender young Azerbaijani, with his distinctive accent and his voice choked with tears as he wiped his eyes. Slowly, one by one, people began making their way out of the cemetery. As the crowd trickled away, the padre, ever the teacher, took the opportunity to give a few Colombians an impromptu lesson in the Ukrainian alphabet. He pointed to the gravestones, reading out names and surnames with a mix of reverence and enthusiasm, turning the sombre walk back into a unique, shared learning experience.
Photo: Oleksandr Zakletskyi
