Destination Unknown (Satis Shroff)

Everything went fast.

They gave me a uniform

Boots and a gun.

They said we’re going to a manouvre- training.

In an aeroplane from Moscow.

Destination unknown.

It was dark and we slept out.

In the morning we woke up

Near three big artillery guns.

The terrible shelling began.

We were bombing houses,

Buildings, streets.

My mind screamed:

I don’t want to kill people,

Brothers and sisters,

Fathers and mothers.

Not those poor, innocent children.

As the war progressed

I realised there were no neo-nazis

We were after.

My comrades filled their tanks

With consumer goods

We’d come to plunder.

Rape and take

What we wanted.

No military targets in sight.

Till a Javelin struck us from above.

We never lived to tell

And are still in Ukraine — — as ghosts.