Do you live in an area where you or your child would be likely to run into a uniformed soldier? Or into a veteran of our recent wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan?
Statistically speaking, chances are you don’t. But if you do, I still think you don’t give such a possibility another thought – and you certainly don’t see a soldier as a factor of mortal danger to you or your brood.
If all that is true, I can use my sleuth-like deductive power to figure out one thing about you: you don’t live in Russia.
There, more and more soldiers go back home after completing their tour of duty in what’s officially called a ‘special military operation’, or, unofficially (and in Russia illegally) ‘the war against the Ukraine’.
War in general has a coarsening effect on fighting men, even in a well-behaved army observing every rule of civilised warfare. That, if you’ve been following the news at all, doesn’t describe the Russian army fighting in the Ukraine.
If you have been reading the papers, then you know that thousands of Russian soldiers torture and murder civilians, rape women, men and children, loot and steal. That sort of thing doesn’t do much to improve their moral health, but there also exists another problem.
Many Russian soldiers weren’t morally healthy to begin with. Thousands of them are imprisoned criminals promised a reprieve if they join up. Those who take Putin up on this kind offer go to the Ukraine and continue to ply their old trade, this time legally.
Moreover, the Russians are now offering the same option to criminals who haven’t even been tried yet. When they are arrested, say for rape or murder, they are given a choice between a prison camp and a boot camp, and you won’t win any prizes for guessing which way most of them go.
In any civilised country, this practice would raise the issue of deterrence. After all, courts and prisons largely exist to make a chap contemplating a crime think twice. But if a rapist casing a house knows he can always avoid punishment by joining up, he may still think twice, but the second, deterring thought will be much weaker.
Getting back to the issue in hand, we can detect a potential problem. Returning criminals, or even soldiers who are criminal novices, may eschew civilian careers in, say, social services and start roaming the streets with intent.
Actually, ‘may’ is the wrong word here. There have been hundreds of reported cases that involve demobbed or furloughed soldiers committing horrendous crimes of every description. The streets of Russian provincial towns increasingly begin to resemble a war zone.
Parents fear for their children’s safety, but they don’t need to be afraid, not in the Perm province at any rate. The authorities there have issued a leaflet instructing children how to protect themselves against men in uniform.
The text doesn’t really require any comments, but I’ll provide some parenthetical ones anyway – the temptation is too strong. So here it is:
A Soldier Won’t Hurt a Child: simple rules for a child dealing with a soldier
These rules will help you communicate safely and easily with soldiers who defend Russia during the special military operation. Remember: your proper behaviour is a guarantee of your safety!
[This brings to mind notices, such as Beware of Dog on houses and Don’t feed the animals on zoo cages. The threatening tone is unmistakable.]
Boys: How you should look when running into a soldier
Desirable: natural hair colour, trousers, shirt, T-shirt in a neutral colour
Undesirable: dyed hair, jewellery or accessories, skimpy shorts, clothes in bright colours
Don’t forget! Your clothes mustn’t be showy. Choose a modest outfit covering your personal zones [?] and not too tight
[‘Personal zone’ makes no more sense in Russian than it does in English, but one can guess what it means. However, I shudder to think what will happen to a child wearing shorts and a tight shirt who runs into a returning hero. Kaleidoscopic images of baroque horrors flash through my mind, but I’ll keep them to myself.]
What you can talk to a soldier about
Desirable: your hobbies, the soldier’s hobbies, school, weather
Undesirable: military operations, politics
[“Mister, what do you like to do when you aren’t fighting our enemies? What, rape little boys and their mothers?”]
How you should behave
Give your defender a smile. But it’s worth remembering that you should smile or laugh only when appropriate
You shouldn’t shout or do anything unexpected. Remember! Such actions may provoke a soldier returning from the front into a sudden and negative reaction!
Act quietly. Try to listen attentively to our hero’s war stories. Important! Do not interrupt!
Here endeth the lesson, at least one taught to the children of Perm. Yet Western grownups who still harbour illusions about Russia’s war on the Ukraine should learn something too: about the war, the Russians’ fighting methods – and the country where such leaflets are necessary.
Only a mother, or Dostoyevsky, could love these soldiers.
I don’t know why people still designate such a largely savage people as Europeans.
I suppose those people go strictly by geography.
One has to go strictly by geography to regard most Western Europeans nowadays as anything better than savages.
Are modern Russian soldiers worse than the British soldiers whom Wellington called the scum of the earth? Do modern British soldiers behave better than Wellington’s, if they think nobody’s watching them?
Neither in Russia nor in the UK is there any reason to hope that soldiers will behave well, if they’re given the opportunity to behave badly. They have more opportunities to behave badly in Russia, of course.
I’m no Russian soldier, qua criminal, but dyed hair, facial piercings, visible tattoos, and immodest or inappropriate dress will trigger certain behavior patterns in me, as well. I am prone to mutter, shake my head, or even laugh, though I have yet to launch a physical attack.