Losses of Ukraine – How to preserve the memory of the victims and not torment their relatives

September 14, 2024, 11:00 a.m.

… “I have deleted all my social media profiles. Because I cannot relive this horror every day. Every time I relive the moment of his death. This is torture that you would not wish on an enemy.”

The sister of one of the soldiers whose video went viral was treated in a psychiatric hospital for almost a year. She and her brother were very close. In fact, there was no one in her life who was more important to her. Her phone number was the “contact” to be notified in case of injury, capture or death. But a few days before, she received the most terrifying call: a video of Russians shooting at point blank range at a group of soldiers who were surrounded and trying to surrender went viral.

I don't know what signs she used to recognize or suspect that it was her brother. And I will never dare to ask. I only know that she called all the numbers she knew to confirm or deny what she saw in the Telegram channels. I know that she received vague answers: “There is no confirmed information,” “We have to wait for an official response,” and “You will be contacted.” Until it was officially confirmed: yes, it was him.

His body was never found. So he was missing for a long time. And she kept coming across videos of the shooting. Here he lives. Here he doesn't live. Here he lives again. And then he's not alive anymore. “The world must see!!!” screamed the pages with three followers and dubious publics with a bunch of AI-generated images. None of her real-life friends dared to repost these images. For them, they were not abstract evidence of convention violations, but real personal hell. A terrible Groundhog Day.

The first wave of “The world must know” was immediately followed by a second: “It was better to die with weapons in hands. As a fighter, not as a coward.” For a while she tried to answer them. To tell them that in a hopeless situation, the most important thing is to save lives. That a dead warrior can no longer help his country. And that there is a chance of returning from captivity. That it is not about fear. It is about strength. A remarkable strength, considering what he knew about captivity. But unknown commentators knew better than he did what he should and should not have done. Even dead, he owed something to everyone around him: he had to become a symbol, a call to action, an illustration of the horrors of war.

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But that wasn't what finally broke her. It was the story of another soldier whose head was cut off while he was still alive. And even worse than the fact itself was a post by a well-known blogger saying it was better to die in silence than to scream in Russian, “Don't do it, it hurts.” That post was the last straw and caused her to delete all social media from her life, to preserve what little sanity and humanity she had left in front of those her brother had died for. In front of those people who know exactly how the one who defended them should die. In front of those who want to “keep the memory of the hero alive” by reveling in the details of his death.

… “The world must see it!” — Social networks were full of photos of the bloody face of a man who had lost his entire family in an attack on one of the outlying towns. In the first minutes after the tragedy. In a race against time. With photos of a happy family as a contrast. Because the world needs to see it.

And it's not even about the world having seen and heard enough to finally make some important decisions. It's about the fact that every time this man logs on to social media, he will be forced to relive those first moments of personal hell over and over again. Did anyone give him a choice? No. Did anyone mention that there are other relatives who will keep seeing videos of a happy family with the caption “Russia killed them”? I don't think so. Because the desire to be the first to comment with a broken heart or a yellow-black eye with a tear is much stronger than the thought of those whose entire world crumbled in an instant. It crumbled forever, not until the next big story that will eclipse this one on the internet. Now they no longer belong to themselves or their loved ones. They belong to those who know better than their families how to grieve and what details to discuss online. They are no longer individuals. They are an event. A digital imprint of real life and real tragedy.

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… “Today I experienced the death of my husband for the second time,” writes a woman who lost her beloved husband just three months ago. She was invited to a presentation of a project in which he participated. A project whose goal was to preserve the memory of those who fought for Victory. A large part of the work was done by himself. But somehow it happened that his name did not appear in the project. Not a single mention in the finished product. You can talk about a mistake, about employment, about anything, but it is impossible to change it. In the project about memory there is no memory of the deceased co-author of the project. Naturally, the woman did not accept an apology and categorically forbade the use of her husband's materials in this project.

In a civilized society, one could put an end to this and relaunch the project with another co-author. Or close it out of respect for a woman who has just lost the meaning of life and cannot forgive such a fatal mistake. Unfortunately, we are still far from a civilized society. The conflict became public, and immediately there were those who knew exactly what should have been done and what the wife of the fallen soldier should do. In some places, the claims reached the point of absurdity. “You have now multiplied your husband's exploits by zero”, “This project is more important than your personal ambitions”, “The dogs are barking, but the caravan moves on. The project must live on with or without your consent”, “The memory of one is not as important as the memory of dozens of others”, “The world must know about our heroes, and you will not prevent this.”

I don't know how she feels. And was there anyone who told her: “Memory is not about numbers, it's about everyone. Your husband is no less important than others. You have every right to be angry”? I don't know that either. I can only hope that she is not going through all this alone.

…I have a video saved on my phone from Russian social media sites. It shows an unsuccessful attack in which one of our companies was involved. It is a good quality video. With comments and cries of joy from the enemy. It took me more than six months to watch it. I started watching it several times and couldn't bring myself to watch it again. Because I knew that almost no one had returned from that attack. That the group that was captured in the death zone was shot like at a shooting range. And that I recognize most of the people in this video. And I will relive the death of each and every one of them.

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I never posted that video, even though it went viral without me. I can't imagine any of the boys' relatives stumbling across it while scrolling through their feed. I know some of them saw it. But they saw it because they wanted to see it and were prepared for what they would see. It was their conscious decision. It wasn't a random algorithm along the lines of “cats – death of a son – culture news.”

We must learn to maneuver between carefully preserving events and names and scratching at relatives' open wounds with a red-hot iron. Between documenting crimes and savoring the grief of others. Because of course the world must know. Of course we must know. But definitely not at the expense of those who have already given us and the world the most precious thing they had. Because their fallen children, wives, husbands, parents, brothers and sisters owe us nothing more. They are not symbols, headlines, street names, monuments or memes. They are people first and foremost. And they deserve not only to be remembered, but also to be respected. Just like those who were left in the eternal hell of loss.

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The world must know. And the next generations must know. It is not about information isolation, not about “pretending it doesn't exist.” It is about humanity, tact and respect. It is about the ability to hold back in time and put your valuable opinion in the same place as barbecues in May 2022 and coffee in Crimea in 2023. One day we will have barbecues in May, coffee in Crimea and an occupation museum in Donetsk. But it would be good not only to live through this time, but also to remain human. Human. People who keep the memory of heroes alive and do not try to “stand by” them at all costs through loud statements or occasional conflicts on the Internet.

Read this article in Ukrainian And Russian.

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