A Russian soldier who loves America

For me, the best thing to come out of Mr Trump's strange bellum interuptum in the Near East was that it led me to the Commentary website and its almost-daily essays by Seth Mandel. There's an actual magazine as well, likewise worth reading. I want especially to point you to Irina Velitskaya, who grew up in Russia but emigrated to the US to become a citizen, a UC Berkeley student, a Substack writer, and a contributor to Commentary, most recently A Hierarchy of Hells: What a dying alcoholic taught me about Russia, Gaza, and Iran.

Irina grew up in Sinegorskiy, not far from the Ukrainian frontier. She was a "little shrimp of a girl with acne and chronic cold sores," much bullied by her classmates with the exception of the lad she calls Stephan, who looked after her. Stephan was "a handsome blond boy with classic Slavic features [who] excelled at school sports, though not at his studies." From the age of 12, he was also an alcoholic. Inevitably, he wound up fighting in Ukraine, with little or no combat training. (Ukrainians refer to these raw Russian recruits as "single-use soldiers." The home-country term is ispolzovannyi gondon, or "used condoms.")

Stephan is now hospitalized in Chechnya with a smashed knee, hepatitis C, and other ailments, where Irina was able to reach him by phone. "I wish I could move to America," he told her. "It's a great nation -- I love America! Please promise me you will never come back here."