Christmas on the front. Sasza went home and everyone envies him [WAR DIARY]

– “Can’t you really stay for the holidays?” Dima asked. “I can’t. But if I could, I would stay.” I have a choice, and they don’t. Many of them spend the holidays in the trenches, some at the base. A few might be with their families. Ukrainian soldiers are, for the third time, unable to decorate a Christmas tree with their children. And some might never be able to do it again,” writes Karolina Kuzema in a note from her frontline diary. She is a Polish volunteer who has been assisting the Ukrainian army since 2022.

Karolina Kuzema and Christmas on the Front for the Third Time

I went to the Sumy region to visit the guys from my team (103rd Separate Assault Brigade) just before the holidays. With chocolate and coffee, because my Santa Claus couldn’t afford anything more at the moment. It feels different somehow, maybe because everyone lives far apart now, not next door as they did for a year and a half in the Kupyansk area, where we spent Christmas in 2023 and 2022. Or maybe because so many of the team are no longer with us?

War wears people down, breaks even the strongest commanders, and significantly dampens the mood, even for those exceptional holidays. A year or two ago, I felt hope flickering that THIS would finally end, that “God is born, His power wanes,” so Putin would finally weaken too. But now that hope seems “meager, quiet” and miserable, like the stable in the carol.

Instead of snow, there’s mud; instead of a Christmas tree, a megaphone shouting about another air raid, and at 9 a.m., reminding everyone of a minute of silence in memory of the fallen. It’s not that there won’t be holidays, but it seems to me that the boys are losing their minds about it. I finish my coffee, Kot is managing the schedule for the next shifts with one hand, and with the other, he’s handling the computers we brought for the logistics team.

– “We’re making that thank-you video, right?”
– “Yes, we are, even though something went off outside, and then the sirens started wailing again.”
Dima joked about whether I could stay for the holidays, and the answer was no. He has a long way to go with our team; he might be entirely alone then because that’s how the schedule works out. He’s not going to his post. Many months ago, still in the Kupyansk area, he was the only one from his unit to encounter the Russians. He ended up surrounded and only by a miracle did he get out without anyone’s help. After treatment, he stayed in the army but handles administrative tasks.

Sasza went home on a pass, and everyone envies him. Vitaliy, when I ask about the holidays, looks at me as if I fell off a bull. Only Volodya is wondering what to prepare for the guys. I’m relieved that, in this particular case, they will be well taken care of. And everyone declares they will celebrate Christmas now, in December, although years of being accustomed to celebrating in January have taken their toll.

– “But now it won’t be in the Moskals’ style, only European,” Bohdan laughs.
He will spend half the holidays at the base and half at his post. He shrugs when I ask if he’s a bit sad. And I know well that it is sad for him and others, not just in our team. Because holidays are still holidays, whether someone believes in God or not; it’s the only time of the year like this.

A Christmas Tree and Christmas

Last year, at the beginning of December, we went to get a Christmas tree. To a nearby forest, because we actually lived there in Kolisnykyvka, a village devastated in the Kupyansk area, somewhere between Kivsharivka and Borova, where fierce fighting is now ongoing between Ukrainians and aggressors. “Too small, too fat, too tall” – after three hours, when the shelling began, we attached the tree to the trunk. We drove past the headquarters and the mines of the then-company commander, Ihor, whom I probably won’t forget for the rest of my life. He definitely thought one thing – lunatics.

We took the tree to the garden next to our house and “planted” it in the ground piled with a few old tires. Decorated absolutely disgustingly with horrible ornaments found in the garage, it was the envy of all the neighbors and the favorite spot of 17 cats that lived in our yard and suddenly remembered that they aren’t wild and maybe aren’t afraid of people after all.

A year earlier, the boys celebrated the holidays the old way, in January. So it turns out that Christmas in 2023 was celebrated twice. On January 6th, we went to Mariczka, our main medic. It seems that, besides the holidays, it was also her name day. The tablecloth was a thermal blanket in gold color, the ornaments on the tiny tree were inflated latex gloves, and she still focused on my cough, insisting that I had pneumonia (a stethoscope examination and an X-ray confirmed she was right).

They will not be at their Christmas Eve

I will never spend the holidays with Mariczka again, never hear her say, “Karolka, thanks for the ambulance, brothers and sisters.” Pantera, Captain Marija Dychtjar, who participated in, among other things, the Kursk operation, died in early September in the Sumy region. Her son will spend not his first holidays without his mother, but his first with the awareness that there will never be any more with her.

It will be the same with Rybak’s family. He died at the end of August in the Kursk region. Fortunately, they managed to retrieve his body (the evacuation was led by my husband, as it was his team) – many families of soldiers who fell in the Kursk operation (and, of course, not only) did not have the opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones. And how can one think about the holidays in such a situation?

On the eve of the holidays, I left the Sumy region with a strange feeling that I can’t describe. As I write this, I’m sitting next to a Christmas tree in a theoretically safe corner of Ukraine, not on the front, and I feel a bit strange about it. It’s somewhat terrifying that normality seems abnormal, but in war, after such a long time, it really is a bit like that…

Ukrainian Christmas wishes: peaceful sky

I called the boys and girls from other units to wish them peaceful holidays (I guess “merry” will never go down my throat) and a quiet sky. The latter will be a problem because after the Ukrainian attacks in Kazan, Tatarstan (about 700 km east of Moscow), Putin personally announced retaliation. In Ukraine, heightened vigilance and readiness are mandatory for the holidays.

Artur from the 46th Brigade will spend the holidays in the hospital – over a week ago, fragments shattered his leg, fortunately, the surgery was successful. Misza from the 123rd Brigade wrote recently that we’ll talk when he leaves the islands (no, certainly not the Bahamas, those attacked by the Russians on the Dnieper, near Kherson). Sasza from the 107th Brigade is still on rotation in the western part of the country, although just before the holidays, they were supposed to go to Donbas, but the situation, as you know, is changing. Szerszeń from the 40th Artillery Brigade will spend the holidays beating the Russians in the Kupyansk area, as he himself says.

Damian Duda, a Polish combat medic from the “In the Meantime” foundation, will spend the holidays in the trenches in Donbas, saving others’ lives. He wrote on social media: “While people at home decorate Christmas trees and sing carols, we have no trees because they burned in artillery fire.”

Meanwhile, Kuba Jaworski from the 1st Da Vinci Battalion will be preparing more drones for flight to Donbas with a Christmas greeting for Putin. However, I still can’t reach Kamil from the International Legion, who has been on duty since November 27. It takes a while, but that’s how it is.

However, I can’t call Mahura, a combat medic from the 120th Brigade, because she has been declared missing since November 18. I will also never call Janek Szeremeta from the International Legion, who died on December 4, 2022, nor Maciek Bednarski from the 53rd Brigade, who passed away on November 3, 2023, with holiday wishes. Such will be our Christmas holidays in the Year of Our Lord 2024.