Leonid’s intro­duc­tion to war came on Feb. 24, as his unit crossed into Ukraine from Bela­rus and deci­mat­ed a detach­ment of Ukrain­ians at the bor­der. mother: “When did you get scared?” leonid: “When our com­mand­er warned us we would be shot, 100%. He warned us that al­though we’d be bombed and shot at, our aim was to get through.” mother: “Did they shoot you?” leonid: “Of course. We defeat­ed them.” mother: “Mm. Did you shoot from your tanks?” leonid: “Yeah, we did. We shot from the tanks, machine guns and rifles. We had no losses. We des­troyed their four tanks. There were dead bodies ly­ing around and burn­ing. So, we won.” mother: “Oh what a night­mare! Lyon­ka, you want­ed to live at that mo­ment, right honey?” leonid: “More than ever!” mother: “More than ever, right honey?” leonid: “Of course.” mother: “It’s total­ly hor­ri­ble.” leonid: “They were ly­ing there, just 18- or 19-years old. Am I dif­fer­ent from them? No, I’m not.”

Leonid tells his moth­er their plan was to seize Kyiv with­in a week, with­out fir­ing a single bul­let. “It was so con­fus­ing,” he says. “They were well pre­pared.” When Leo­nid tells his moth­er cas­ual­ly about loot­ing, at first she can’t be­lieve he’s steal­ing. But it’s be­come nor­mal for him. As he speaks, he watches a town burn on the hori­zon. “Such a beau­ty,” he says. leonid: “Look, Mom, I’m look­ing at tons of houses – I don’t know, doz­ens, hun­dreds – and they’re all emp­ty. Every­one ran away.” mother: “So all the peo­ple left, right? You guys aren’t loot­ing them, are you? You’re not go­ing in­to oth­er people’s houses?” leonid: “Of course we are, Mom. Are you crazy?” mother: “Oh, you are. What do you take from there?” leonid: “We take food, bed lin­en, pil­lows. Blan­kets, forks, spoons, pans.” mother: (Laughing) “You got­ta be kid­ding me.” leonid: “Who­ever doesn’t have any – socks, clean under­wear, T-shirts, sweat­ers.”

Leo­nid tells his moth­er about the ter­ror of go­ing on patrol and not know­ing what or who they will en­coun­ter. mother: “Oh Lyon­ka, you’ve seen so much stuff there!” leonid: “Well ... civil­ians are lying around right on the street with their brains com­ing out.” mother: “Oh God, you mean the locals?” leonid: “Yep. Well, like, yeah.” mother: “Are they the ones you guys shot or the ones ...” leonid: “The ones killed by our army.” mother: “Lyon­ya, they might just be peace­ful people.” leonid: “Mom, there was a bat­tle. And a guy would just pop up, you know? Maybe he would pull out a gre­nade launch­er ... Or we had a case, a young guy was stopped, they took his cell­phone. He had all this infor­ma­tion about us in his Tele­gram mes­sages – where to bomb, how many we were, how many tanks we have. And that’s it.” mother: “So they knew every­thing?” leonid: “He was shot right there on the spot.” mother: “Mm.” leonid: “He was 17-years old. And that’s it, right there.” mother: “Mm.” leonid: “There was a pris­on­er. It was an 18-year-old guy. First, he was shot in his leg. Then his ears were cut off. After that, he ad­mit­ted every­thing, and they killed him.” mother: “Did he ad­mit it?” leonid: “We don’t im­pris­on them. I mean, we kill them all.” mother: “Mm.”

Leonid tells his moth­er he was near­ly killed five times. Things are so dis­or­gan­ized, he says, that it’s not un­com­mon for Rus­sians to fire on their own troops – it even hap­pened to him. Some sol­diers shoot them­selves just to get medi­cal leave, he says. mother: “Hel­lo, Lyon­ech­ka.” leonid: “I just want­ed to call you again. I am able to speak.” mother: “Oh, that’s good.” leonid: “There are peo­ple out here who shoot them­selves.” mother: “Mm.” leonid: “They do it for the insur­ance money. You know where they shoot them­selves?” mother: “That’s sil­ly, Lyon­ya.” leonid: “The bot­tom part of the left thigh.” mother: “It’s bull–, Lyon­ya. They’re crazy, you know that, right?” leonid: “Some people are so scared that they are ready to harm them­selves just to leave.” mother: “Yeah, it is fear, what can you say here, it’s human fear. Every­body wants to live. I don’t argue with that, but please don’t do that. We all pray for you. You should cross your­self any chance you get, just turn away from every­one and do it. We all pray for you. We’re all wor­ried.” leonid: “I’m stand­ing here, and you know what the sit­u­a­tion is? I am now 30 meters (100 feet) away from a huge ceme­tery.” (Giggling) mother: “Oh, that’s hor­ri­ble ... may it be over soon.” Leo­nid says he had to learn to emp­ty his mind. “Imagine, it’s night­time. You’re sit­ting in the dark and it’s quiet out there. Alone with your thoughts. And day after day, you sit there alone with those thoughts.” He tells his girl­friend: “I al­ready learned to think of noth­ing while sit­ting out­side.” He prom­ises to bring home a col­lec­tion of bul­lets for the kids. “Tro­phies from Ukraine,” he calls them. His moth­er says she’s wait­ing for him. “Of course I’ll come, why wouldn’t I?” Leo­nid says. “Of course, you’ll come,” his moth­er says. “No doubts. You’re my be­loved. Of course, you’ll come. You are my hap­pi­ness.” Leo­nid re­turned to Rus­sia in May, badly wound­ed, but alive. He told his moth­er Rus­sia would win this war.

It’s not clear what mili­tary unit Max­im is in, but he makes calls from the same phone as Ivan, on the same days. The hunt for locals –men, wom­en and chil­dren – who might be in­form­ing on them to the Ukrain­ian mili­tary is con­stant. Max­im is drunk in some of the calls, slur­ring his words, be­cause life at the front line is more than he can take sober. The on­ly rea­son Max­im is able to speak with his fam­ily back in Rus­sia is be­cause they’ve been steal­ing phones from locals. He says they’re even shak­ing down kids. “We take every­thing from them,” he ex­plains to his wife. “Be­cause they can also be f– spot­ters.” On calls home, the high sweet voice of Max­im’s own young child bub­bles in the back­ground as he talks with his wife. maxim: “Do you know how much a gram of gold costs here?” wife: “No.” maxim: “Rough­ly? About two or three thou­sand rubles, right?” wife: “Well, yeah ...” maxim: “Well, I have 1½ kilo­grams (more than three pounds). With labels even.” wife: “Holy f–, are we loot­ers?!” maxim: “With labels, yeah. It’s just that we f– up this ... We were shoot­ing at this shop­ping mall from a tank. Then we go in, and there’s a f– jewel­ry store. Every­thing was taken. But there was a safe there. We cracked it open, and in­side ... f– me! So the seven of us load­ed up.” wife: “I see.” maxim: “They had these f– neck­laces, you know. In our money, they’re like 30-to-40,000 a piece, 60,000 a piece.” wife: “Holy crap.” maxim: “I scored about a kilo and a half of neck­laces, charms, brace­lets ... these ... ear­rings ... ear­rings with rings ...” wife: “That’s enough, don’t tell me.” maxim: “Any­way, I count­ed and if it’s 3,000 rubles a gram, then I have about 3.5 mil­lion. If you off­load it.” wife: “Got it. How’s the sit­u­a­tion there?” maxim: “It’s f– OK.” wife: “OK? Got it.” maxim: “We don’t have a f– thing to do, so we go around and loot the f– shop­ping mall.” wife: “Just be care­ful, in the name of Christ.”

Maxim and his moth­er dis­cuss the op­pos­ing stor­ies about the war be­ing told on Ukrain­ian and Rus­sian tele­vision. They blame the United States and re­cite con­spi­racy theo­ries pushed by Rus­sian state media. But Max­im and his moth­er be­lieve it’s the Ukrain­ians who are delud­ed by fake news and prop­a­gan­da, not them. The best way to end the war, his moth­er says, is to kill the pres­i­dents of Ukraine and the United States. Later, Max­im tells his moth­er that thou­sands of Rus­sian troops died in the first weeks of war – so many that there’s no time to do any­thing ex­cept haul away the bodies. That’s not what they’re say­ing on Rus­sian TV, his moth­er says. maxim: “Here, it’s all Ameri­can. All the wea­pons.” mother: “It’s the Ameri­cans driv­ing this, of course! Look at their labo­ra­tories. They are devel­op­ing bio­log­i­cal wea­pons. Coro­na­virus lit­eral­ly start­ed there.” maxim: “Yeah, I al­so saw some­where that they used bats.” mother: “All of it. Bats, migrat­ing birds, and even coro­na­virus might be their bio­log­i­cal wea­pon. They even found all these papers with sig­na­tures from the U.S. all over Ukraine. Biden’s son is the master­mind be­hind all of this. ... When will it end? When they stop sup­ply­ing wea­pons.” maxim: “Mm.” mother: “Un­til they catch (Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volo­dy­myr) Zelen­skyy and exe­cute him, noth­ing will end. He’s a fool, a fool! He’s a pup­pet for the U.S. and they real­ly don’t need him, the fool. You watch TV and you feel bad for the peo­ple, the civil­ians, some trav­el­ling with young kids. ... If I was giv­en a gun, I’d go and shoot Biden.” (Laughs) maxim: (Laughs)

One night last March, Max­im was hav­ing trou­ble keep­ing it to­geth­er on a call with his wife. He’d been drink­ing, as he did every night. He told her he’d killed civil­ians – so many he thinks he’s go­ing crazy. He said might not make it home alive. He was just sit­ting there, drunk in the dark, wait­ing for the Ukrain­ian artil­lery strikes to start. wife: “Why? Why are you drink­ing?” maxim: “Every­one is like that here. It’s im­pos­si­ble with­out it here.” wife: “How the f– will you pro­tect your­self if you are tipsy?” maxim: “Total­ly nor­mal. On the con­trary, it’s eas­ier to shoot ... civil­ians. Let’s not talk about this. I’ll come back and tell you how it is here and why we drink!” wife: “Please, just be care­ful!” maxim: “Every­thing will be fine. Hon­est­ly, I’m scared s–less my­self. I nev­er saw such hell as here. I am f– shocked.” wife: “Why the f– did you go there?” Minutes later, he’s on the phone with his child. ‘You’re com­ing back?” the child asks. “Of course,” Maxim says.

In their last inter­cept­ed call, Maxim’s wife seems to have a prem­o­ni­tion. wife: “Is every­thing all right?” maxim: “Yeah. Why?” wife: “Be hon­est with me, is every­thing all right?” maxim: “Huh? Why do you ask?” wife: “It’s noth­ing, I just can’t sleep at night.” Max­im is a lit­tle breath­less. He and his unit are get­ting ready to go. His wife asks him where they’re go­ing. “For­ward, I won’t be able to call for a while.”

Ivan was in Bela­rus on train­ing when they got a Tele­gram mes­sage: “Tomor­row you are leav­ing for Ukraine. There is a geno­cide of the Rus­sian pop­u­la­tion. And we have to stop it.” When his moth­er found out he was in Ukraine, she said she stopped speak­ing for days and took seda­tives. Her hair went gray. Still, she was proud of him. Ivan end­ed up in Bucha. ivan: “Mom, hi.” mother: “Hi, son! How–” ivan: “How are you?” mother: “Van­ya, I under­stand they might be lis­ten­ing so I’m afraid–” ivan: “Doesn’t mat­ter.” mother: “... to ask where you are, what’s hap­pen­ing. Where are you?” ivan: “In Bucha.” mother: “In Bucha?” ivan: “In Bucha.” mother: “Son, be as care­ful as you can, OK? Don’t go charg­ing around! Al­ways keep a cool head.” ivan: “Oh, come on, I’m not charg­ing around.” mother: “Yeah, right! And yes­ter­day you told me how you’re gon­na f– kill every­one out there.” (Laughs) ivan: “We will kill if we have to.” mother: “Huh?” ivan: “If we have to – we have to.” mother: “I under­stand you. I’m so proud of you, my son! I don’t even know how to put it. I love you so much. And I bless you for every­thing, every­thing! I wish you suc­cess in every­thing. And I’ll wait for you no mat­ter what.”

Ivan calls his girl­friend, Olya, and tells her he had a dream about her. ivan: “F–, you know, it’s driv­ing me crazy here. It’s just that ... You were just ... I felt you, touched you with my hand. I don’t under­stand how it’s pos­si­ble, why, where ... But I real­ly felt you. I don’t know, I felt some­thing warm, someth­ing dear. It’s like someth­ing was on fire in my hands, so warm ... And that’s it. I don’t know. I was sleep­ing and then I woke up with all these thoughts. War ... You know, when you’re sleep­ing – and then you’re like ... War ... Where, where is it? It was just dark in the house, so dark. And I went out­side, walked around the streets, and thought: damn, f– it. And that’s it. I real­ly want to come see you.” girl­friend: “I am wait­ing for you.” ivan: “Wait­ing? OK. I’m wait­ing, too. Wait­ing for the time I can come see you ... Let’s make a deal. When we see each oth­er, let’s spend the en­tire day to­geth­er. Lay­ing around, sit­ting to­geth­er, eat­ing, look­ing at each oth­er – just us, to­geth­er.” girl­friend: (Laughs) “Agreed.” ivan: “To­geth­er all the time. Hug­ging, cud­dling, kiss­ing ... To­geth­er all the time, not let­ting each oth­er go.” girl­friend: “Well, yeah!” ivan: “You can go f– crazy here. It’s so f– up, the s– that’s hap­pen­ing. I really thought it would be easy here, to tell you the truth. That it’s just gon­na be easy to talk, think about it. But it turned out to be hard, you need to think with your head all the time. So that’s that. We are real­ly at the front line. As far out as you could be. Kyiv is 15 kilo­meters (about 10 miles) from us. It is scary, Olya. It real­ly is scary.” girl­friend: “Hello?” ivan: “Do you hear me?” The line drops.

As things get worse for Ivan in Ukraine, his moth­er’s patriot­ism deep­ens and her rage grows. mother: “Do you have any pre­dic­tions about the end ...?” ivan: “We are here for the time be­ing. We’ll prob­ably stay until they clean up the whole of Ukraine. May­be they’ll pull us out. May­be not. We’re go­ing for Kyiv.” mother: “What are they go­ing to do?” ivan: “We’re not going any­where until they clean up all of these pests.” mother: “Are those bas­tards get­ting cleaned up?” ivan: “Yes, they are. But they’ve been wait­ing for us and pre­par­ing, you under­stand? Pre­par­ing prop­er­ly. Ameri­can moth­erf– have been help­ing them out.” mother: “F– f–. F– kill them all. You have my bless­ing.” ... Death came for Ivan. In July, a local paper pub­lished a notice of his funer­al with a pho­to of him, again in fatigues hold­ing a large rifle. Ivan died heroic­al­ly in Rus­sia’s “spe­cial mili­tary oper­ation,” the announce­ment said. “We will nev­er for­get you. All of Rus­sia shares this grief.” Reached by the AP in Jan­uary, Ivan’s moth­er at first denied she’d ever talked with her son from the front. But she agreed to lis­ten to some of the inter­cept­ed audio and con­firmed it was her speak­ing with Ivan. “He wasn’t in­volved in mur­ders, let alone in loot­ing,” she told the AP be­fore hang­ing up the phone. Ivan was her on­ly son.