Special correspondent in Dnipro
Looking a little lost, the man appears dressed in his military uniform in a shopping center in Dnipro, the third largest city in Ukraine, perched on the banks of the Dnieper.
Outside, a polar wind sweeps the snow off the icy sidewalks.
Stanislav Aseyev is not overcome by the slightest thrill.
In another life, cold, suffering and loneliness were his daily life.
Aged 34, the soldier on leave joined the ranks of the army a month earlier.
Since then, he has been training in bazooka shooting before joining an infantry unit in the
“gray zone”
, beyond the front between the Ukrainian forces and the Russians.
Everyone in Ukraine has their own personal reasons for voluntarily enlisting: a father, a brother or a husband killed on the front or in a Russian bombing, retaking their village occupied by the enemy, or simply defending their homeland.
Stanislav Aseyev survived the hell of Russian secret prisons in his town of Donetsk, controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. While the situation is critical for Kiev along the front line, he decided to take the weapons to prevent the Russians from transforming his country into a gigantic
“torture chamber”
.
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