“We are going to rebuild this great city and the other cities in our beautiful province,” he shouted to the journalists and passers-by through a small bullhorn.
The people of Luhansk made the impression that they could not care less about the return of their governor or the Polish soldiers on patrol in their city. They went about their business, went to work, and shopped for groceries. Paid work and affordable groceries had been in short supply since the rebels showed up five years earlier, but somehow Luhansk proper made the impression of a town hit by disaster but stoically pulling through. The war in East Ukraine had killed over ten thousand and displaced more than two million, yet, the men and women walking the streets seemed like they did not care much who was in charge as long as their salaries were paid and food was on the table.
✽✽✽
When the soldiers of the 11th Armored arrived at the coal mines, they found eighty-three men who had been left in a pit 300 feet deep. The guards and foremen had sent them to their shift and then abandoned their posts when the offensive had started. Without outside help, they had not been able to operate the elevator and get out.
It was quickly established that they were all inmates of the Krasny Luch penitentiary. Some were real heavies, murderers, robbers, and arsonists. They did not seem to mind much having to go back to jail. In the mines, they had been doing dangerous work without pay. In jail, they would do less dangerous work which paid a few pennies. Outside, their prospects would not have been much better with no roof over their heads and no jobs to pay for food.
✽✽✽
A mission accomplished report went to Kyiv and Warsaw from the Ukrainian theater commander less than seventy-two hours into the campaign. The mission objective was achieved earlier than expected, and losses were below even the most optimistic projections. Three Ukrainian Mi-8 transport helicopters were shot down with MANPADs, man-portable air-defense systems. Twenty Polish soldiers were killed by rifle fire, fifty-five wounded. A Ukrainian platoon was ambushed while moving into Donetsk and all of the 110 infantrymen died. Other than that just below 300 Ukrainian soldiers were reported wounded.
The number of captured and killed rebels was less than 3,000. It was easy to believe that most of the mercenaries had deserted and fled across the open border into Russian territory. Some had probably just blended in with the civilian population and would be washed up during the months to come. Once refugees would return to their houses, they would start to denounce the collaborators among the locals. The imprisoned Peoples’ Republics’ fighters quickly started to recount how their ranks had thinned out and the heavy ordnance had been transported back to Russia.
✽✽✽
Michał Karasek enthusiastically high-fived the sergeant next to him when the cheers broke out in the dilapidated gymnasium of the TDF barracks. Camouflage hats and green berets went flying, hands were in the air, and the soldiers chanted ‘Polska, Polska, Polska’.
Speeches of the Polish president and General Pułaski from the Mokotów headquarters were screened live on an old but powerful projector. They declared victory and did not forget to thank the Territorials for their service at the home front. The volunteers were promised a return to home within ten days which coincided nicely with the initially communicated duration of their exercise.
During the broadcast, there was an awkward moment when Bonifacy Pułaski publicly refused the promotion to Marszałek Polski which the president had only announced a few minutes earlier. The title Marshal of Poland, a five-star rank, is only bestowed upon military commanders who have achieved victory in war.
Eleven
The Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation sat in the back of his black German limousine and leafed through the Monday edition of Izvestia. It was not unusual for Gleb Yevgenievich Startsev to come to work after ten a.m. on Mondays.
He had told his staff he would spend the weekend at the dacha with his family. His wife he had told he had to work due to the current crisis. Only Dmitry, his driver and bodyguard, knew that he had spent the weekend at the expensive Tverskoy district apartment he had bought as a present for his girlfriend’s thirtieth birthday. Every week he would devote a night or two to seeing her and then sleeping in until ten.
Izvestia reported how the Poles and Ukrainians had celebrated their quick victory. One piece covered the refusal of General Pułaski to accept the title of Marshal of Poland. The commentator described this as a sign of internal dissent and clear evidence that the Polish president was using the military for political gain.
The dead children of Elementary School No. 3 had been pushed from the front page by more current news after only two days. Yet, their stories were still dominating the ‘incidents’ section of the newspaper that normally reported about teenagers run over by trains while making a selfie.
Dmitry turned around. “Izvinite, Gospodin Ministr, protesters are blocking the corner of Tverskaya and Mokhovaya. It seems we can’t get through. Even the priority lane is clogged.”
Most mornings when he came from the Tverskoy apartment the minister was in a mellow mood, but the word protesters sparked an instant adrenaline rush. “Protesters? What in hell are they protesting against?”
Dmitry got out of the car to look over the vehicle column that had formed on the street corner. “It appears, they are protesting for going to war against the Polish aggressors,” he relayed the slogans on banners.
“Blyad, why was our office not informed about this active measure? I will call the Director of SVR directly,” Startsev fumed.
He reached into his inside pocket for his phone, searched for the contact ‘Roma’ and pressed the call icon. “Roman Konstantinovich, what is this? My office was not informed of the protests you run against the,” he was cut off mid-sentence.
“These are not run by us, Gleb Yevgenievich. I am two cars behind yours my driver tells me. Right in front of the Ritz-Carlton. Give me a minute. I will come to you, we will talk in your car,” Kuvayev said and ended the call.
Startsev dropped the phone to the seat and put his head back against the leather headrest. His hands covered his face, and through his fingers, he sighed. “Bozhe moy!”
“What is it?” his driver asked.
“Dima, Dima. There will be a real war after all.”
✽✽✽
Sunday was a family day for the three Sanders’. Ofelia had negotiated an electronics-free day once a week. Usually, they would go out to a park to play or take their Nissan SUV to go to one of the crystal-clear lakes outside Berlin.
So, Mark felt like he had catching up to do on the news when he fired up his Macbook on Monday morning. He would allow himself a little more reading time before actually doing any work.
He also turned his phone back on, and messages started popping up, which Mark decided to give priority. Vitus had sent a long TLKS message, a short article, actually. He wrote that he would return to Berlin on Monday morning. He also used some strong language to express his feeling of having been duped by the Poles. They had invited him to a ‘useless TDF exercise’ while there was real action in East Ukraine.
Svetlana’s message on the encrypted TLKS messenger read ‘Doubling our insurance cover. Don’t freak out!’. Mark was a bit puzzled but understood when he went on to the news. SPIEGEL ran a short piece of breaking news about the social media hate turning into nationwide protests in Russia. ‘We will report as events unfold’ was the last sentence of the twelve-line article. It had a lot of social network posts embedded showing the waist-high flower heap where the children had died.
The captions were translated to something resembling German by Mark’s Chrome browser. ‘Death to Poland motherfuckers’ was a rather harmless one. Some lamented that Stalin had not eradicated the Poles when he had the chance. Others fabulated what a tactical nuclear strike on Warsaw would do. Okay, that is some hardcore shit. No reason for us to freak out, though. Wonder if Svetlana isn’t the one freaking out, he thought.
In the afternoon, first news o
f rallies in front of the Russian Embassy just a block away from the Reichstag started to come in. The live stream by DIE WELT showed old ladies and men who had decorated themselves with medals from communist times holding up cardboard signs. They demanded that Germany leave NATO and the European Union.
Mark turned up the volume to hear what the woman interviewed by the on-site reporter had to say. She carried a sign reading ‘Russland hilf, Russia help’. She insisted that the German people needed to realize that Russia was their friend and that the switch from socialism to capitalism was a big mistake. The mistake needed to be undone and strong ties with Russia established. Young men and women right and left applauded and shouted the name of the Russian president repeatedly.
“Okay, I’m much closer to freaking out now,” Mark said incredulously.
✽✽✽
A protective detail from the Kremlin picked up the two officials from Startsev’s car and led them safely to the nearby Senate Palace, the president’s office.
The cabinet members were already all present except the defense minister. When Startsev and Kuvayev arrived, the assembled men looked out the windows. The heavy velvet curtains were pulled all the way open. Over the tall red wall around the Kremlin, the protests on Red Square could be heard loud and clear.
For Kuvayev it was only the third time he had been in the wood-paneled room, and he was slightly nervous. He was not very well prepared to answer questions about the protests. While still in his car, he had shot off calls and emails to his staff with orders to forward all available information to his tablet computer on the double.
The president had everyone sit down and asked the Director of FSB, the state security agency, what his office could deduce up until now on the protests. Pavel Fjodorovich Bortsov rose and gave his brief.
The protests up to this hour were 300,000 strong in Moscow alone. Reports from other major cities did not have a tally, yet, but they all reported large masses. The protests were genuine, grassroots gatherings. Most of the attendants on Red Square were Muscovites who were mobilized by conversations on social networks.
Kuvayev continued after his rival sat back down. “The SVR’s active measures director consulted with FSB’s counterintelligence group. He could determine with a high level of confidence that what we see is not in any way fabricated. Not by us and not by the West.”
“It seems our propaganda is working too well. Oh sorry, we don’t call it that anymore,” the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces could not hold back a sarcastic comment. The president gave him a look but did not reprimand the decorated general for his transgression.
Kuvayev sat down disappointed with himself that he did not have more to report.
Without standing up, Russia’s top military commander turned to the president. “Gospodin Prezident, I already knew what you would be asking me before I came here, so please forgive me for jumping the gun. Our forces at our western borders had been put on Full Combat Alert already when Poland and Ukraine started their mobilization and political maneuvers in the UN. Our Spetsnaz are fully trained and fully staffed, especially the airborne troops. All forces in our Western and Southern Military Districts are at full strength and easily capable of defeating the NATO forces in Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states. The naval base at Kaliningrad has just received a fresh rotation of fully-trained conscripts and a ‘visit’ from our Northern Fleet. We will be able to control the Baltic within a few days.”
Then he rose, looked around the room, and leaned on the table. He took a moment to add gravity to what he would say next.
“However, I do not wish to go to war over a few dead civilians, children or not. Gospodin Prezident, a political solution would be preferable. We would probably win the shooting war but what then? Will we occupy Poland and Ukraine? Will NATO respond with nuclear arms? I, for one, do not wish to find out!
✽✽✽
Michał Karasek thanked the private who dropped him off. As the old Tarpan utility vehicle turned around the next corner, he looked at the giant stadium four blocks away from his sister’s house.
He had just opened the low, black wrought-iron gate when the front door opened and two women ran out toward him. His mother Jadwiga hugged the much taller man and reached up to his cheeks. His baby sister Maria joined in and the three group-hugged for a long moment. The TDF officer in civilian clothes almost dropped the flowers he had got from a French chain supermarket on the way.
Maria’s husband Krzysztof held their five-year-old daughter by the hand. She wanted to join in the love and wrung herself loose.
“Wujek, wujek,” she squeaked to get her uncle’s attention and wrapped herself around his right leg. “Wujek Michał, did you bring something for me?”
Michał chuckled and picked her up. “Let’s go inside, and I will see what I have for my cute little Zosia.”
The girl giggled and wrapped her arms around her uncles neck while the family went inside. The two men exchanged friendly greetings.
For a boy, it would have been easy to bring something exciting. His own son loved the spent shell casings he usually brought home from exercises. The boy traded them at school for other cool stuff. Brass 5.56 mm NATO shells were hard currency among nine-year-olds. Zosia was happy with the toy puppy he had picked up for twenty złotys at the supermarket.
The family spent a pleasant evening over dinner exchanging news. Michał told them what it had felt like when they had been finally told that they were a part of the war effort, however passive. Other than that, it turned out to be just like the regular exercises, and they would wrap it up Wednesday after next. At nine-thirty p.m. he called a taxi to go back to the barracks in time for curfew. It was good to see his family. The colonel had been right to celebrate victory with an evening off for the volunteers. It was good for morale.
✽✽✽
The Russian president motioned to continue with an assessment from the Director of SVR on the possible political fallout abroad. Kuvayev got up from his chair and felt comfortable, this was his specialty, and he had a very clear position to present.
“In the past seven years, we have spent considerable amounts of money on active measures in the West. You probably know the figures, but I would like to revisit them briefly to lay the ground for the actual assessment. Over thirty-five million euros went into open and covert financing of political parties in the nationalistic spectrum. France and Germany were our focus, the British received a minor contribution as well. In Spain, Greece, and Italy, on the other hand, we covertly funded and helped organize mostly left-leaning political movements and ‘Refugee Support Groups’.” Kuvayev made a quotation mark gesture which was met with quiet laughs and chuckles by the other men.
“The war in Syria, which our intervention prolonged by an estimated fifteen months and turned it around for Assad, produced the desired stream of refugees. Together with the pull-effect Europe has on sub-Saharan emigrants that was enough to break the social security systems of Germany and Austria.” He had to pause for a minute to catch his breath and think about the next piece of information to convey and his summary assessment.
“Additionally, we spent over three hundred million dollars annually to run the RN networks, roughly the same amount went into social media campaigns, mostly aimed at the United States and Germany. That was all money well spent. We achieved to create centrifugal forces in the societies of all Western countries that are comparable to 1930s levels.”
Kuvayev delivered his final assessment, which most of the men in the room had already deduced from his little lecture. “I can say quite comfortably that we can create enough disarray within under three weeks to break up the cohesion of the Western alliances, especially NATO. Political parties loyal to us have twenty plus percent in the major national parliaments, add to that the pacifist green parties and the clear anti-war positions approach forty percent. We do have to expect the United States to support Poland, though. While our own man in the White House would undoubtedly have
kept America out of a European war, his successor will surely support their ally.”
Just three months earlier, the American president and vice-president had both been removed from office after a prolonged affair concerning Russian interference in the presidential elections. Piled on top of other scandals involving prostitutes, shady real-estate transactions, and using Air Force One for mile-high club parties, that was too much even for his own Republican party. The impeachment resolution passed the House with a clear majority. The Speaker of the House as third in line of succession took office and appointed a retired general as VP.
The Russian minister of foreign affairs nodded to signal agreement with Kuvayev’s assessment. At sixty-nine, being an above-average chess player and a career diplomat since Soviet times, he had made it a habit to intensively study the views of the players on the world stage. This greatly helped him anticipate their moves well in advance. The president took note of the nod and turned back to give Kuvayev his undivided attention.
“Our key goal in this scenario, in accordance with our current military doctrine, is to keep Germany out of the war and close land-based resupply routes into Poland. This might also impede the Americans’ ability to use their German bases in the conflict.”
The SVR director closed his report and sat down. “This we can achieve,” he said resolutely.
All agreed that they had all they needed to win a war but that it was essential to return to normalcy within a few years. A prolonged European or even world-wide conflict needed to be avoided. Similarly, they did not want a new Iron Curtain. Their wealth was largely tucked away in the vaults of Western banks, their children went to Western schools and universities, and most of the men under their krysha made their money trading with the West. The objective was limited to removing the Polish and Ukrainian governments and keeping the necessary occupation short.
Another Man's Freedom Fighter Page 9