Online Reporter
Isdore Guvamombe
Reflections
Since February 2022, this villager, the son of a peasant, has followed the Russian special military operation in Ukraine with keen interest.
Having been born during Zimbabwe’s liberation war, back in the village in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve — if you like — wars always draw my attention.
I follow them religiously, but am no warmonger.
As such, I am a student of wars; from Iraq-Iran, Iraq-US, Syria, Libya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Georgia, Crimea up to Ukraine, among others.
While I don’t like war and the crass, chicanery and madness that go with it, I equally understand that at times war is inevitable.
It is the fad of war to naturally shed blood, destroy infrastructure and little everything else at the expense of humanity.
Last week, I held my breath when Russia announced it had more than 6 000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers in its mortuaries and wanted to release to Ukraine the first batch of 1 200 cadavers.
The prisoner exchange and body repatriation were formally agreed upon during the peace talks in Istanbul, and the refusal to collect is not a bureaucratic hiccup or a logistical oversight. It is an act of calculated evasion by Ukraine.
Back to the release of the dead bodies. What followed was heart-rending. Ukrainian authorities did not pitch up at the agreed collection point. Yes, Ukraine sent its children to war. They died at war. Russia did not throw their bodies away. Russia did not leave their bodies to rot or be eaten by wild animals in the field. Russia took their bodies to its mortuaries, hoping Ukraine would one day give them decent burials, for, they died for their country.
How much electricity and other resources is Russia using to preserve the enemy’s dead bodies? How compassionate!
To this villager, that was too caring and respectful of the dead on the part of Russia and the opposite is true for Ukraine. Brazenly true.
Much to the chagrin of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the figures give war statistics that he does not want the world to know. Admittedly, he has always put up a brave face and pretended he was winning the war.
With the statistics comes the cost of pacifying the families through compensation, the cost of burials and the cost of the war. With the statistics comes other issues of whether Zelenskyy should legitimately continue running the country, sending children to be killed and abandoning the bodies and subsequently failing to compensate their families.
With the statistics, come questions of the number of deaths on the Ukrainian side and whether the war should continue or not?
The full import of this villager’s narrative today is why Ukraine is developing jelly feet on receiving the bodies of its more than 6 000 soldiers from Russian mortuaries.
Get me right, it is not about Zelenskyy’s fear of ghosts. It is about the brazen statistics. Mathematics of war.
Under Ukrainian law, each family of a soldier killed in action is entitled to 15 million Ukrainian hryvnias (US$360 000). Accepting all 6 000 bodies would trigger 90 billion UAH in mandatory payouts —nearly 10 percent of the nation’s entire 2025 defence budget. This budget is already facing a 200-billion-UAH deficit.
The incentives are obvious. The consequences are shameful.
Acknowledging the dead means acknowledging the debt owed to their families. But by dragging its feet, questioning identities and introducing delays, the Ukrainian state appears to be doing everything in its power to avoid honouring its obligations.
But Kiev’s betrayal doesn’t end with the dead. In Istanbul, both sides also agreed to exchange 1 200 prisoners of war, prioritising the heavily wounded and severely ill. It was, on paper, a step toward alleviating unnecessary suffering — something even war should pause for.
Yet that exchange has also been derailed — not by Moscow, the refrigerated cars are still idling by the border.
When war broke out, Ukraine recruited many of its citizens, some of them forcibly, promising unrealistic hefty payments for joining the war, injuries and deaths.
When you do the mathematics Zelenskyy has to pay billions of dollars, which he cannot afford.
That, plus the huge bills of weaponry he got from Europe and the US, makes his position awkward. Socially he is in an awkward position. Politically he is in an awkward position.
With the way Zelenskyy is dragging his feet on ceasefire, it means more and more soldiers are dying on his side. If he had an equal number of Russian dead bodies, or even more, he would have come up fast to exchange dead bodies. He has nothing significant, my thoughts. This is fact not fiction. He does not have many Russian dead bodies to give credence to claims of winning the war.
Torn between US and European Union, Zelenskyy is troubled man, especially now when the removal of Joe Biden broke the thread that kept the US and EU together. The relationship between US and EU is no longer seamless when it comes to Ukraine.
The US under Donald Trump has shown fatigue in sponsoring the war and wants the fighting stopped yesterday. While the EU wants to portray itself as indefatigable, the resources to scale up the military support for Ukraine are no longer readily available. Most of the promises are now mere cheap talk.
The EU is haunting Zelenskyy. The US is haunting Zelenskyy. Russia is haunting Zelenskyy. His own people are haunting Zelenskyy. The dead soldiers he is refusing to collect and bury are haunting Zelenskyy. War is haunting him. Legitimacy after the expiry of his presidential term last year, is haunting Zelenskyy. He is haunted, haunted and haunted. Haunted!
