REPORTAGE – Since May, a law has allowed convicts to join particularly exposed units, in a context of a shortage of soldiers.
With an expert gesture, “Baby” manipulates his AK-74, storing it in a corner of his room, behind the bunk bed, which he shares with “Electrician”, his comrade-in-arms. On the walls, some pious images represent the Virgin Mary in majesty, or Saint Michael, the warrior archangel, slaying the dragon. They sit alongside photographs of laughing children. His own. “ My room is not that different from the one I had in prison », he grumbles in his hoarse voice. “ There were also four of us per room, except that now we alternate : two here at rest, two there, on the forehead “, he specifies.
Of all the war names with which First Sergeant Nazar could have been given, “Baby” is perhaps the one that least suits the imposing stature of the soldier. He runs his large, calloused hand over his shaved head. “ The nickname dates from the first war, in 2014. At the time, I was the youngest in my unit. Where baby »…
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