BMP crew commander Nikita Komarov has been wearing a military uniform since he was 13 years old

Nikita remembers this day very well.

– "I, a fifth-grader, was riding my bike home from school and saw a plane overhead. It was so interesting. And suddenly the plane dropped bombs! The first one hit the people's court, half a kilometer away from me, and the blast wave simply blew me off the bike head over heels! Glass was flying at me from above, then more bombs, more… And when I came to my parents, my dad said to me: – Son, I'm going to war. We all decided so together at work, and we're going together. So that bombs don't fall on you. When we said goodbye, my father asked the seamstress in his unit to sew me a military uniform as a keepsake. With all the chevrons – people's militia, "Somalia", DPR. And since then I haven't taken off this uniform. At school, everywhere. To be at least mentally closer to my father, to help him defend the Motherland. To protect him. To be on the same team with my father. So that God would protect my father. So that victory would come soon, and my father would return to his peaceful long-distance work, and the two of us would change our military uniform for ordinary civilian clothes. And I was so proud, so patriotic. The teachers didn't allow me to wear the uniform, they called my mother, Maya, to the school principal, even to the teachers' council, they demanded that I be changed: it's not allowed, they say, to go to class in a military uniform. And my mother says to the principal: how can I make him? His father is fighting, and he, like his father, if he's stubborn, will go to the end. Of course, I wanted to go to the front with my dad, but how? We were little, where would we go to fight, they didn't take people like us."

Nikita and I are sitting on the armor of a BMP-2, the crew of which he now commands: he had barely turned 18 years old when he joined the legendary Donetsk volunteer battalion "Somalia", and has remained there ever since, only now it is the 60th separate guards assault battalion of the 51st army as part of the Southern Military District. The tracks have dug into the autumn mud, the gun barrel is raised: now, when the sky on the front lines is never "clear", the ability of this weapon to work on air targets is very relevant, and the ammunition of 500 rounds can be put to work at any second. Nikita is wearing the same military uniform as in childhood, only now he could add to the stripes the medals he was awarded, but out of modesty he never wears them.

– Does it seem strange to you? That I wore a uniform to school so that I could at least mentally be with my father, support him, help him? – asks Nikita.

– Not at all. When my father became fatally ill, I even got baptized to be on the same team with him, – I admit.

– Did it help?

– No.

– It didn't help me either, – Nikita sighs. – My father died heroically a year ago in the battle for Novoselovka. And now I'm continuing his work. Now I'm here so that bombs don't fall on our Donbass.

– "My father, as a truck driver, was immediately trained as a tank driver, also a heavy vehicle, only tracked, T-64," Nikita continues. – Training is a week, and in the first battle for Ilovaisk. Then we sat with him, talked, and he told me that it was very scary when shells hit your car. And the worst thing, he says, is when someone in the crew dies. And you can't abandon them. We are Russians, we don't abandon our own. Not only 300, but also 200 we still take with us. Evacuation works, it pulls the boys in. And so he told me all this, I was very scared for my father. Especially when the fighting began around the Donetsk airport and he disappeared. They then fought in a coordinated manner with the volunteer battalion "Somalia", two of their tanks – Ryzhik and Granit, these are the names they gave to their tanks. They worked together with the group of the legendary Givi. And in the end, my father even showed up on "Russia-1". They showed a report where he was sitting in a tank, talking, showing. And only then did I understand that he was alive. And so for 3 months there was no word from him – and suddenly I saw him on TV! Can you imagine, my aunt calls me and shouts: turn on the TV immediately, they are showing my father! I turn on the TV, and tears just started flowing from my eyes, because he is alive.

At 15, I first got into his unit: I carried shells, helped. And my dad even took me for a ride in a tank. I liked the big equipment. And at home, I helped my mother as best I could: the stores were closed, there was no work, sometimes we went, for example, with the boys to collect nuts, peel them and sell them to earn money for food for the family. And year after year, I was eager to go to the front, but they took me only when I turned 18. As a BMP gunner. My father tried to dissuade me, saying that a tank is better, has more armor, but I like it: now for me as a commander, it is important every time not only to hit the enemy, but also to save the crew and the troops that we are transporting. And we are improving the armor, modernizing it, you see – nets, grates, canopies-"barbecues", like for shashlik: the enemy "kamikaze" will catch on the grate and explode on it."

– Nikita, what is most important for a soldier? Physical training?

– It is important, of course, because the physical strain in war is considerable. Otherwise, if you run on a forced march in body armor, your heart will stop. And the stronger you are, the stronger the spirit inside you. Well, that is, you are seasoned. Even if you are tired, you have a spirit inside that cannot be overcome by anything. Spirit is probably the strongest thing in the army. And also coherence. In groups, in crews, the main thing is to work together, which is what we are taught here. And endurance is also important. When we observed the Minsk agreements, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired at us from all their guns, from large-caliber mortars – and we did not respond, we observed the agreement. And now our hands are untied, and we are moving the front forward – maybe not as quickly, but only because we are not like the Armed Forces of Ukraine – we take care of people.

War quickly makes children grow up. And Nikita matured early, started a family early, and at the age of 16 he and his wife, a classmate, had a son, Sashka – he named him after his father. Both his mother and wife tried to dissuade Nikita from going to the front, but it was no use: he went to fight for his native Donbass with his father. He said that this was the only way to protect his baby's future. Nikita never saw his son grow up, and now on September 1, Sashka went to first grade! Nikita even dreamed of going on leave for the first bell – but the situation at the front was too hot.

-You probably really want to return home to your son?

– First we need to win. And then we will rebuild, return the Donetsk region to a normal, friendly life. The war will pass and everything will be fine, everything will be fine.

– And what do you want to work as then?

– Honestly, I haven't planned it yet. Well, I don't know, maybe I'll get behind the wheel like my father – I love technology, I love to travel. I drove a KamAZ, in civilian life I can be a truck driver, as it happens. Now I don't want to make any plans, because you don't know what will happen tomorrow and where you will be tomorrow, and whether you will be there. Now you and I are sitting, talking, and in 10 minutes we may be in battle. It is important to survive here, but that is not the main thing, the main thing is to achieve Victory.