Heroes of the Russian Spring. Personal Encounters

REAL STORIES FROM THE FRONTLINE

Alexander Sladkov is a military correspondent, twice awarded the Order of Courage. Since 1992, he has worked in zones of armed conflict and more than once risked his own life to bring readers rare, authentic accounts.

From the early 1990s onward, the author has been in many hot spots: Tajikistan and its civil war, Transnistria, the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, Chechnya, Yugoslavia, Syria. Since 2014, Sladkov has traveled to the Donbas repeatedly and met people whose names became part of history.

What you have before you is not a dry chronicle of events, but living conversations with commanders and fighters—about what heroism is, how ordinary life turns into legend, and why war leaves no room for half-tones. Without embellishment—honestly about people, their choices, the strength of spirit, and their fates. Direct speech, sharp, “unpolished” portraits: “A person is more interesting than a machine—an tank, an APC, a ‘Grad’—but you can’t sort him out by regulations the way you can’t ‘understand’ an AK automatic the way it’s meant to be understood.” Sladkov manages to see, behind add-ons, bulletproof vests, and powder-smoke haze, real feelings—about himself, about the war, about Russia.

Some of the materials are being published for the first time.

“I TRIED TO BE CLOSER TO THE PEOPLE WHO KNEW THE SITUATION BETTER AND MADE THEIR OWN DECISIONS… THAT’S ABOUT THESE COMMANDERS THAT I DECIDED TO WRITE A BOOK.”