Second Lieutenant Stepan Barna

"First, 'For evil to triumph, silence is enough,' said a philosopher, referring to the movie 'Hitler.' Second: unpunished evil will sooner or later become twice as strong. I direct these words to those who pretend that nothing is happening. To those who say that the war is far away, two thousand kilometres from the Czech Republic. They are deeply mistaken. Today's wars are technological, hybrid, and will last for a very long time. What is happening now in Ukraine is the opening of Pandora's box on the European continent. That is why today I would like to call on everyone not to be indifferent to the challenges facing the civilised world, the countries of the European Union. As long as Ukraine is fighting, Europe is safe. However, none of us knows what will happen tomorrow in the mind of Putin or whoever comes after him. Where will they go? To Estonia? Finland? Poland? They could strike anywhere. And given that Russia is a nuclear power, the consequences could be unpredictable. It is all the more important that we do everything in our power to weaken Russia as much as possible diplomatically, economically and militarily. And we do this by helping Ukraine. Let us help in whatever way we can."

"When the bombs started falling towards our trench, my partner, nicknamed Cyhan, suffered a concussion. I didn't even know what the word meant at the time because it wasn't used. He lost his hearing and had a headache. They evacuated me because of that, because we were a team. Cyhan was sent for treatment and I returned to the rear, to my unit, to the artillery platoon of the motorized infantry battalion. That night I talked to a soldier, had a drink with him, and he was sent to my position. He died the next day, right where I was the night before. It was a direct hit from a Russian tank that had been firing at that position from morning till night. The tank arrived in the morning and all day long it was just: bang, bang, bang, bang. And that's how it got to our position. He fired first from left to right, then from right to left. Then the air force came - you're sitting on the position and everything is shaking, trees are falling, that was the air force's job. And then the artillery, that's another chapter. They sent a few Russians as bait for our unit to shoot them. They killed them, but their aim was not to take our position. They wanted us to expose our artillery position."