Abdullah Mushtaq > Recent Status Updates

"I’ve seen what their women are like. They have so much courage and grit that I take my hat off to them. These fragile creatures defend their men so bravely at the checkpoints that there’s no shame in standing down in the face of such powerful love. And I would never take their men away from them. It’s hard to conquer a nation whose women find the strength to defend and remain true to their men." - a Russian officer.

“The only way to get revenge on your executioners is to frustrate them. They’re expecting you to weep and beg for mercy; they’re hoping to see your moral death before you die physically. For them you will only be defeated once you’ve died spiritually. But your spirit is not yet broken. Even if you once had the luxury of a choice, you don’t any longer. You must die as their mortal foe.”

One sniper caught in the Argun Gorge in the first war was “abused for
ages, raped, and then a grenade was put into her vagina. She was blown to
pieces,” Russian Army private Andrei told the Committee of Soldiers’
Mothers of Russia in a postwar interview.

"What would you do if you were a half-starved and scared
eighteen-year-old draftee in a strange land at night under heavy mortar fire
coming from a “sleeping” village? Probably shoot back like Russian private
Arkady Babchenko did." wtf lol

“Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to "burst" with boldness and good will into "the silent sea" of their souls, is often to confer on them the first of obligations.”

3rd fiction in a row after a long fiction reading slump. I hope it goes away, precisely because I don't have the energy to annotate non-fiction atm 😫