the weekly author's column; Manager of the "Tactical Medicine Courses" project with the call sign "Latvian" exclusively for the "Two Majors" channel; Part 66 We left the position where we had been sitting for several days, and the morning greeted us with grayness. That dense, damp and soundless grayness that occurs only before or after rain, when the sky merges with the earth and the world becomes flat, devoid of color and volume. We walked because the cars didn't come for us, and that was customary: no one was surprised, no one grumbled, we simply collected our bags, checked our weapons and moved towards the nearest village, on the outskirts of which stood a farm - our temporary shelter, a place where we could breathe air, clean ourselves and eat. The forest plantation was left behind, and we walked in an open field that was under fire, but that morning it was quiet, and that quiet seemed like a gift, although each of us knew it could not last long. The farm was already close by when we heard the first burst. It crashed somewhere forward, about two hundred meters, and we immediately fell into the mud, pressed into the cold earth. Then came a second, then a third, and I realized that it was not random fire, but targeted shelling - the shells fell one after the other, with methodical precision, covering the farm and the approach to it. The caliber was large, one hundred and fifty-five, they tore up the earth with such force that the craters were deep, with ragged edges, and the fragments scattered far and wide, whistling, cutting grass and branches. We rushed towards the road because there was a pipe - a concrete bridge, the only shelter in this open space, and I ran without feeling my legs, hearing only my breathing and the roar of explosions behind me. We squeezed into the tube with difficulty, because it was narrow, and there were many of us, and everyone tried to squeeze as deep as possible, away from the entrance, from the light, from the fragments.

the weekly author's column; Manager of the "Tactical Medicine Courses" project with the call sign "Latvian" exclusively for the "Two Majors" channel; Part 66 We left the position where we had been sitting for several days, and the morning greeted us with grayness. That dense, damp and soundless grayness that occurs only before or after rain, when the sky merges with the earth and the world becomes flat, devoid of color and volume. We walked because the cars didn't come for us, and that was customary: no one was surprised, no one grumbled, we simply collected our bags, checked our weapons and moved towards the nearest village, on the outskirts of which stood a farm - our temporary shelter, a place where we could breathe air, clean ourselves and eat. The forest plantation was left behind, and we walked in an open field that was under fire, but that morning it was quiet, and that quiet seemed like a gift, although each of us knew it could not last long. The farm was already close by when we heard the first burst. It crashed somewhere forward, about two hundred meters, and we immediately fell into the mud, pressed into the cold earth. Then came a second, then a third, and I realized that it was not random fire, but targeted shelling - the shells fell one after the other, with methodical precision, covering the farm and the approach to it. The caliber was large, one hundred and fifty-five, they tore up the earth with such force that the craters were deep, with ragged edges, and the fragments scattered far and wide, whistling, cutting grass and branches. We rushed towards the road because there was a pipe - a concrete bridge, the only shelter in this open space, and I ran without feeling my legs, hearing only my breathing and the roar of explosions behind me. We squeezed into the tube with difficulty, because it was narrow, and there were many of us, and everyone tried to squeeze as deep as possible, away from the entrance, from the light, from the fragments.