“What it will really be like”: soldier Dmytro Demshyn explains why motivational mobilisation posts don’t work
Ukrainian serviceman Dmytro Demshyn published an extended post that quickly went viral on social media. In it he soberly and step-by-step describes what actually happens when the front approaches a city — from rising prices and queues in shops to destruction and the complete loss of normal life. Unlike emotional calls to mobilise, the author explains the processes without rhetoric — drawing on his own experience. His text is not a motivational poster but a realistic wartime scenario meant to make readers think about why it’s important to support the Defence Forces, either personally or financially. In his post Demshyn also asks anyone who can help his unit to contribute — in particular, to a fundraiser for an excavator needed to strengthen positions. The full text of his post follows below, unabridged.
Full post — English translation
A few days ago I came across a purely motivational Facebook post saying people must mobilise because otherwise your town will be looted, women raped, property seized, and you’ll either be sent to Siberia or to the assault — depends on how your luck goes.
I understand the aim of that post, and I even support the author’s goal of motivating people to join the army, but that’s not how it works, because everything he wrote is bullshit and many people understand that. When someone is talking nonsense and then calls everyone to act, people subconsciously won’t follow — nobody wants to obey calls from someone who’s talking crap.
Now I’ll tell you how it will actually be, step by step.
If the front begins to move closer to a city — i.e. the distance to the front line shortens to 50–70 kilometres — a lot of military personnel will start arriving in the city: rear units, services and brigade supply depots will come in to move the city away from the frontline and to ensure security. Immediately rent will rise sharply and finding housing will become almost impossible. Infrastructure will stop coping; queues will appear in shops, you may stand for hours at Nova Poshta, you’ll only get into a hairdresser by appointment and you may wait a week; to get into an auto repair shop you might need a couple of weeks or even a month.
This is a period of economic boom for the city — so much money will flow in (unless it’s Kharkiv) that many businesses have never seen anything like it. Hardware stores, auto parts stores, repair shops, groceries, cafés, pizzerias, sushi bars, hairdressers, Nova Poshta branches — they will pop up like mushrooms after rain. If the city doesn’t have large retail chains, prices on almost everything will rise; if there is an ATB or Varus, prices will hold — but only until the front gets even closer, roughly 35–40 km away.
At that point most rear units will pull back, and combat units will arrive instead. Along with the rear units will go the big retail chains, and the entire market will become local. That’s when people will really be amazed at the profits. I know a guy who owned two small shops in frontline villages — in three months he swapped his Geely MK for a TLC 100; true, he was transporting goods with some kind of electronic warfare kit, but for him that was the penultimate stage.
When soldiers arrive they immediately try to organise their life. Since most of them will settle in ruins, the costs to bring those places back to livable condition will be astronomical. Large construction stores will receive truckloads of goods several times a week.
Of course, the city will take hits — mostly in the industrial zone, and in the woods and plantations around the city; sometimes there will be strikes inside the city itself, but that doesn’t affect locals much because it’s the time to make money.
Local authorities won’t lag behind either: finally the budget has real money, so everyone will rush to appropriate funds — new road markings, new flowerbeds, new lighting, restoration of damaged buildings, new windows in schools and kindergartens nobody attends… they’re full of imagination.
If the front shifts another ten kilometres, things change: strikes become more frequent and the emphasis of strikes shifts from military targets to civilian ones. Nova Poshta branches (in Lyman three branches were destroyed in two days), building stores, garages, auto parts shops — they get hit (for some reason they like those shops; in my memory five such stores have already been destroyed by KAB guided bombs). People will start leaving gradually, but the most desperate will stay, and prices will rise even more. I’ve seen a salad cup sold for 120 hryvnias, a pack of cigarettes for 200, and two litres of cognac for 1000 (yes, you can quickly save up for a cruiser like that).
At 15–20 km the strikes become even more frequent, power isn’t repaired, mobile connection disappears, FPV drones on the street become normal, most shops are closed, a few that remain open have several burned cars on their parking lots that no one can remove. Almost all residents have left — a few hundred pensioners remain, a few hundred people who are just waiting, and a few hundred who are not of sound mind and believe they have nowhere to go. Even shop staff left long ago; the owner brings goods in the morning and takes them away in the evening to relatively safer territory.
There are far fewer soldiers in the city because many have pulled their bases ten kilometres away — nobody relaxes in places where an FPV might fly through your window at any moment. In town they stop in shops en route out and on the way back, then move on. Over time those islands of civilisation close, or they get struck.
When the bastards (the enemy) get right up close — 5–10 km — the city is systematically destroyed: KABs (guided bombs), artillery, MLRS, rockets tear it apart. Many who remain realise that “nowhere to go” isn’t the most important thing — the main thing is to leave. Volunteers evacuate some, the police evacuate others (they really work there and carry out evacuations), some get out on their own, and some never get out because they’re buried under what’s left of their home.
Over time enemy groups infiltrate the city and try to find shelter, and then we start to level every shed, every surviving house, every cellar and basement. Sometimes the front inside a city shifts a few times in one direction or another, which increases destruction.
After our Armed Forces leave the city, the enemy tries to turn the ruins into a logistical hub to concentrate personnel and resources for further assaults, and then we level the city again with KABs, artillery, MLRS and rockets...
After several months (or maybe half a year) the city becomes a relatively safe zone where you can walk around — and then is the time when looting, rape and extortion would begin. But that’s impossible, because there’s nobody and nothing left. The city is gone: no habitable houses, no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity, water or gas supply. For example, Popasna was even removed from the list of settlements because it is not subject to restoration. The only thing people in such towns can do is collect scrap metal, but that’s extremely risky — the scrap can suddenly explode in your hands; lucky if it just takes your hands off, it might blow up half a block.
So to prevent this from happening you need to join the Defense Forces of Ukraine, and those who can’t — donate as much as you can. Because if the bastards reach your town you might make a lot of money off the soldiers, but you’ll be left without housing, without business, without property — everything will burn, as it has burned before. Lack of people is one of the main factors enabling the enemy’s advance, because we fight far better, but they push us with meat. By the way, a fully manned unit suffers far fewer losses because people have time to recover and are in better physical and psychological condition…
I understand I can’t outdo the Russian campaign to discredit mobilisation — their texts are better written than mine and they spend millions of dollars to promote them. So what I’ve written is just reading material for people with nothing better to do; I won’t convince everyone to mobilise. Nevertheless, despite this, I promise to do my utmost so that this scenario does not happen in your town, and my squad and our battalion will do the same. And you can help us by joining the fundraiser for an excavator, which we need to dig in deeper and hold our positions longer. Here’s the jar:
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