Many media outlets wrote about Pavel Filatyev’s book, as it offered a view of the war in Ukraine through the eyes of a professional Russian soldier who found himself there from the very first days.
Pavel Filatyev is a junior sergeant in the Russian Airborne Forces and comes from a military family. His father was also a paratrooper, and Pavel essentially grew up on a military base—where he would later return to serve. A real military lineage, much like in the Soviet film Officers, where they serve because “there is such a profession — to defend the Motherland.”
Moreover, both his father and Pavel himself were not just stationed idly at their units—they had real combat experience. Pavel fought in Chechnya. However, over time, the army became increasingly irrelevant, and he left for civilian life, where he spent nearly 10 years doing work unrelated to the military. But after a failed business venture and financial difficulties, he began considering a return to the army under a contract. He specifically wanted to join the same unit he’d known since childhood—though by then, it had already been restructured and relocated from his hometown to Feodosia, in Crimea, which had by that point been annexed.
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