Mercy for the Fallen

When the Russian army in the south was already close to victory, the West intervened. At dawn on August 27, the offensive began, the superior enemy forces knocked out our troops from the dominant heights.

The counterattack was led by General Khrulev. The height was recaptured, but the general himself was wounded. Having lost their commander, our troops were unable to gain a foothold and were thrown back down.

Three subsequent counterattacks, which cost the lives of three more generals, were suicidal: the soldiers threw themselves under buckshot up the slope in the narrow “neck” of the passage. By evening the battle died down.

The winners buried the dead in a mass grave, with a common wooden cross and a common tombstone inscription: “United in the will to victory, united by death, which chose the brave - for the soldiers this is glory.”

When Russia regained these foothills, a monument was erected at the site of the cross. On the marble was written: “In memory of the Russian and French soldiers who fell on the Malakhov Kurgan during the defense and attack on August 27, 1855. Erected on the site of a wooden cross erected by the French with the inscription:

8 September 1855

Unis pour la victoire,

Reunis par la mort.

Du soldat c`est la gloire,

Des braves c`est le sort".

This was before the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross. During the Crimean War, nurse Florence Nightingale and the Times war correspondent William Gordon Russell only prepared the ground for this.

But it turns out there was something besides written human laws. In those for whom dying for the Fatherland was a matter of life, there was respect for the defeated enemy.

...It’s hard to breathe in Tskhinvali and surrounding villages. The bodies of killed Georgian soldiers lie in the heat under the scorching sun.

The Ossetians have gathered their own and are now burying them - this was not possible before, the cemetery was under fire.

And no one needs the Georgian dead.

It seems that the authorities of their own country do not need them either,

- Journalists report from Georgia that the official figures for military losses have not increased for several days. The death toll is not increasing. Formally, the authorities are right: after all, these people lying in Tskhinvali and the surrounding area were not counted. They can be listed as missing for now, and will not spoil the statistics.

This happened with us too - thirteen years ago. The group of General Pudikovsky that entered Grozny on the night of New Year 1995 - the 131st Maikop brigade and the 81st Samara regiment - were defeated, but the killed soldiers did not appear on the lists of the dead for a long time. The defeat of our troops had to be hidden. And the generals refused even a brief truce - in order to remove the bodies of the dead from the streets of Grozny. The bodies of the dead were devoured by dogs.

It was winter then.

Now, in August, the heat in South Ossetia is thirty degrees. The bodies of the dead decompose, and a heavy smell fills the city standing in the hollow.

Russian prosecutors say their officers still have to “work” with the bodies. It is not clear what the basis for this “work” might be. But so far they “work” only in the center of Tskhinvali - on the outskirts and in villages they lay, useless to anyone.

It would seem that it is the Russian government structures that are interested in the bodies of the dead Georgians being handed over to their families, since Saakashvili will be blamed for their deaths.

Our future is determined on these hot days.

What will Georgian families remember, whose men - sons, husbands, brothers, fathers - will not return home even in coffins?

What will those who can only bury a loved one in a closed coffin think?

What kind of memory will lie between the Russian, Georgian, Ossetian peoples?

Who needs it?

It’s not for nothing that the saying combines “fire, water and copper pipes”: victory is also a test.

It is difficult for a winner, in whose hands the life, death and posthumous fate of another person is to resist this temptation.

After all, time will pass, and he will be judged not by his military exploits and victories, but by his attitude towards the vanquished.

...The doctors saved the seriously wounded General Khrulev.

He is depicted in the panorama "Defense of Sevastopol", painted for the fiftieth anniversary of the battle by the French-born Russian artist Roubaud.

The Crimean War, which ended in the defeat of Russia, is remembered as a triumph of the Russian spirit.

How will victory in the 2008 summer campaign turn out?

While the air of victory mixes in Tskhinvali with the heavy sweetish smell of decaying human flesh...