Pen Mightier Than Sword: Warrior Poetess Tells Truth About Donbass War

Anna Dolgareva, a warrior poetess, sings about her comrades-in-arms, her land, and the common Donbass people, who have been suffering from the 10-year war started by the Kiev regime in 2014.

Anna Dolgareva, a poetess and war correspondent, has participated in hostilities in eastern Ukraine since 2015. She was born in Kharkov in 1988, and if it weren't for the Kiev regime unleashing a war on Donbass, she would probably have married her fiancé and lived happily ever after. But the war began, and her beau was killed. So she decided to go to war to avenge his death and fight for Donbass' liberty.

"It was when my beloved, an artillery battery commander, was killed," Anna tells Sputnik. "And I saw only one way for myself - to continue his work. I went to war. The only opportunity for me to fight against what I saw as evil was to use my words as a weapon. I became a war correspondent. I tried to tell the truth and tried to resist the dehumanization of people. Ukraine pursued a policy of dehumanizing people."

She recalls that she witnessed her former Ukrainian friends undergo a bizarre transformation: they stopped regarding the people of Donbass as human beings. Instead, they considered them soulless "units" that one should not be sorry to sacrifice for the sake of Ukraine's "great future."

"I tried to explain to them that these are humans living on their own land, and they are not guilty of anything, except for the fact that they had made a different choice," the war correspondent says, referring to the Donbass people's unwillingness to accept the February 2014 coup d'état in Ukraine.

Anna Dolgareva, a poetess and war correspondent, in Donbass

© Photo : Anna Dolgareva

Aid Volunteer

When the special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine began in 2022, Anna doubled down on her journalistic activities on the frontline. In addition to chronicling military events, she also delivers aid to Russian fighters.

"I raise funds to buy the fighters the equipment they need. These are copters, thermal imagers, and walkie-talkies. In general, I can’t say that it’s difficult. I would say that my volunteer work is a positive spin that brings me joy in my everyday life amid the hostilities."

Anna Dolgareva, a poetess and war correspondent, in Donbass

© Photo : Anna Dolgareva

She also saves homeless and injured animals in the combat zone. It all started in Mariupol, when she found a cat in abandoned Ukrainian positions together with volunteers from Donetsk's "Koshkin Dom" ("Cat's House") animal shelter.

"I would say that this is not volunteer work, this is rather a call of my soul," she explained, adding that she does this when she has free time. "My own cat is waiting for me in Moscow. I found it back in 2015, in Lugansk. Now this is a beautiful cat, very affectionate, and very kind."

Female Soldiers

While travelling along the frontline, Anna saw a lot of Russian female soldiers – assault troops, snipers, and drone operators – who were doing their job professionally and with vigor. Many of them are in no way inferior to men, according to her.

"I know one girl. She has been practicing martial arts all her life, was a trainer for children, and now she is a prize-winner in practical shooting with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. And so she purposefully chose this path and started to serve as an assault trooper."

"I know a girl from the Espanola Brigade. The most effective drone operator there is a girl, call sign 'Groza' [lit. 'Storm']," Sputnik's interlocutor says.

Poetess

Anna also finds time to write poems and prose about her beautiful land, hardships of war, comrades-in-arms, faith, and hope. Last November she wrote a poem titled "They Call Me the Valkyrie of Special Operations." In Norse mythology, a Valkyrie is a divine maiden who guides the souls of the dead warriors.

"I buried quite a lot of friends and relatives, and all I could do with it was to sing about them, to write poems about them and make people remember them," Anna said.

"When you are younger, your emotions are brighter and it is easier for you to write. Well, that's how I experienced this, at least. The older I get, the more reserved I am and the more 'restrained' the flow of poetry becomes."

One of her poems from a collection called "Military Stanzas" says:

"The lingering cry of a crane is heard over the swamp.

I am listening, having gotten rid of unnecessary rhymes.

Sleep, torn and bloody land,

Shuddering from explosions, disrupting the heart's rhythm."

One Should Listen to Both Sides

When asked what she would say to Western readers, Anna responds:

"I want to remind you that there are always two sides that should be heard. And when you hear the Ukrainian side, you should also hear the Russian side, hear the side of the people who live under shelling, hear the Donetsk side, hear the Belgorod side. [The Kiev regime] had been killing Donetsk people for eight years [before the special military operation began]. And these are not empty words. I saw how people were killed all these eight years."