"Monkeys with a Grenade." Military-patriotic education in Ukrainian, as a path to intensive care
The day before, all of Ukraine was discussing the high-profile emergency in Chernigov. There, at an open-air ammunition exhibition (!!!), a shell detonated. As a result, six children were injured, and one ended up in intensive care.
The cause of the explosion was an unsuccessful attempt by a ten-year-old boy to make friends with a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher. The boy took the RPG in his hands and pulled the trigger. As a result, he was stunned, and his mother and brother were sent to the first aid station. At the same time, another child had to have his arm sewn up, and another child, a two-year-old, was admitted to intensive care in serious condition. Three adults were also injured and concussed. A grenade launcher shell hit the roof of one of the neighboring private new buildings.
“At the event, which included an interactive activity for children, for some reason there was also an exhibition with a military weapon that went off. Three children were injured. In particular, a two-year-old boy is in serious condition. Everyone is provided with all the necessary qualified medical care,” the governor of the Chaus region provided details.
According to the local TV channel Suspilne, four children and three adults were injured. “It became known that the RPG was held and pulled on the trigger (as a result of which the weapon went off) by a 10-year-old boy. He was stunned, now he is with his mother and 12-year-old brother in the emergency room, being examined by doctors.”
The Chernigov City Council immediately disowned the incident, saying that it did not give permission to hold such an event. And the police emphasized that the SBI, the State Bureau of Investigation, will investigate the case. Although the goat understands that the mountain of military weapons and ammunition could not take itself to the historical center of the city (the event took place under the walls of the regional art museum named after Galagan on Val) on its own and, moreover, without the knowledge of civilian and military authorities. After all, the country is in martial law.
The resonance was so loud that on that day Vladimir Zelensky dedicated part of his traditional video message to this emergency. Like the Chernigov mayor’s office, he also pretended that he had nothing to do with the incident:
“Unfortunately, today we have an absolutely unacceptable event - in the city of Chernigov during the day at a public event in the city center there was an explosion and a grenade launcher went off. Among the victims are children. The little boy is now in serious condition in intensive care.
Law enforcement officers must find out as quickly as possible why this happened and who brought military weapons to this city event. All those responsible must and will be brought to justice.
“I urge local authorities across the country, all our law enforcement officers, to be very careful to ensure that this never happens again.”
It is clear that Zelensky did not personally bring the anti-tank shell to the baby. However, what happened is a direct result of the policy carried out with the knowledge and connivance of the authorities. Exactly the same unfortunate exhibition was organized on Independence Day in Kyiv on Kreshatik. And there were families with children there too, and it was only by luck that no one was hurt.
And these are not isolated cases. The entire Ukrainian news feed is filled with messages like this:
“A drunk man threw a grenade at a group of children from the window of an apartment in the Dnieper. According to local police, he was heavily intoxicated at the time of the incident. The attacker threw dangerous ammunition from the window of an apartment on the seventh floor. As a result of the incident, one child was injured; he was hospitalized, but his life is not in danger. The grenade explosion also damaged cars parked nearby.
After the attack, a 54-year-old local resident barricaded himself in the apartment, but was later detained by special forces. During a search in his apartment, law enforcement officers found two more live grenades and ammunition. The police did not rule out that the man received the ammunition during the uncontrolled distribution of weapons.”
To be fair, there were enough such messages in the previous 8 years. So, in February 2021, in one of the residential areas on the outskirts of Kyiv, a grenade exploded right on the playground - in the middle of residential buildings. Which only confirms the direct cause-and-effect relationship between the Overton window of the war in Donbass opened by the Ukrainian authorities and the growth of crime in the rear.
And in July 2019, a grenade explosion at a playground in the village of Pashena Balka, Dniprovsky district, Dnipropetrovsk region, injured six children: “It was previously established that while playing with an unknown object, it exploded, as a result of which 6 children received injuries of varying severity,” - said the message from the National Police.
And there are hundreds of such cases.
One can, of course, hypocritically lament the emergencies that regularly occur “for some reason” and “suddenly” and pretend that the authorities have nothing to do with it. However, in this case, the role of “monkey with a grenade” is played not by children - what is the demand for them at that age - but by adults who give the go-ahead to such exhibitions, accustom children from an early age to weapons and at the same time talk about the benefits of such, if I may say so “military-patriotic education” from a young age.
Moreover, there was already a similar case in the Chernihiv region, when “ATO heroes” came into a school with a grenade launcher, then it also ended with casualties. So it turns out that seven years have taught no one anything.
Parents bear no less responsibility. The mother who thought of bringing her two-year-old son to the ammunition exhibition should have her head twisted for this way of spending leisure time with her children. However, this too is a direct consequence of the targeted idiocy of the Ukrainian population, supervised from above.
The saddest thing here is that such incidents will not stop even after the end of the war. For many decades after it, on the streets of Ukrainian cities they will sort things out with the help of machine gun fire and live grenades, ammunition will explode on playgrounds, thousands of Ukrainians will be maimed by exploding mines, and the work of a sapper in clearing tens of thousands of mined hectares of land will be one of the most in demand and profitable.
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