‘Có điều gì đó không ổn’: Người Ukraine than thở về những cái chết tại Lễ trao huân chương

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The family of Major (thiếu tá) Serhiy Kuznyev sensed something was wrong. He was not answering his phone. Officers in his unit refused to provide information on him.

It was only by scrolling (lướt) on the internet that his daughter, Anna Kuznyeva, 19, found confirmation that her father had died, in a photograph of his body lying amid a dozen or so others in a village in southern Ukraine.

He had always told his family that he was deployed (điều động) far from the front (mặt trận). “To us, he always said, ‘all is good,’” Anna said in a telephone interview. “He wanted to protect us from worrying.”

It took two days, she said, for Ukraine’s military to formally inform Major Kuznyev’s family that he had died in a Russian missile strike (cuộc tấn công tên lửa) on Friday, an episode that has provoked (gây ra) anger (tức giận) and criticism as a lamentable (đáng tiếc), and preventable, tragedy (bi kịch).

The strike killed him and 18 other officers and soldiers in the 128th Separate Mountain Infantry (bộ binh) Brigade, cutting them down as they congregated (tụ tập) to receive medals, standing in plain sight (rõ mồn một).

The incident has drawn rare criticism of Ukraine’s armed forces from soldiers and Ukraine’s civilian leadership as a blunder (sai lầm) with deadly consequences (hậu quả chết người). The Ukrainian government is investigating the deaths, and the commander of the brigade (lữ đoàn) has been suspended (đình chỉ) pending the inquiry’s results.

Critics have pointed to a hidebound (ẩn giấu) mentality in officers who organized a ceremony straight out of a Soviet-era military handbook, in which soldiers stood at attention before a table spread with medals and removed their helmets (mũ bảo hiểm). Many appeared to have died from head injuries.

source: nytimes,