Benjamin Reed

Even the land of smiles has a breaking point—and this time, it’s launching F-16s instead of fire lanterns.

Victory isn’t flags on rooftops or borders redrawn—it’s the stubborn act of existing, of speaking your mother tongue in defiance, while the sky falls and the world debates your worth.

What looked like chaos on the battlefield was actually doctrine—Russia’s brutal, plodding logic of endurance dressed in the rags of attrition and fed through the teeth of drone warfare.

War didn’t greet me with a banner or a cause—it handed me a shovel, a borrowed rifle, and a promise that if I didn’t dig fast enough, I’d meet God before breakfast.