Writing a letter from the front line has never been easy. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me” rings hollow when written by a soldier in combat. Yet freeing oneself from such clichés is just as difficult, because the reality of life at the front defies verbal description. In the end, what matters most is the message itself—the simple fact that it exists. A letter that, by its very presence, testifies that someone is still alive to send it. It is enough to sign one’s name or draw the first thing that comes to mind—to “imprint” one’s existence on a sheet of paper.

In her work Military Mail Express, Zhanna Kadyrova highlights this aspect of communication as a performative act inseparable from materiality and the human body. Unlike soldiers in past wars, today’s fighters are not entirely cut off from society and sometimes have access to the internet. Yet such digital communication lacks a “body.” The physical form of a letter corresponds more truthfully to what needs to be said: Russia’s war of aggression is not something virtual but something that strikes real bodies, souls, and lives—of both defenders and civilians.

​

Kadyrova has created an envelope that resists the logic of both the postal system and contemporary modes of communication. It is a metal envelope, too heavy to send, its surface perforated by shrapnel. The messages inside come mainly from Colombian fighters of the Guajiro unit, who joined Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression. The unit was named after their first fallen comrade—sadly, not the last. Among all nationalities represented in the international brigades, Colombians form one of the largest groups, and they have suffered the highest number of casualties.