War Through the Eyes of Meduza Readers. Today we are publishing a letter from Dmitry in Lviv...

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War. What is happening on day 1536 In the evening of May 8, US President Donald Trump announced a three-day ceasefire in Russia’s war with Ukraine, from May 9 to 11. The Russian and Ukrainian authorities confirmed that they had agreed to Trump’s proposal, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr…

War through the eyes of Meduza readers. Today we are publishing a letter from Dmitry in Lviv

I sympathize and empathize with every one of the readers, and I do not judge the people who stayed in Russia, everyone survives and copes as best they can. From the first day of the full-scale war (here everyone says in Ukrainian “povnomashtabka”), I had neither a surge of patriotism nor any desire to become part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I remember that morning and the confusion, the world flew off the rails and still has not returned to a normal state.

I have a good remote job and the opportunity to build a career; in the future I see myself and my wife emigrating. I hardly leave the house, the draft offices are being especially brutal now, if you don’t have an exemption then it’s better not to leave the apartment at all. It feels like after March 2020 and COVID, I lived a normal life for literally only a few weeks…

I want to address everyone who reads Meduza: I believe that most of us are first and foremost Human beings, and only then Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Tatars, and representatives of other ethnic groups and cultures. The war will inevitably end. Men in Ukraine who do not want to serve in the Ukrainian army will leave the country and never come back, because they will not forgive those years of life when they were denied the right to choose, or rather, were presented with the dubious choice of “serve or hide,” while not being allowed to leave for other countries (unless you pay a bribe of 5-10-16 thousand dollars). Fleeing through the mountains or diving into the Tisa is stupid and risky, although some people do manage it.

I know that wherever I live, in a few years I will meet bright and kind people who, like me and my family (my wife and cat), are forced to start life over because of the man-eating власти in the Kremlin and the stupid and greedy власти in Ukraine. People from Odesa, Kharkiv, Moscow, Kazan, and Krasnoyarsk, in Spain or Italy, you and I may one day become friends. Hold on to hope, grit your teeth, and trust yourself and your heart. As long as we live and act according to our conscience and convictions, we will cope with everything.

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