The War Through Meduza Readers’ Eyes. Today We Publish a Letter from Nika in Bashkortostan...

Meduza — LIVE:

War. What is happening on day 1517 A Russian drone hit a house in Kyiv tonight where Sergei Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister known by the call sign “Flash,” lives. Beskrestnov himself, he says, “miraculously survived.” He claims…

The war through Meduza readers’ eyes. Today we publish a letter from Nika in Bashkortostan

Before February 2022, I was hardly interested in politics. I had heard certain names, noticed some events out of the corner of my eye, but on the whole I lived my private life. On February 24, 2022, I was hit hard over the head. It was as if I woke up. I could not believe what was happening, and I still cannot believe that WAR — with Ukraine — is really happening and has been going on for more than four years.

Whatever people who stand up for our state may say (about the oppression of Donbas residents by the “Kyiv regime” and so on), for me there is no justification for what happened. I feel like a resident of Hitler’s Germany after it attacked the USSR, consumed by shame, guilt, fear for the future, despair at the thought of the disgrace with which my country has covered everything.

I do not have the strength to leave here — I am too weak, not smart enough, lazy, fearful, and so on. I am not a patriot; I would leave at the slightest opportunity, would shamefully run away, trying to forget everything that ties me to the aggressor state and to a people who support aggression. Most of my fellow citizens really are not against what is happening. They do not connect rising prices, closed borders, drones flying overhead, the ban on the internet with the “line of the party and government.” I think we all deserved this government and this life.

I very much want peace. But things will not be as they were before. That is why I also very much want the regime to change, and for the truth about this most shameful invasion to come crashing down on Russians, knocking the damned imperialism, inflated autocracy, and pompous “people-ness” out of their heads — the kind in which only a few letters remain of a humane attitude toward people… And for dignity to become the main source of pride for every citizen of Russia.

To read the letter to the end, click on the quote — it will open in full.

You can also share your thoughts about the war with Meduza through the feedback form.

@meduzalive