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

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War. What is happening on day 1540. The military convinced Putin that by autumn they will seize all of Donbas. After that, Russia is preparing to put forward new territorial claims, Financial Times writes, citing several sources, including some close to the Kremlin, as well as...

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

Over these four-plus years, my state of mind has swung from despair to complete apathy and back again. What is definitely gone is hope. Somehow I manage to live and even sometimes fulfill long-held dreams, but after a few isolated bright personal moments, I return once more to this hopeless reality. Two or three good weeks a year, and that’s it.

Now, in waves, I again feel the way I did in February-March 2022. I feel almost completely isolated: all my friends and acquaintances, except for one, have drifted into the more-or-less pro-government camp; as for my parents and relatives, there is nothing to say about them, they were in it all along, of course. There are, naturally, occasional pleasant surprises, but they do not change the overall picture. If it weren’t for my wife and my cat, I would have gone insane long ago. And my wife no longer wants to discuss political topics, while for my best friend they only drive him even deeper into despair, and things are already hard enough for him as it is.

All that remains is to grit your teeth and keep living. I assume that is the case for many people. If I could leave for somewhere, I would have left; Russia at times feels like some kind of prison, or a pot in which all of us are being slowly boiled, like those very frogs.

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