War Through the Eyes of Meduza Readers. Today We Are Publishing Liu's Letter

Meduza — LIVE:

Ukraine's massive strike on Moscow Ukraine launched a massive strike on Moscow and the Moscow region on the night of May 17. From midnight to 7 a.m. alone, 81 drones were shot down on approach to Moscow, and in total over the past day air defense forces hit more than 120 drones. Ukrainian...

War through the eyes of Meduza readers. Today we are publishing Liu's letter

On the 1525th day of the war, missiles struck the city of my childhood. Several houses were damaged, and people were killed.

I left there several years ago, but my friends, relatives, and former colleagues are still there. They wrote to me about the wail of sirens at night, about how terrifying it is. Even people I had not spoken to for quite a long time wrote to me, because in February 2022 they were genuinely happy: "Hooray! We're fucking up the Khokhols!"

I did not remind them of that. But I have not forgotten it, not how they rejoiced, nor how at four in the morning on February 24 people were already writing to me from Kyiv: "We are being bombed."

For some reason, at the very beginning of the war, Cheboksary seemed to me like a quiet and safe city where nothing ever happens. I was wrong. We were all wrong.

As a child, I could never understand how good Germans and Italians allowed such monsters to come to power. And now I look at the photographs and videos on Meduza from the city where I grew up, and I do not understand how exactly such good people as us ended up at this point.

Maybe today's children will find the answer to this question. And then they will never allow it again, and the words "Peace to the world" will stop sounding mocking, and in some places already extremist.

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

@meduzalive