The war through the eyes of Meduza readers. Today we are publishing a letter from Yulia in the Moscow region

Meduza — LIVE:

War. What is happening on day 1549: Vladimir Putin wants to end the war by the end of 2026, but only on terms that he himself considers victorious, Bloomberg reported, citing sources. Those terms include full control over Donbas…

The war through the eyes of Meduza readers. Today we are publishing a letter from Yulia in the Moscow region

It is natural that the people who write letters to Meduza are mostly those who read it regularly and, from the very beginning of the war, have shared the editorial position, who support Ukraine and are now pleased by this justice in the form of strikes on Russia. But that makes the sample unrepresentative.

In my circle, people are different and read different things. Now that the AFU are striking residential buildings, there are fewer and fewer people among my acquaintances who sympathize with Ukraine; those who used to be neutral are now voicing ideas like “bomb them into the ground,” and those who used to support Ukraine have gone silent.

Pity for Ukraine’s situation is fading, guilt is fading too: after all, “they’re no better themselves.” People are angry at the AFU and grateful to our air defense. If that is the effect they wanted, then it has been achieved. If the goal was to make Russians angry at the government, that did not work: it’s not the government bombing them, it’s the AFU, regardless of who started it all. I hear from people a desire for escalation as a way to speed up the end of the war.

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