War Through the Eyes of Meduza’s Readers. Today We Are Publishing a Letter From Yevgeniya in Moscow...

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War. What is happening on day 1553. On May 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with deputies from the Servant of the People parliamentary faction. At the meeting, Zelensky told the deputies that “the possibility of ending the ‘hot phase’ of the war by November is being considered...

War through the eyes of Meduza’s readers. Today we are publishing a letter from Yevgeniya in Moscow

I live between two cities: Moscow and a small town with a population of several thousand in the Bryansk region. I want to write about this town. There has been no mobile internet here for a long time; everyone is used to it. Incoming strikes are a constant occurrence here. Both drones and missiles fly in. There are days when air defense operates literally without stopping. For the locals, this is a kind of chronic stress that you simply live with, because there is nothing you can do about it.

But what shocks me most of all is the level of hatred people feel toward Ukrainians. Everywhere there is talk of retribution, of how they should be hit with the “Oreshnik.” I’m bewildered: do people really confuse cause and effect? I can excuse them for the harsh television propaganda. But my mother lives here too, and her mind has not been clouded by Solovyov and others. I feel sorriest for her: when I leave, she is left one on one with this town. All her friends fiercely and aggressively support whoever is in power.

I am waiting for the war to end, and I am afraid of it, because crowds of maimed men who have acquired a taste for money and blood will return here. It will be even scarier than it is now.

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