February, 24 2022 – the day that changed the world, my world

I could have never imagined that I would wake up that day to the news of the country I was born in, the country that fought off the Nazis in the bloodiest ever war and lost millions and millions of lives, would launch a war on its neighbor, its Slavic brother…It’s an unspeakable tragedy, and unfathomable for many-many Russians abroad and inside the country as well, despite how absolutely relentless the government propaganda has been to justify this ‘military operation’ (one is not allowed to call this ‘war’ in Russia – it’s punishable by imprisonment).

People are simply shocked by the madness; no one believed it would come to this. People are trying to protest but simply holding a poster sign ‘No War’ leads to arrests; a friend of mine in Moscow told me the country is being christened ‘New North Korea’…

I have a Ukrainian last name; I was born in Russia (or USSR rather) and right now I and so many Russian-born people are ashamed…What did my Ukrainian 16-year-old grandfather fight for when he joined the Red Army in 1943? What did he spill his blood for alongside of millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakh, Uzbek, and many many more? To turn into Nazis ourselves 80 years later?!

We stand with Ukraine