When I see some foreigners wholeheartedly say that Ukrainians shouldn't judge all russians by the actions of the russian army, I think they miss a couple of points.
Firstly, Western belief that there is good in every person leads to self-deception and naivety. Many people still want to believe that russian society isn't different from the ones they live in. "Well, of course they are just like us. Look at their cities, at their youth, look at the things their activists write and say. Army gets the orders from the government, that's it. Ordinary people are against this war" Well, I don't know about you, but in my country army IS a part of the society. In fact, it's a scaled down version of the society. Soldiers aren't grown in laboratories where they gain their own, separate mentality.
Of course, if you are lucky/unlucky enough to speak russian, you know that the image and the essence of the russian mentality are two different things. russians are extremely good at creating an attractive and somewhat alluring image of their country for those who don't go in too deep. People who still try to judge russians from their own, West-oriented perspective, make a huge mistake. They conclude that the ordinary russians strive to the same values and civilizational goals as a common folk from, let's say, Berlin or Copenhagen.
The second thing has to do with us, Ukrainians. For us it's not the time for the shades of gray. To survive and to gain the victory, we need to look at the enemy through a white and black lense. Here are us and there are them. If we start pondering which russian is better and which is worse, we risk to lose everything. Every living russian at this given moment is an enemy - either a current or a potential one. Those russians who were kids at the beginning of the war in 2014, grew up and came to kill us in 2022. So we don't have the privilidge of going through all of the life details of those russians who beat themselves in the chest and proclaim they are good. Besides, in most cases after a few crucial questions 'good' russians turn into the ordinary ones. And thus we return to the first point once again - it's improtant to understand that russians are extremely good at hiding their ugly core from those who don't study the topic deep enough.
"Investigators assume that the mother died, hugging and holding her children to her chest. The burning temperature of the house was such that the baby's bones and body were reduced to ashes"
Morning in Ukraine is as always started randomly at whatever time russians decide to try to kill us. Explosion after explosion, and you stare at the information that there is so much shit flying to kill you. Thank you air defence for being here, so i can drink my coffee and listen quietly how you work, still being startled at the sound, but recognising that its not certain death yet
Фанати тут✌🏻
i finally drew patron 🥳
this used to be a city of Maryinka, as you can see it no longer exists, thanks to russians.
I see so many reflections today from different people: someone woke up from the explosions, some from a phone call, some woke up and saw hundreds of notifications from different telegram channels. It is still so unimaginably bizarre. I have no ability to put into words the feeling of your world falling apart and we didn’t even understand half of the danger that was surrounding us. We were so damn close to disaster with half of Europe believing that nothing good will come out of it.
Ukrainians didn’t care what Europeans thought though, I personally saw news pieces about "Russia will take control of Kyiv" a lot later, somewhere in May, when Ukrainian military took control over the north of the country. And I’m so eternally grateful to every Ukrainian who made sure that all this "experts" sat in those flashy studios red from guilt. I’m grateful for my life, I’m grateful for our Ukraine. She persist. She is still the love of our lives. She’s hurt and devastated but she lives despite all the attempts to destroy her. Same as us. Somehow still here.
Yet I feel more detached from the western world than ever and I’m so fucking jealous of you all. It’s not even about the rockets or shakheds - somewhere along the lines you accept the fact that you may die in any moment - it’s about normal things like your Twitter feed that doesn’t look like a necrology, military terms that don’t make any sense to you, your city that doesn’t stop everyday to mourn the dead, you don’t feel guilty for trying to live a normal life while your classmate, who wanted to be a director, posts stories from the trenches. All of that and more. I’m not even entitled to my emotions because there always will be someone who says that my country is not suffering enough. I no longer react to comments like this as emotionally as I’ve done before but it is still so bizarre to see stuff like that from people whose countries have always been the one to inflict suffering on others.
I may sound mean or sarcastic or whatever but there is so much negativity inside of us that was put there by people like I’ve mentioned above that it is going to be released from time to time. "Your country shouldn’t exist", "Only 9 thousand killed", "You all are nazis/racist/zionists/any of the -ist terms" - yet you should always react in a constructive way because the moment you let your emotions go, you are the worst person on the planet. But who am I kidding, some people here do believe that we are. There is a thousand bad people with sketchy patches in a 40-million country and suddenly "That’s why I no longer support Ukraine". Well, honey, that means you never did. Because Syrian flags were quickly replaced with Ukrainian ones and just as quickly with Palestinian. It’s not about the "Support the oppressed", it’s "Anything to not feel guilty" because then you’ll find the reason to hate Palestinians, just as you did with us. If only you cared about the problematic shit happening in you country as much as you care about our political and social life.
But there are people who still are there for us. Countries that are still here. We may not say it as often but we are thankful. So very thankful for everything you’ve done and are doing for us. Thank you for hearing us and uplifting our voices.
Recently one of the most beautiful people here have lost her life defending me and you. She was always in my notes, always making sure that we didn’t feel uncomfortable even if she of all the people had all the right to be upfront about her thoughts and feelings. I don’t think I will ever get rid of the feeling of guilt. She was there while I wasn’t. She said to mourn her through anger. Anger towards the oppressor. Anger that should be directed into something useful: donations, sharing info, contacting your MPs and so on.
The soldier‘s death is not something out of ordinary during the war, it’s not considered a war crime but what if half of the army are civilians? Volunteers who left their homes to protect them. What if the soldier was a teacher, a poet, an actor, an IT-specialist, a scientist, what then? Isn’t it a tragedy? My country is loosing yet another generation of beautiful talented people and it makes my view of the future even darker.
But what can I say? I’m still here. My country still stands. Ukrainian air defence is doing everything possible and impossible to protect the lives of the civilians. Ukrainian military is still the only thing keeping us all alive. Heroes, titans, gods. Glory to them. Eternal glory to those who lost their lives defending Ukraine.
To Ukrainians: якось буде, прорвемся.
I was scrolling Instagram Reels and everything was fine, until I saw a video of a Ukrainian girl dubbing anime.
Honestly, I forgot what a pleasure is communication with not all Russians
She’s a cool girl but why she doesn’t speak Russian?
Well, I don’t know. Because other languages exist? Oh, wait
And now write in a human language
Explanation: a human language is any other language that is not Ukrainian, cause you know, Ukrainian language is an animal language
The Ukrainian language is a rural Russian. That’s why a lot of people find it funny. We haven’t been to the village, haven’t heard «бурак» (a twisted Ukrainian word for beetroot) and «кавун» (a Ukrainian word for watermelon).
The good old Russian belief that Ukrainian is a language of uneducated people from the countryside
South Slavic forms of Russian are quite similar to each other, do you also laugh at Serbian language or South Western Czech language?
It seems this person was trying to talk some sense into the previous user but South Western Czech is a South Slavic form of Russian????
Actually, no politics or something, but Ukrainian sounds somehow, I don’t know, like a rural language
A few moments later
500k dead pigs. It’s not enough, we need more
What did happened to ‘no politics’?
It’s common for Russians to call Ukrainians pigs, by the way
The most useless dubbing
It’s useless because it’s Ukrainian. Nothing new
Who might find the rural language, which only makes you laugh and smile, useful? You, even the Ukrainians themselves, don’t speak it
There are only two types of Russians: who thinks that no people speak Ukrainian in Ukraine, and who thinks that evil people who speak Ukrainian violate rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine
Weird, I’m so accustomed to reading such comments for all these years that I don’t have any emotional response to the insults.
Russians: why don’t you like us so much?
Ukrainians: You nation is trying to destroy our country again. Actually, your policy towards us hasn't changed from 19th century. All of you need to go through the process of decolonization, review your history and culture. It is time to acknowledge Russian imperialism and colonial view on other nations which is still strong nowadays. You need to accept that our relations weren’t equal, it is a history of abuse. Then we can talk
Russians: it’s putin’s war. That’s all lie. We are brother nations
Ukrainians: ok, in the context of war and a time when our existence as nation and country is in danger, we define everything Russian to be an existential threat. Our priority is to survive, everything else can be reviewed later. We are protecting Ukrainian in Ukraine from Russian destruction
Russians: how dare you. We knew that you hate us for no reason. You are nazi
i'm tired of Eastern European countries being sacrificied by the West in order to appease Russia. this is exactly what happened after WW2, this is what might as well happen now
Babyn Yar, 82 years past.
Last year, I walked there a lot - and couldn't help but cry, every time. You always knew the Holocaust happened, and what it happened to Ukraine as well, but there, in the memorial park, you see the photos, read the text describing it, you see these ravines, you walk along the graves/monuments of the Jewish cemetery, you listen to the prayers and memorial songs... Can you not cry?
And then there's the rocket attack on Babyn Yar last year. And there's the occupation, execution of civilians, mobile crematoriums. The theater, inscription "KIDS". "Filtration camps". Deportation of children. Blowing up the prisoners' barrack. The damn. The market. The train station... No, I couldn't.
82 years later, and the only thing that changed is the language of the invaders.
🇵🇸🍉 Небосхил | 🇺🇦 | artist | укр/eng/pol | https://linktr.ee/neboskhyl
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