Last week was the most horrible week in recent history of Russia, waging this awful war. This is madness and russians never wanted it, Putin did. I live in Moscow, so I see the Russian reports, and I see Ukrainian reports, and the only thing clear is that both are lying. I speak to Ukrainians and they are terrified, I speak to Ukrainians who hate Russia, I speak to other Ukrainians who hate the current ukrainian government and hope things would be better if Russia wins, I hear stories of atrocities from soldiers on both sides.
And yet the days in Moscow are peaceful, sunny and warm, the sky is bright blue and people go about their life as normal, even if everyone is fearful. No one I know supports this war, yet no one can do anything to stop it. I wonder if this is how Berlin felt in 1938. The police is brutal, so few take to the streets, and even so thousands of those who do are arrested.
I felt frozen, emotionless (as your brain does in crisis) this week, not knowing what to do with the situation changing so quickly, with the whole planned out future being forever off limits. The thing that shook me out of it was my Ukranian proffessor texting me back after I asked him how he was doing.
No, his family isn't safe, they are on the front lines
No, he won't be here next week to meet up and talk science
Of course he won't, now my letter seems to me crude, insensitive. We have that idea mindset since ww2 that the best thing you can do in a crisis is to do your job and do it well. So I send him that work memo with a war postscriptum. But how could he go on, his parents are in mortal danger.
Russian media said that his hometown was taken peacefully. That there was no resistance. I do not know the truth.
I only know that reading "all still alive" horrified me more than anything ever before.