Lifehack - the ballistic missile air alert would not be able to wake you up in the middle of the night if you haven't gone to bed yet 👌👌👌
Also fuck all russians! Those who made the missiles, those who loaded them up, those who pressed the buttons and set the coordinates and then celebrated when those missiles hit the residential buildings and killed people. Fuck those russians who did all this and then went home to their families. Fuck their families too.
After that, try look me in the eyes and say that I'm 'bigoted xenophobic terrible person' for hating russians.
Blame the government! Ordinary people are not at fault!
Ordinary people are working at factories and making bombs. Ordinary people are going to the occupied cities to settle there. Ordinary people taking the abducted children for "re-education". Ordinary people doing all the soft power work and whitewash state's crimes. Ordinary people launching missiles. Ordinary people go to newly occupied territories for vacations. Ordinary people do nothing and say nothing about state's crimes even when they have a chance. Ordinary people teach their kids to be the same.
And ordinary people loudly play victims while sending you death threats and calling you slurs. Ordinary people are telling the people their government bombing that they deserve to be bombed. Even if they were claiming they hate their government just a moment ago.
Army consists of ordinary people who decided to go to kill people in another country for some cash.
And some of them even think they should be praised and rewarded for leaving Omelas.
Bonkers to think about artists in Ukraine participating in artfight rn. Like. "Yeagh we are getting actively bombed right now also I have to finish drawing a colorful dog".
You know what I'm thinking about, looking at those videos of endless car queues for gas in russia? It reminds me of the military checkpoint queues we had to wait in to get out of the russian-occupied part of Donetsk oblast. (Before the russians eventually closed the border with Ukraine under the guise of covid.)
A trip to my grandma's town (now completely destroyed) that used to take me an hour before 2014, could take anywhere from seven to over ten hours, or even more. And it cost a lot of money for the ride, because they quickly banned public bus transit to make a profit on transportation.
It wasn't a mere inconvenience. Imagine ten hours in the steppe, under the scorching summer sun, in a car that quickly turns into a microwave. Imagine hours in frigid winter temperatures, open to all the winds. Now imagine that Donetsk's elderly, the pensioners, had to make that trip every month to get their Ukrainian pensions, because the banking system couldn't operate under the occupation. Only they had to make the crossing mostly on foot, having no money to spare on rides. Frying under the sun, standing in lines to get their documents checked by the russian terrorists, having strokes, dying in those queues.
I'm not even talking about the crippling anxiety you feel, waiting for them to check your phone, to ask you stupid questions, knowing they can do anything to you and suffer no repercussions, because the law doesn't apply there. Sometimes hearing the artillery duels in the distance, seeing flashes. Disassociating.
All the while, russians lived comfortably in their terrorist state, not caring about the war they're waging in the neighboring country, or the death and suffering they're causing. Because they weren't interested in politics.
Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Film Studio in Kyiv, one of Ukraine’s oldest film studios. After russian attack during the night. The strike damaged the studio’s costume workshop and destroyed Ukraine’s largest and oldest costume collection (around 100 000 costumes)
Reblogging my own post to point out that on the night before June 15, 2026, russia hit the church pictured here in photos 3 to 6 - the Dormition Cathedral - with a Shahed drone, igniting a big fire.
Initially built in 1073-1078, the cathedral survived for centuries before being blown up by the retreating Soviet army in 1941.
It was restored after Ukraine regained independence, in 2000.
Some time ago, I received a question about how people in the russian-occupied territories of Ukraine live. My mother called today (she lives in Donetsk). It's a miracle she's still able to call me with a VPN. She shared news of my hometown. She had to close the window to say all this, despite not actually saying anything criminal. Because that's what life is like there. Everyone is scared.
Everything we knew in that town all our lives has pretty much ceased to exist - and, mind you, the town is not on the frontline. Nothing there has been destroyed, it's just been under occupation since 2014.
Now our industrial bakery, meat processing plant, and coking plant - they all have stopped production under the glorious russian governance. Our steel mill - the main town employer (it's a monotown, everything is dependent on that mill) - has been put on "hot conservation," which basically means it's kept operational but produces nothing.
She says at all the border checkpoints (and there still is a border between the "DPR" and russia, despite them proclaiming it a part of russia in 2022), they check everyone's phones. Every phone has spyware on it, and every conversation is being listened to. She says sometimes she'll be talking to my father on the phone and then hear other voices commenting on what she has said, or just chatting in the background. I can't tell you if it's true or not, but I believe her.
So there you have it: personal accounts of what life there looks like.
The village where my father grew up, where I spent the first few years of my life. Now, thanks to russia, it exists only in my memory, like many other places.
getting through it one gay (gay day) at a time @lillovingsoul - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag