It was quiet here last month or so. I wasn’t posting or creating anything. And the reason of this is WAR.
Don’t recall that I ever mentioned here that I’m an artist from Ukraine, living in Lviv right now. If you don’t live on the bottom of the ocean you certainly know that Russia invaded Ukraine right now and we’re in open war now. Of course, the conflict is not new, Russia occupied a lot our our land in 2014 and the war on the Eastern part of Ukraine was ever since. But now it’s a full scale invasion, they’re not hiding behind “it’s not our troops” phrases. They bombing our cities with missiles, artillery and a lot of stuff I don’t even know or understand.
The one thing that I know right now is that I’m not safe in my country anymore. Despite living really far away from Russian (and Belarus) borders, missiles are hitting Lviv as well. It’s 70km from Poland border, btw. It’s really scary to hear an explosion. But a lot more terrifying is to feel it, with your body...
These 39 days felt like years, especially first two weeks. Living in constant fear for your loved ones and yourself, afraid to sleep, not wanting to eat, packing your emergency backpack, shivering from every loud noise on the street. Someone closed a car door too loud? Tram passing by? You neighbour dropped something heavy on the floor? Congratulations, now your heart is beating fast and you’re scared af.
I have friends that escaped really hot spots of this war. They were sleeping in the basement while neighbouring houses being shelled by artillery and air bombs. They miraculously escaped this hell, came to my relatively quiet place. I never forget their eyes of fear every time they hear trams. I had to quiet them down literally every 5 minutes, because they thought that it was a sound of bombs.
Not to mention air alerts/sirens every day. We got used to it. Got used to doing to the bomb shelter couple times a day. Even in the middle of the night. Being wakened by the howling sirens almost every night at 3 am or 4 am is stressing itself. Feels like a torture when prisoners are deprived of sleep. But you need to wake up and go to the bomb shelter, because you never know when it’s your house being targeted.
But the thing that urged me to share my thoughts with you was the one that happen in Bucha near Kyiv.
Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine with more than 4 mil people living there. Bucha is a suburb of Kyiv, some 20 km away. It was a prosperous small city. There were a lot of families with small children, a lot of youth, many of my friend lived there. All of them are IT specialists, programmers, artists, musicians etc. This city (as long with many neighbouring cities) were captured by russians in the first days of war, I guess, in attempt to capture Kyiv itself. But Kyiv did not surrender and these suburbs were under the russian control for over a month. A few days ago they started to withdraw troops from Kyiv suburbs and we saw what they did there. With people. Hundreds of people murdered, tortured, raped.
Russian president claimed that we have nazis here, so we have to be denazified. But in reality they just shoot ukrainian people for being ukrainians.
Russian propaganda for years poisoned minds of people, not only russians, but people in west too. Let me assure you that we don’t have more nazis than any other country. (In reality, our far-right never did it to parliament on any other significant government structure. And The Azov battalion, of which every pro-russians speak, no more than a good soldiers who volunteered to go to war in 2014 because our military was in ruins. As the Azov battalion grew, the denounced their nationalist believes and everything that is left in their ideology is to protect Ukraine from Russian invaders.)
With this being said, it is sickening to see everything that happened on the territories being occupied by russia. Marauders (russian soldiers) were stealing stuff from apartments and houses ukrainians left when fleeing the war. Russians were killing for fun. Not only men. A lot of women and children are dead too. Elderly people were shot on the streets when going out to the grocery store. Cars of people, who wanted to evacuate, were shoot from tanks. These cars had KIDS written everywhere on them. But russian soldiers read it. And they shot anyway. Reading stories from my friends and colleagues are terrifying and unimaginable. And yet it happened, with people I knew, with their families. My colleague lost her sister, who tried to escape occupied city in the car. My friend lost an entire family he were friends with. Mom, dad and a child. All dead, in the middle of the street.
To be honest I’m afraid to look at the photos that are published right now. I’m scared that I might see a familiar face of a friend that I drank a beer with, or of a colleague I worked with...
When I read articles and messages “not all russians”, “it’s Putin war” I want to scream in rage. Was it Putin who shot people in Bucha? Was it Putin who dropped bombs on the hospitals, schools and houses? Was it Putin who raped women and children? These soldiers could disobey orders, could just go home and refuse to take part in all these madness. And yet they stayed. They did everything they were told even when they knew they’re killing unarmed civilians.
And there are people of russia who support this. Don’t be fooled by some of them who say “no to war”. They lived all their lives watching Putin causing one war after another (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine) and did nothing. How could it be that there are more people protesting against the war in Czech Republic and Austria than in Russia itself? You could say that people are scared, of course they are. But how could you change anything without stating your mind? I saw some protests in moscow and st.petersburg. But do you honestly thinking that a 5,000 people protest in multi-million city goes with the phrase “not all russians’? It proves exact opposite, it shows that 80+% approval of this war amongst society is absolutely true.
Russians hate everyone, not only Ukrainians. Russia has a deep history of colonisation no one ever speaks of. Why do you think russian territory is so big? It got it from all the nations it colonised and destroyed. And russia never acknowledged what it did to other nations, wiping out their languages and history.
With all being said... I just want you to keep in mind that war is a cruel and an absolute evil that can’t be excused by anything.
I don’t believe in any god, so I won’t tell you to pray for us. I would ask you so speak for us!
If you are against the war, say it! If you want to help, do it!
If you think about us, thank you from all my heart!
Sagasketchbook from Ukraine.
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