Nastya, Zaporizhzhia

I’m shaking. It’s like I’m constantly cold. If the siren wails, then my arms and legs go numb. I need to get ready quickly and run for cover, and it’s hard for me to even carry a cat. As if there are no forces.

The most shocking thing is what relatives and friends from Russia write. We are told that we have “invented everything”. That there is nothing. That our army is bombing us. Some write that this is “to you for our Dombas” (the author’s spelling is preserved)), that we are being zombified. And they will save us from the Nazis and Bandera. We still don’t know who these mythical Nazis and Bandera are.

Work has stopped. I give private lessons and teach classes with small groups of students. There are no classes right now. Husband is a musician.
We keep in touch via messengers, mostly. We contact each other in the morning.

We monitored the news from the channels of the Russian Federation. They report that there are neo-Nazis here. That’s a lie.

The Ukrainian nationalist party “Right Sector” had no support among the population and is not represented in the Verkhovna Rada. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is from a Ukrainian-Jewish family.

The following statement of the Russian media: oppressing Russian speakers and banning the Russian language is a lie. No one here is surprised by the Russian language. In Soviet times, many specialists (builders, installers, engineers) came to large construction sites from all over the USSR. When the nuclear power plant was being built in our city, people also came from everywhere. My father-in-law is from the Belgorod region, they have lived here for many years. My uncle’s wife is from Chita. The woman I rent an office from was born and spent her youth in Moscow. My husband’s former boss is from Omsk.

And the latest news — that we are waiting for the “Russian world” and “liberators” – is a lie. No one has ever waited for them here. The “Russian world” is killing us and its own people. Both military and peaceful.