Sonya, Kiev

I work in cinema, and it so happened that I shot a lot about the war. Every film I thought: war is Hell, it’s good that I’m only filming about it. Yeah. The crazy bunker grandfather, who has read historical novels about the great empire, does not think so. Not a single Kievan entertained any illusions that Kiev would get off from the fighting. The ideological military machine of the Kremlin simply would not allow itself not to try to take the “mother of Russian cities” demonstratively, a parade was probably already planned on the Maidan (as later it turned out, indeed, there was). Therefore, we promptly, by running from the bomb shelter to the apartment, packed up our things and left the sleeping area for the family in the private sector on the same day. That night/morning, while we were sitting in the basement of a neighbor, a fragment of a Russian plane fell a few streets away from us. This, too, like the first bombing, was around 4
am. Later we all learned that this was the favorite time of the Russian aggressor, and every time the x-hour was approaching, I started to beat at the level of reflexes. The psyche, as we say, is “clay”. Where will it hit this time? Will all my friends be safe?

Then, when the occupiers began to suffer losses, they turned to deliberate terror of the civilian population. And the question of who has what chances to survive the night has become even more acute. My relatives who have experience with weapons are on the defensive, the rest of the family, including me, is engaged in volunteering, providing medicines, food, and so on. My friend Vetal in Mariupol. The last time he got in touch, his house was blown up by a Russian “hail”, he drank rainwater and cooked food on a campfire.

Frankly, I don’t understand how the same people who immortalized in textbooks and cinema blockade of Leningrad, can they arrange a blockade of Marika? Maybe you
can explain the logic? I’m running out of compassion for the Russians conscripts-teenagers who thought they were coming here to study. To me it becomes a shit and grind that they are hungry, cold or scared, because this does not prevent them from carrying out criminal orders and organizing genocide of the civilian population of my country, robbing, raping. They thought they would take Kiev in three days at most. History has not been taught and does not understand that this is not the first time that we, Ukrainians, “fraternal the people”are trying to strangle with their “love”. We used to live next to a terrorist power, we were ready.

And yet, the sidewalks of our cities and villages are littered with leaflets explaining how to properly surrender to Russian soldiers. Because, believe me, we don’t want to take extra lives, even in war. Tonight (can you guess at what time?) in our private sector, a shell fragment fell again. It ‘s the size of a scoop-sized TV nightstand. But thank you for the fact that this is not a vacuum bomb, which several pieces have already been dropped on the territory of the country.

Do you know how, without reading the news, to understand that the another negotiation? Air alert all over the country. They begin to bomb with the frenzy of a cornered animal. And always peaceful. Or, for a change, they purposefully detonate shells near spent nuclear fuel storage facilities at occupied nuclear power plants. Collect bingo Geneva Convention.

I get scared sometimes, but I’m used to the fear of death, it doesn’t mean much to me anymore, it’s just an instinct. It’s much scarier for me to live in the Russian world. Probably this is a manifestation of the popular slogan “will or death”