11 years old Ilya tells about his experiences in occupied Mariupol (Donetsk region, Ukraine). Ilya's mother died in his hand after being injured by a russian bomb, he later was kidnapped by russian forces.
I’m so fucking tired.
We shouldn’t be “racist” to Russian. We shouldn’t be “xenophobic” to them. We shouldn’t be russophobic. We should have helped them. We should be more accepting. We must be forgiving. We cannot have a trauma response. We cannot avoid Russian.
We cannot do that and that. Also that.
We must do that and that. Also, that.
We cannot complain. We cannot show our suffering. We are at fault. We must negotiate. We must be silent. We have all deserved. We should have been destroyed. We need to understand. We need to be grateful.
Today I had to publicly defend a Ukrainian 14-year old child simply because he feels uncomfortable to engage with Russian art accounts. Child whose country for most of his life is at war with Russia. Child who spent night sheltering from rockets.
But he doesn’t have a right to be uncomfortable with oppressors.
He is xenophobic.
He is racist.
But Russians that arrived at his posts and started mocking him, are not.
“They are victims of bullying, so it is justified response”
Everyone can have a justified response. Everyone, except us. Because we must be a perfect victim. Or not victim at all? Maybe we are the one that attacked? Maybe we are nazis? There would be always 1001 arguments we do not deserve to be called victims.
World was watching us suffering for centuries. They disarmed us, left us defenceless and then, didn’t even help us a lot until we started screaming. Sometimes I feel that even now, people are still watching at us like at some drama, putting million expectations.
I’m feeling absolutely helpless. Whatever we do, we cannot do. No matter how we react, we should have reacted differently.
We owe everyone everything and no one owes us anything. Wonderful world to live in.
I’m losing motivation. I’m losing hope. I want to scream and cry. But it is also hopeless.
Why us? Why now? Why?
"why don't we hate israelis as much as we hated russians when they invaded ukraine" - first of all, who is "we". It was (primarily) Eastern Europeans who carried the russophobia on their backs, I'm not letting you appropriate their contribution. And second of all, when were you stabbing russian immigrants abroad for the sin of being russian and vandalising their neighbourhoods with swasticas? Because all I remember is russian men harrassing & beating up ukrainian refugee women and children, and setting their houses on fire, while westerners were observing this with "omg brotherly nation forced into war by politicians. make peace not war #deep"
okay, so let me just tell you how i received one of the rudest messages ever yesterday. a person who leads a tumblr about poland has offended me in a message and told me to unfollow them because my blog title is in the cyryllic alphabet lmao, like for real. i use russian as much as polish, it's like my second language and ofc i don't support putin, i wish him the worst, i stand with ukraine as i have ukrainian roots... why are some people so mean and russophobic ? so apparently, your not allowed to use different languages here y'know... disgusting