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‘I’ve lost my faith in humanity’: Meduza’s readers from Ukraine and Russia describe how four years of full-scale war reshaped their lives

Source: Meduza

Four years ago today, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, unleashing a vast and ongoing humanitarian disaster. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have died, thousands of civilians have been killed, and Ukrainian cities have been reduced to rubble. This destructiveness has seeped into people’s daily lives, affecting even those far from the front line. Every day, readers of our Russian-language site write to Meduza about the war, sharing a wide range of experiences and opinions. Below, we share a few letters from the past year, translated into English. 

The opinions expressed in these letters are those of the authors and do not reflect Meduza’s editorial position.

Ukrainians

Ihor

Dnipro. June 2025.

I was mowing the lawn in my yard when I heard the air-raid siren. A couple of minutes later — explosions. Then more. And more. This time very close. I saw the white trails of air defense missiles in the sky, and a mushroom of black smoke rising over a densely built-up area.

I ran for my phone to call my wife. She’d gone out to a shopping mall with our one-year-old daughter. I called — no signal. Called again. No signal. I kept trying, but nothing. I decided to wait a few minutes and calm the dog. He was inside, whining loudly, terrified by the explosions.

Then, I saw that my wife was online on Telegram. She wrote that she and our daughter had gone down to the parking garage and the reception there was bad. The most important thing is that they were safe.

Today, [June 24], the Russians killed 17 people in my city. Ordinary civilians. Nearly 300 were wounded. Many of them children. That’s all I have to say.

Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today. 

Valerii

Vovchansk, Kharkiv region. June 2025.

There’s nothing left of my town now. Whether the war ends or not, nothing will change for me. I have nowhere to return to.

In the fall of 2022, I drove to [the Russian border town of] Shebekino to buy gas and groceries. I had two 5,000-ruble notes [about $65] and my passport — nothing else. I never made it back. [The Russian army] was retreating from Vovchansk, and they stopped letting people cross back that way. There I was, in shorts, behind the wheel, with a little cash — and that was it. I went up to the police and asked what I was supposed to do. They told me to go to a temporary accommodation center.

I stayed there a couple of days, then they sent me to another region, another center. I drove there, filling the tank with the last of my money. It was cold, and I didn’t even have pants or a jacket. At the center I grabbed hold of a volunteer — they’d come to deliver something — and asked him, “Brother, at least send me some pants, an old jacket, anything.” A week later some women brought me a whole bag [of clothes]. Someone had put it together just for me — there was even new underwear, though I hadn’t asked for it.

My ex-wife lives in Russia. We had a bad split, we were barely speaking at the time, almost wishing each other dead. But I got in touch, and she helped too. [She and her new husband] found me a job, let me stay with them for a few days while I looked for housing, and lent me money for rent until my first paycheck.

At first, neighbors from Vovchansk kept an eye on my apartment. Then they said, “If you’re not a traitor, come back here and live. Anyone who stays in Russia is a traitor.” Those same neighbors were among the first to run and get Russian passports while the city was under Russian control — and I didn’t.

Then they started writing nasty things. Then they sent me a video of a man from Kupyansk being killed for collaborating with the Russians. They said the same would happen to me. Later someone leaked my Telegram [handle] into some database, labeling me a traitor. Strangers began sending threats and insults.

So it turns out that where I’m the enemy, people help me — even my ex-wife. And from my own hometown I get nothing but abuse. I look at all this and don’t understand who I am, where I belong, who I’m with. Nothing is left. The war took everything.

Iryna

Bucharest. April 2025.

My husband and I live in Bucharest, in Romania. Among Ukrainians in Europe, it’s common to think that pro-Russian residents of occupied territories are either stupid or simply opportunists. But we underestimate how deeply Russian propaganda has brainwashed them. I might have thought the same if my parents weren’t still living in Volnovakha, in the Donetsk region.

I didn’t manage to get Mom and Dad out. I asked them to come to us in Zhytomyr [in western Ukraine]. They couldn’t leave, and I wasn’t allowed to return to get them. When the shelling began, there was still phone service. My mother would call me and shout into the phone, “May all those Russians be cursed.” I cried, but there was nothing I could do. Then the connection was cut, and we didn’t know if they were alive. It was terrifying. Later they were issued Russian SIM cards and spoke cautiously, saying everything was fine. I didn’t know whether to believe them. I understood the calls were being monitored, and we had to speak carefully.

Gradually, I began to notice changes. They told me what was new in the city: a store had opened, they liked the products there; a van had come and offered some kind of medical checkups. Quietly, they got [Russian] documents. They didn’t tell me — I found out by accident. Now they openly boast that their pensions were increased because of “hazardous work conditions.” The first time we had a serious argument was when I told them about my kidney problems. My mother seriously suggested I come there for treatment. When I got upset, she didn’t understand why. She started telling me their hospital is fine — that everything in the city is normal.

They were simply bought — with things they were entitled to anyway. Yes, before, many things were unavailable to them, but we had a chance that this would soon improve thanks to the E.U. Russia took all that away from us, and now gives it back to them itself, presenting it as an achievement — and they believe it. And that really hurts.

I send them your articles about what the Russians are doing, but they can’t read them. [The site] doesn’t open there. I suppose they’re afraid people might learn the truth. We need to do more work and write more for people in those territories. Otherwise, we’ll end up liberating people who are complete strangers to us.

Tanya

Dnipro. March 2025.

I live in Dnipro, and over the past three years it feels like I’ve seen a lot. But the hardest thing of all is seeing human grief up close. War looks different in photographs than it does in front of you. When houses are burning before your eyes and people are crying… well, what can I say — I’ve lost my faith in humanity. War and grief take a heavy toll on mental health. In my circle, that’s true for almost everyone.

I don’t believe the war will end anytime soon. Unfortunately, we’re weaker right now. But to end it as things stand would almost mean admitting that all our human losses were in vain. And most importantly, there’s no guarantee the Russians would stop — that they wouldn’t simply press on toward our cities.

No, my attitude toward Russians hasn’t changed, because there are decent people and there are monsters. Russian soldiers and those who support the war are monsters. I feel hatred and disgust toward them.

We’re exhausted, do you understand? Our people are dying. Our cities are being bombed. And we have no idea when it will end. Still, I want to come out of this war a normal person — not hardened, not stripped of empathy.

Sylvester

Spain. November 2025.

I’m Ukrainian, and I was in Kyiv when the war began. At first, I had a huge desire to fight, to defend my home. You know how we’re raised: a man is a warrior, a protector. It’s an honor to die for your country.

Fortunately, my wife talked me out of it. Even so, I helped Ukraine’s defense forces — I donated large sums, delivered medicine. I spent the money we’d saved to build a house. The logic was simple: if Russia takes my land, I won’t be building anything there anyway.

But over time, my mindset changed. To most of the patriots with draft deferments, I’m a draft dodger. I didn’t care what they thought. But over time, my friends started disappearing. You leave for work in the morning, and by evening you’re in basic training. A friend of mine went to pick up his kid from kindergarten and resurfaced days later — already at a training camp.

At night Russian missiles are flying at you, and during the day Ukrainian draft officers are trying to grab you. I stopped leaving the house, and then I found a way out and left the country. At first in exile, I still tried to support the Armed Forces. But in his New Year’s address in 2024, Zelensky said plainly: you’re either a citizen or an emigrant. After that, taxes and the military levy were raised. That’s when I decided: enough. I’m an emigrant. Handle it yourselves.

Life became simpler after that. The hatred toward Russians faded — both those who left and those who stayed. If you’re not serving, not killing Ukrainians, not supporting Putin, then I have no problem with you.

Now it’s morally difficult to understand who I am. I hate the draft offices and the officials, but I want the Armed Forces to win. I don’t consider Zelensky scum, but I see how his appointees build flowerbeds in frontline cities instead of fortifications. I don’t wish Russians harm, but I’m glad when they’re sitting in basements during Ukrainian strikes.

Russians

Yegor

Belgorod. March 2025.

Because I live in a region right next to the border, my attitude toward everything that’s happening has changed a lot. The main feeling now is exhaustion. Everyone is unbelievably tired. They say war brings out the worst in people, and here you can see that amplified many times over.

At first there was empathy and sympathy. It was heartbreaking to think that the people and the country just 40 kilometers [25 miles] west of you suddenly became “the enemy” simply because they were born there — people you studied with at college, people you got along with perfectly, without arguments or conflict. But three years on, the situation has changed — and so have we. We used to feel for those being shelled in Kharkiv. Now we’ve become the ones under fire ourselves. For us, Ukraine is no longer the victim. With the support of Europe and the United States, the two sides are now practically equal in strength.

We constantly hear the phrase: “Ukraine needs drones.” But those drones hit civilian cars on the road, kindergartens in Shebekino — we know this firsthand, not from the media. Vampire [multiple rocket launchers] shelled shopping centers in Belgorod, like the Belgorod department store and City Mall. Civilians are dying. Peaceful people. These are not military targets. There was the incursion into the Kursk region, and reports of civilians being killed. A fight differs from a beating only in whether the victim fights back. This is no longer a beating. It’s a full-fledged fight, and it needs to be stopped before the consequences become much worse.

Natalia

St. Petersburg. January 2026.

Four years into the war, I can’t say that anything about it has become normal for me. I was horrified by the bombing of Ukrainian cities at the beginning, and I’m horrified now. There’s more anger. I curse at every photograph I see. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that all those men who selected the targets, entered the coordinates, launched the missiles — and now they’ve “finished their shift” and are sleeping peacefully. I will never understand that.

For some reason, my heart aches when I see how simply people in the photos are dressed. How they gather the fragments of their simple lives from the rubble. Those grandma-style housecoats. Sweatpants. Cheap sneakers on legs sticking out from under a black plastic sheet. It’s the sense that these were ordinary people, living modestly, working. They had their flaws, of course, but they also had hopes. I don’t even feel I have the right to write about the children who’ve been killed. Why aren’t they allowed to live? By what right is this simple, modest existence — so similar to ours in Russia — taken from them? Somehow that makes it even heavier.

I read the news, look at the photos, curse. I feel my own helplessness. I pray to God for peace to come soon. I take pride in the meek — only they shall inherit the earth. I feel the claws of guilt at my throat. I tell myself, “It’s not your fault.” I believe it, and I don’t. I put my phone down. I go on living.

Alexander

Chelyabinsk region. October 2025.

I condemned the war from its first day. For many personal reasons, I had no opportunity to leave, and I won’t anytime soon.

I apologize to Ukrainians who are suffering because of my state and in my name. I did not choose this and I do not support it. I hope that sooner or later justice will prevail. I cannot understand your pain. Just allow me to offer this apology.

To my fellow citizens who left and have spent the last four years pouring contempt on those who stayed, I want to say this: we remember everything. I remember everything. You wrote things that bordered on dehumanization. I can understand people under bombardment, but you aren’t them. Don’t hide behind someone else’s suffering. Somehow it’s easier for my compatriot to drag me through the mud than to accept that I never once accepted this war as normal.

I won’t respond in kind. I’m not going to claim that everyone who left belongs to some so-called “comfort emigration.” We’re not you. So I’ll avoid cheap theatrics or reciprocal dehumanization.

Not everyone who left thinks this way about those who stayed. Not everyone needs to kick those who remained just to reassure themselves that they made the right choice — and life abroad is not easy. Leaving was not easy. It was a brave step. To those people, I say thank you — especially to those who try to see individuals here, not a faceless mass.

Maxim

New York. July 2025.

I watch people in Russia shouting that cities should be bombed, and I’m filled with rage. But then I see Ukrainians celebrating when another drone crashes into a residential building in Russia, and I feel even worse. I want to ask: if you rejoice in people’s deaths the same way, how are you different from those you hate?

After three years of war and endless cannibalistic rhetoric on both sides, I’m exhausted. Most of all, I’m tired of people who don’t want peace. They shout about peace, but defend only their own interests and won’t even try to negotiate. And if you speak against this, you’re immediately labeled a “traitor” or “guilty.”

Russians say I betrayed my country because I left and criticize the government during wartime. Ukrainians say I’m responsible for this war and should answer for the actions of a regime I have nothing to do with — I wasn’t even born when Putin came to power.

I’m tired. Tired of the war. But even more tired of people who refuse to stop. Of those who prefer endless slaughter to losing “positions.” Of those willing to sacrifice lives rather than sit down at a negotiating table. […]

I have nothing left to say. Except that I just want silence. Not victory, not revenge — silence. And for at least someone to choose being alive over being right.

Alexandra

Moscow. May 2025.

In the evening, after work, I sit on a bench in my courtyard. Just to breathe. It’s the most ordinary Moscow courtyard: nine-story buildings, lilacs in bloom, all kinds of dogs playing in the dog park, boys kicking a ball in the hockey rink. At dusk, lights come on in the windows. You can make out the outlines of lampshades, chandeliers, floor lamps. Yellow, white, blue. Someone’s grow light glows pink.

I sit there watching this “peaceful” life and wonder who lives behind those windows, beneath those lampshades. Maybe they’re scrolling through their feeds, grieving the dead with unending horror, cursing Putin and all the monstrous creatures who started this war. Or maybe they’re staring blankly at the television, listening to [Russian propagandist Vladimir] Solovyov’s nonsense and dreaming about Kherson. The man with the beagle — a Putin supporter. The one with the spitz — he went to Navalny’s funeral. You don’t know who your neighbor is, and you fall silent when a taxi driver starts talking about the so-called special military operation.

I sit on the bench, breathing in the scent of lilac, and imagine a missile landing in my courtyard and blowing everything to pieces — the beagle and the spitz, the Putin supporter and the liberal, me, the bench, this whole damned, unjust world. I haven’t been able to breathe this air properly for a long time. The scent of lilac lingers faintly — but to me it smells like corpses.