I don't think I've ever met a foreigner who knows our history so well and deeply. You comment is highly appreciated!
Before the war, Ukraine clearly lost the information campaign to Russia because, firstly, it does not have enough money for it, and secondly, thanks to pro-Russian officials in our government (Russia has been taking care of this for a long time).
So you say you and your fiancee lived in Ukraine when the big war began?
I have to say, I am awestruck at the way you're able to speak so calmly about Russia's ongoing war.
Oh, don't be surprised. In the first months, my rage was very great, even fear immediately turned to rage. If I were at least 10 years younger, I probably would have joined the AF too. Over time, I saw that these strong emotions were simply killing me, on a physical level. I was on the verge of depression, and then I began to have symptoms of diseases that I had never heard of before. You know, in those days I remembered stories about how the Cossacks - my ancestors - fought. They went into battle absolutely calm. Once I was struck by words a physio told me during a session - you can even kill calmly. In the end, I had to adapt. At the same time, my attitude towards everything Russian remained as negative as it was at the beginning.
She's Ukrainian, actually. I met her when I lived in Kharkiv and opened an English school (a school that was destroyed by Russian weaponry early on in the war). When we left Kharkiv en route to Poland it was the second time she's had to abandon her home because Russia was destroying it. The first time was in 2014 when she, her mother, and her father (who was originally Crimean) fled from Luhansk.
There are two reasons my blood boils so much at what Russia is doing. One, of course, is because of what they have put my fiancee through (and need we mention what they're doing to the rest of her country?). The other, well... It sounds dirty to say it at this point.
I take Russia's display of barbarism like a personal betrayal because before this, I always admired Russia. I have spent my life obsessed with Russia's language, their music, their literature, I even spent an entire year devoting all of my reading time to the study of Catherine the Great and Grigory Potemkin, just out of mere personal interest. And then to have been there, at ground zero, the day the country I'd always held up as a model, showed the world that it's all a mask and they're nothing but a horde of Neo-Genghizid throwbacks...
...well, imagine being in love with someone who your friends all tell you is no good for you. Imagine that you've taken their side and stood up for them even when the entire world criticizes them. Now imagine that you stumble onto proof that this person whose reputation you've defended, is actually a mass-murdering serial rapist and a pedophile. Imagine the sense of betrayal you'd feel.
That sense of betrayal is what I feel towards Russia.
I see and I understand. Well, as it's been said better later than never. As for me, I was brought up in a family that never had any illusions about Russia.
And I am so sorry about your fiancee and her family had to go through. I can't imagine how hard it is to start all over again and again :(