‘Everyone around me is a zombie’

Meduza’s Russian readers on how two years of full-scale war has changed them

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is quickly approaching its two-year mark. While many Russians are just as horrified by their country’s actions as they were on day one, the hope of a swift Ukrainian victory that brings the collapse of the Putin regime has long since faded, leaving despair, numbness, or cynicism in its wake. Meduza asked its Russian readers to explain how their perspectives on the war, daily life, and the future have changed since February 24, 2022. We’ve translated some of the most notable responses into English.

Ivan

Lived in Khabarovsk before the war, now lives abroad

For my entire conscious life, I’ve understood that our country is moving in the wrong direction. I viewed a lot of things as a circus, a reflection of the dying regime. To this day, I still remember how awful the first day of the war was: we were sitting in philosophy class and discussing humanism when I saw the news alert that the war had begun.

I was under no illusions that it would be over soon, or that life would return to “normal” when it did eventually end. Now, I wake up every day with the thought that I need to keep on going, do my work, and not lose hope that the truth will prevail over the lies.

Vladimir

Batumi

At first, I felt all-consuming horror. Then, it was horror along with an expectation for some kind of resolution. After mobilization started, I left Russia. Things got easier. The horror didn’t go away, but the fear did. Now, I’ve moved my wife and my daughter here. Now I’m less optimistic [that the war will end], but the expectation is still there, as is the horror.

I’ve started reading less news; now I only subscribe to three channels [on Telegram]. I read them once a day, no more. Sometimes I distract myself by looking at nature, like the sea or the mountains. If you look long enough, you cease to understand how anyone could wage war in such a beautiful world.

I’m no longer waiting to go back. The idea of returning makes me afraid. Instead, I’m observing and helping those who need help.

Ekaterina

Novorossiysk

This war is the worst thing I’ve ever lived through. My personal tragedies pale in comparison to this endless nightmare. And that’s despite the fact that the war has barely affected my life directly. For the first year, I was tormented by shame for my country; I felt horror, an inability to accept it. I can’t imagine what the Ukrainians are going through, what they’ve lost, and what else they’ll lose. I’m embarrassed to even be talking about myself.

The second year, I felt despondent and hopeless, like I was falling into a void. Most of all because the closest person to me, my husband, is in a different country. It’s humiliating to have to hide the news you’re reading and the YouTube videos you’re watching from your own family. My best friends are now people who will never know I exist. It’s just that they understand me, and the people around me don’t.

Yury

St. Petersburg

This is a nightmare. Everyone around me is a zombie. People don’t want to believe anything but their zombie TV channels. And the worse their lives are, the more strongly they believe that everything is America’s fault.

I’m against the war. I desperately want to leave. But I’m already too old. I’ve stopped talking to 80 percent of my friends because they support our Kremlin dwarf. I feel like I’m living under occupation. It’s awful to realize that there’s nothing I can do to make a difference. I can’t get used to it.

Valentin

Kyiv, moved to Ukraine from Novosibirsk

From the first day [of the war], I, a citizen of Russia, have been wishing for my homeland’s complete and unconditional surrender. I want it to suffer a complete and utter loss. Total defeat is the only thing capable of bringing my countrymen to their senses. I support the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and I’m trying to work to support their victory however I can.

I lived in Kyiv for 10 years, right up until the start of the war. I left Ukraine very reluctantly. Now my spouse and I are wandering around the world, unable to find peace anywhere we go. We really want to return to Ukraine — but to a victorious Ukraine. Living with war is something we’ll probably never learn to do, but we’ll never stop supporting the Ukrainian army. It may not be tomorrow or even a year from now, but Ukraine will win. We need to do everything we can to ensure it.

Edward

Ufa

My attitude toward the war hasn’t changed. Russia is committing a monstrous crime. The only thing that’s changed is my expectation for when the war will end. It [initially] seemed like it wouldn’t last for long. That the sanctions would start working and force Russia to end the war. But now, there’s no hope for the future. “Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper” [-Francis Bacon].

I haven’t figured out how to live with the war. It feels hopeless.

Anna

Moscow

My attitude [toward the war] has hardly changed at all. Every day, I think about how something awful is happening and how I can’t stop it. I feel powerless and exhausted. I also feel unbelievably angry because my homeland betrayed me. But I’m trying to raise my baby son to feel like the world is a place full of love.

Alexander

Moscow

At the beginning of the war, I tried to support Ukraine. I didn’t understand how a country could attack its neighbor. I got into fights with everyone in my family about this. I thought, why the hell do you (you can guess who I’m talking about) need a few thousand more [square] kilometers of land for your country when you already have millions? I was shocked by the government. The repressions. The insanity. The mobilization.

Then, something in me broke. I started fervently supporting Russia. Society, evidently, had eaten away at my brain. And without understanding what I was talking about, I found myself watching TV and saying that Zelensky was a “drug addict” and that Ukraine didn’t exist as a country.

Then came the third wave: indifference. I stopped caring who wins, as long as people stop dying for nothing.

Now, I feel frustration and pain. A meaningless war that nobody is likely to win. It’s no longer interfering with my life, but it’s a huge annoyance. Let there be peace!

Andrey

Belarus

In a psychiatry lecture at the medical institute, our department chair once said: “Growing up means realizing that there’s no justice in life.” To this day, I don’t want to grow up.

Anonymous

Volzhsk

The war reduced my life to nothing. I don’t know how to get my mobilized husband back. The authorities just give me the runaround. [I feel] desperation and hopelessness! The government is deaf to our problems. They measure everything in money, but we don’t need their money — what we need is our men!

Ruslan

Moscow

At first, I began to hate our country, embodied by its leaders, for waging this war. I blamed myself for everything and went abroad for a few months, but I eventually came back because things weren’t working out with work. I decided I needed to prepare more thoroughly.

Now, I find Russia’s enemies to be just as disgusting. It’s become clear that neither the lives of Russians nor the lives of Ukrainians mean anything in the political squabbles of the world’s powerful people (including in the “collective West”). It’s incredibly sad and painful that everyone rushed to feed this meat grinder rather than investing in people’s lives and prosperity. Everyone’s willing to spend billions of rubles and other people’s lives on war.

I decided I would only worry about my own skin, care only about things like protecting my growing sons. I haven’t learned to live with war; it’s briefly released its grip. I’m no longer sure about emigration; I doubt that other countries are much safer or less cynical.

Andrey

Moscow

I hated the war [when it began], and I hate it now.

I feel a lot of bitterness. I’m afraid for myself and for my loved ones. Not only because of the daily risk of being sent to war or coming under drone [strikes] but also because of the future. Putin’s gang won’t last forever. Pretty soon, whether it’s one year, five years, or ten years, there will be nothing left of them. Meanwhile, we’ll still be living here because it’s our home. And we’ll have to share it with pardoned murderers and rapists who were pardoned and sent to war as part of Wagner Group. And with everyone who supported the war and was happy to see it. I’m scared by the thought of what these people might do to my home. I’m scared by the thought of how strongly I hate all these people.

I’m trying not to lose hope. To do what I can and to appreciate those who share my horror. To support them and find support in them. The rational, sensible speech of some of the opposition figures and media outlets helps a lot. I’m grateful for them. The public figures and celebrities who have openly spoken out against [the war] also help a lot. I’m proud of them.

Have I learned to live [with the war]? I’m trying hard not to get used to the war, and not to lose that animal terror that I felt at the beginning from things like Bucha, the brutality of Wagner Group, and the plane crash that hit the apartment building in Yeysk. We can’t consider those things as even a little bit normal.

Anonymous

Moscow

I still think about the war every day. Even when I can’t make myself read the news. Even when I want to not think about it, like everyone around me has learned to do. Even when it still hurts just as much as on the first day.

Almost every time I encounter a pleasant or interesting person, my first thought is: “What if he supports it?” “What if he’s neutral?” And every time, this prevents me from getting close to that person.

When I blew out the candles on my birthday, I wished for the end of the war. When I set a piece of paper with my wish on fire for the New Year [at the end of 2022], I wished for the end of the war. And this year, I made the same wish again.

Zhanna

Kaliningrad

I haven’t adapted. Every day, I relive February 24, 2022. I’m stuck there, constantly watching and listening to the news. I don’t feel any joy, even though I have children who share their small joys with me. I can’t feel those joys; I’m thinking of the Ukrainian children and the black hole there, instead of the future my children have ahead of them. There’s nothing to believe in and nobody to believe. There’s no point in living without faith or hope. It’s good that the Ukrainians at least have hope. May it preserve them — and may it save Ukraine.

Anna

Ulyanovsk

I’ve had to learn to live with the war. I can’t leave, though I dream of it. I’m trying, but it’s not so easy to just “learn English, learn Python, and go.” I’m living in blind desperation. It’s as if there’s a giant, poisonous slug inside of me, as if I’m surrounded by sludge that’s seeping inside, poisoning me, and I’m stuck in it all. It’s getting harder and harder to struggle. I’m pretending that I’m alive.

Abridged translation by Sam Breazeale