Paris, March 29, 2023
Dear All,
After the end of the logbook kept in M, I felt both weird and very happy. The interviews on TV, on the radio, our readers, I didn’t realize that there were so many people with whom I shared my country… Since then, I have joined a Ukrainian choir, which is also an association that collects funds to provide medicine for the front. I also visited the exhibition on Ukraine, at the Immersive Grand Palais. The room was packed, people couldn’t hold back their tears, me neither. A week before February 24, 2023, I was assailed by dark thoughts, sure that poutine [Olga et Sasha ont choisi de ne pas mettre de majuscule à « poutine », « russe » et « russie »] was going to bomb the whole country to “celebrate” the anniversary of its invasion.
But on Friday the 24th there was nothing. Neither did the 25th. That day, I went to a demonstration in support of Ukraine at the République metro station. And something happened that I didn’t expect. A Russian student from Novosibirsk, Siberia, whom I was preparing before the war for a French university, suddenly contacted me that very morning to see me. Very mixed feelings came over me then. At the very beginning of the war, I had written to him. She replied that she was very stressed by Russophobia. She also told me that we had to separate the personal and the political. I was very angry. I saw Ukrainians being slaughtered, what did I care that she was afraid of Russophobia? We had never exchanged again until this morning of the demonstration. I simply replied that I had planned to be there at 2 p.m. To tell the truth, I feared my reaction.
But when I saw her, we hugged and cried. We felt a kind of “relief”. Her to know that I didn’t hate her, and so did I. She told me that she was afraid to come. I retorted: “Despite what Russian propagandists say, we don’t eat Donbass babies” (in reference to a story peddled by the Russians which said that “Ukrainian Nazis” had eaten a child in 2015). She laughed. She remained that intelligent young Russian woman who never supported Putin and his war. But, by asking him questions about his family, I understood their total irresponsibility. His parents continue to live “outside of politics” as they say. I know this speech well! This is a tacit contract that many post-Soviet powers offered to their peoples: “You stay out of political decisions. You live in your corner, quietly, and we take care of everything. » It created completely inert peoples! This was also the case in Ukraine until the “Orange Revolution”. In 2004, the nation was born. And she continued her fight. The Russians must revolt. They are obliged.
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