Hi Felix,

I know exactly how you feel. Since last Thursday, I’ve been panicking and crying almost every day now. I was born and raised in Kyiv. Left when I was 14 and have been living in Canada for 17 years. In Ukraine, I have relatives, friends, classmates and all my childhood memories. Since last Thursday, I’ve been having trouble focusing on life outside of the “war news updates” bubble. Don’t even get me started on work – I’m trying to read a document and words are not forming into any comprehensible information in my brain. My husband is involved in organizing humanitarian aid shipments to Ukraine, we’ve sent donations… None of this, of course, feels like enough as the threat of nuclear disaster is looming over everyone – not just Ukraine.

Perhaps we need to accept this as our new reality the same way we’ve accepted the pandemic and the fact that no matter how smart or advanced human population is, there are still so many things out of our control. As for the news feeds, try to stick to the news that focus on humanitarian help and people uniting together in these dark times – something that will help you believe in humanity. Humour helps too – and I’m not trying to downplay the tragedy here. A lot of Ukrainians are trying very hard to keep their spirits high by cracking jokes and sharing funny stories. My favourite one is about a Russian plane that dropped off some troops over an area that was marked as a forest on the map – only the forest had been recently cut down illegally so they ended up in open field and were spotted right away.

As for the Russians – of course, their ignorance makes me incredibly angry. However, I pity them for their powerlessness, for being so brainwashed and cut off from the world. They have nowhere to run and don’t know any better. And the rabid gorilla running around with a hand grenade won’t live forever…