Hi my dear readers.

You were expecting a great return, with a super romantic story or at least something like that, I know but, for now, let’s let this subject decant into the folder on my obsolete laptop.

My heart, my head and my whole body since this morning (h.6.43) are completely focused on a conflict that I never expected to start. You all know what I am referring to: Russia’s attack (if we don’t want to call it a war…) on Ukraine.

The first reaction was actually too calm on my part, perhaps because I was in my bed, under a very warm duvet, and perhaps because I had not really focused on what is happening.

My thinking evolved during the day, especially when I arrived at the university and realised that Instagram, Twitter, the whole Internet and the newspapers were talking about nothing else – how could it be otherwise?!

Whereupon I began to wonder how a person who leads a state, a giant state, who is supposed to follow a certain criteria, who is supposed to perform actions with a logical sense (shared by all except him), is capable of starting a war at such a moment in history. Why does he do it? Is there a real reason or is it just that you are a self-centred egomaniac? The fantastic ‘president’ has well and truly decided to de-nazify Ukraine but the main question is: ‘But who asked you?’ Ukraine has never been freer, he should clear his thoughts a bit because according to the rest of the world but especially according to Ukraine itself, he is the only Nazi who should leave.

Then the next step happened, why now? Why after 2 years of pandemic? I speak for myself but I speak for everyone, regardless of their history, their present and their future.

I am 22 years old, I started university 3 years ago, 2 and a half of which in distance learning, I have not had the opportunity to experience this fully because of a terrible pandemic (and we know this virus well by now), in July I am supposed to graduate, I do not deserve three years of my life made up of viruses and war, no one does.

I’m probably just wrapping my head around it before I’ve broken it, and that’s the thing I most hope for, I hope that the sanctions they are preparing (because several international agreements have been broken) have weight, relevance, I hope that this is really just a warning and that the newspapers just want to sell and that this is not the biggest conflict since World War 2.

I think my reaction is conditioned by the relationship I have had with this land, I have lived in its capital, I know the streets and the people, my friend Alice lived through the war of 2014, she was 15 years old she knows what is coming right now, she has already experienced it, my classmates live in Kiev, Odessa and are terrified by what is happening, their suitcases ready at the door to flee from cities that are their home. 

I am convinced that my mix of emotions is common to all, and I tend to underline that it is not my intention at all to spread panic, nor to inform, you know what the ‘purpose’ of this non-place is, if you are new you can have a look at the first article. If you are reading me it is because as people say ‘through thick and thin’, this was my day and I wanted to share it with you, it is still a fragment of life.

N.B. This article was written on 24/02, for reasons of nerve it was only published on 26/02.