It’s a whole damn day of shock, disbelief and confusion. On the outside, a usual work day. But on our phones are news feeds full of smoking buildings and texting our Ukrainian relatives, friends and co-workers “Are you okay? Please be safe”.

Some text back that it’s quiet where they are, some text they hide in the basement. Some send us videos of burning warehouses. Everyone is fucking shocked.

I guess in the first half of the day most people around me thought all the military action was near and about the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. But in a while the gossip went on: “He destroyed their military bases”. “He shoots up bases all over Ukraine”. In Russia you don’t have to explicate who “he” is.

An older lady weeps to the telephone “I didn’t think this fool would do this… It’s not his children who suffer”. Older men use more severe profanities. “It’s totally fucked up”, they agree.

I don’t know how many people believe the official TV story of “retaliation for genocide” or whatever (I couldn’t stomach the official announcements). But some people surely do as they gleefully chuckle “our troops beat the foe”. I hope most Russian people will eventually see how fucked up this all is. I dearly hope that their vague “there’s a war going on” will change to “he started the war”.

As for “why aren’t there anti-war protests”, there are, but they are swiftly extinguished. For many years, piece by piece he dismantled any base for empowerment among the population (I think the history of that deserves a long piece on its own).

It’s just Day 1 of this hell, and my heart already hurts in so many ways. I want to see my Ukrainian friends safe and well. My friends who are in the Russian military – I want to see them back, alive and well. Any injury, any loss of life is too high a cost for one man’s paranoia. Every hour of this is an abomination. Fuck the war.

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