"He wasn't killed, and he didn't kill anyone."

Olga is 60 years old and lives in Sochi. She is very angry at those people who rush to stigmatize everyone in social media comments and who don't want to understand that Russia has been taken over by a gang of racketeers, the Ozero cooperative.

- I just wrote an angry response to the comment under Yashin's letter. Some women write one after another, through gritted teeth and through a lip - "another disappointment..." A man is imprisoned for a term not always given for murder, and they are "disappointed"!!! As if life is possible without compromise! Especially in our countries, Russia and Ukraine, where the level of corruption is like in Africa! And Khabensky is no good - he asked Nazarov to resign, explaining that otherwise 29 people would get mobilized and become murderers.
As if these people came from another planet, such sterile angels, who never gave bribes to cops or doctors, or the director of a kindergarten, who never crossed the road in the wrong place, who never sat on a colleague, climbing the social ladder... Or maybe they are aliens, and do not know how the world works... Or children who just learned to write and have not read a single book...

What is wrong with you people? Why have you stopped understanding reality? Do you think Sakharov never compromised with the government? Nemtsov? Starovoitova? Are you children? Why are you in such a hurry to stigmatize, condemn, all in a row with such pleasure and even voluptuousness? And the attempt to stigmatize and sling mud at all Russians, accusing them of fomenting war?

Some public people, whom I thought were smart, have agreed that all decent citizens should leave this country. That's easy - if you don't leave, you're a fascist and a bastard! Askerov, who lived in Russia for 20 years, trumpets at every street corner that there are only ugly people left in Russia; and Sheitelman, who defended Berezovsky during the trial against Abramovich, who actually started the whole mess (Berezovsky!), also mutters that there are no decent people left in Russia! And no one is interested in the actual percentage of dissenters! Everyone sitting on their couch has determined the figure that is convenient for them, just from the ballpark.

A very dumb question - "why don't you go to the protests?" Easily correlates with the equally stupid "where have you been for eight years? I want to tell them both to fuck off. It's somehow easy for everyone to assume that on one side there are only people of crystal conscience, and that Russians are all "vatniks", "Russians", and no one wants to look at and understand that Russia has been taken over by a gang of racketeers, the cooperative "Ozero". They have guns and power in their hands. They can shut you down, rape you with a mop or dumbbells, hurt your loved ones, screw up your life.

I have a Serbian husband. We have been together for 31 years. In '97, America bombed Belgrade. Why wasn't the whole world screaming, "Americans, you're fascists! You have to leave your fascist country!" Now America is helping Ukraine, and I welcome that, but try to explain to my husband whose side is the truth.

You have stories to tell here, here are stories from our lives. Before covid, I worked with two women, and we became very good friends.

One's stepdaughter, with whom she is totally related, came from Kharkov before February 24 to visit her sick father, and she is stuck here until the fall. And there she was left with a husband who was not yet old, and a son of draft age.

The other, on the other hand, has a son who's a messed-up, unlucky creature in life, a hysterical, troubled dude, who suddenly signs up to volunteer and goes to war. As he puts it, "just because I want to change my life. Everyone was freaking out... His mother and her friends. Luckily, he, who didn't serve anywhere, couldn't do anything, was kept somewhere on the back burner. Luckily, because he wasn't killed and he didn't kill anybody.

The reason I'm spouting all this confusion is because life is more complicated than any rules, more complicated than the fanciest fantasy, and we need to be adults, not to jump to conclusions, and understand that we are all tied into one very complicated knot right now, and not to add to the chaos of this world.