"I pray now for a miracle, now for a snuffbox."

Olga is 47 years old, lived in Moscow, and now "vizaranit" in the countries of Asia. She finds it difficult to come to terms with war, deaths, and simply indifferent people.

It was as if my life had stopped in February. The day goes on and on, like a nightmare, and it's February 24th on the calendar again.

When I found out, it was like everything broke off, and the ground fell out from under my feet. I couldn't sleep properly. It had never happened to me before- falling asleep, waking up every hour, and in my brain like a flash- war! War with Ukraine! It starts to shake. Physically. Horror from the realization of what had happened, from the impossibility to undo it, to return it, to correct it.

I live in the news almost incessantly until now. I go through all these days, step by step all this war, grief, all the arrivals, destruction, occupations, deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and their defenders.

I don't know why I do it. I just can't do it any other way.

You read, watch newsreels and videos, and tears choke you, and it's hard to breathe. You try to do something, to distract yourself, but your thoughts are there... Pictures of all this grief are constantly spinning in your head. A terrible realization of the number of broken lives and destinies.

I don't know how I haven't gone crazy yet. I took pills, sedatives, tranquilizers. I can't get excited about anything. It's like I've forbidden myself to be happy at all. How is it possible when your country is doing this?

Killing brainwashed zombies who think that it was high time we dealt with the Nazis, that if it weren't for us, they, that the dreaded NATA threatened us.

For me, there are no more non-ambiguities. If a country invades, ruins, and kills, what ambiguity can there be? It is the same justification for murder!

And these indifferent, living their lives of "nothing going on," posting mouth-to-mouth on Instagram?! How can people be like that, how did they become like that? The biggest disappointment of the year is people. Even my mother and father traded me in for Skabeeva, Solovyov, and Putler. My mother said that I had sold out to the Americans and that I was being paid for my words and position.

It was also depressing the atmosphere of fear, of unfreedom, of absolute lawlessness of the courts, the cosmonauts, the police. There were always cars all over the city center ready to go...
When we left, at least that stopped pressing. And it was easier to breathe.

They left after the mobilization was announced. That was the last straw. My son also left. We are in different countries. Far from each other. It just happened in a hurry. I don't know when we'll see each other again. Sometimes it's scary that, suddenly, we'll never see each other again.

How's life...? We left with two small suitcases... We do not plan to live for more than a month, we have already changed our fifth residence. They don't give you a residence permit in Thailand. We have to get a visa. Long-term visas here is also very difficult or expensive. War with us and inside, every day reports, news. The first few days, a couple of months was euphoria from the sea, the sun, fruits, the feeling of freedom and smiles around, from escaping from the camp zat. Now life, often unsettled, problems with visas. It is hard on my soul from the uncertainty. Trying to convince myself that we are traveling. It turns out badly.

I don't know what will happen to me, to us, when we can go back. We are just in limbo, without a home, without a homeland, moving from country to country in Asia at the end of tourist visas, thankfully it is inexpensive here.

I never wanted to leave for good, I love... loved Russia. I don't know what's in my soul right now. Confusion and ashes.

I pray now for a miracle, now for a snuffbox... if you know what I mean... though that would also be a miracle... For the quickest victory for Ukraine, for people to stop dying. The pain is with each and every Ukrainian, for the peaceful and for the dead defenders, the young, the healthy, the brave, the very color of the nation - it is painful to realize. How many children were orphaned, how many have not even had time to give birth. I pity our boys, who were sent there by deceit and force, and those who committed suicide to avoid being killed. The recent story of a twenty-year-old boy shook me.

I admire the president of Ukraine!
I never wondered what he was like. But everything became clear when listening to his interview with journalists and his address to the Russians in the first days of the war. Courageous, educated, restrained. Everyone in Russia should hear this, and only the completely insane will be left with some delusional accusations and insults against this man. God bless him and Ukraine!

For Russia, I dream of freedom, a change of government to a democratic one, and an epiphany for the blind or demented majority.