“There’s no Ukraine I am used to. The Russians had destroyed it.” — In the months preceding the war, Anna’s inner circle brushed off any possibility of Russia invading Ukraine. They didn’t give it much thought as they watched the news of oligarchs sending their children abroad or witnessing the Russian embassy burn their files, causing a massive smoke. “It’s one of their…

‘The lack of freedom of speech always leads to grave political consequences.’ — In April 2021, Meduza — the most prominent Russian independent publication — was labelled a “foreign agent”, a mark that’s been used profusely by the Kremlin to disrupt the work of news organisations and independent journalists touching on sensitive political issues. This label, jokingly referred to by Sonya Groysman —…

CHORNOMORSK, UKRAINE — When the Russian bombs started firing on February 24th, it was still before dawn in Arina’s home city, some 15 kilometers from the port-city Odesa (population 1M). The sound immediately shook Arina, her sister, and her parents out of bed. “I immediately understood what was happening. I…

I am embarrassed. — I’ll be honest. I don’t like writing or talking about politics. Where I am from, nobody does. My generation — people born in the late 1990s — was brought up in a dictatorship country with no rights and no ability to voice our minds. We were sold the idea that…

My honest conversation with GPT-3, OpenAI’s hottest invention. — As a writer and journalist, I constantly look for things to write and people to interview. This morning, just as I was sipping my cup of large americano (no milk, double shot of espresso, please) in a corner coffee shop near my London apartment, I talked to a new invention…

Nor there’s such a thing as Bad Russians. There are just Russians. — Earlier this year, in Vilnius, a proposal came up at the Russian Anti-War Committee conference. Why not create a document of a ‘good Russian’? The original idea belongs to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a member of the Anti-War Committee of Russia and a former tycoon who served in prison for ten years…

Lately, I’ve had trouble writing. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block. It’s more of an I-Don’t-Want-To-Say-Anything-To-Anyone kind of thing. I simply lacked the motivation to spread ideas and stories beyond my cerebral cortex. I thought about writing fiction, but in the current situation where my country harasses my wife’s country…

My mother implied that she would only leave if ‘shit hit the fan’ — but what more was she waiting for? — When the war started seven months ago, my Ukrainian wife and I were in Dubai and woke up at 6 A.M. to watch Putin’s announcement on CNN. When I told my wife, TV still on, that Putin thinks “Ukraine is not a country, and he’s invading it,” her reaction was…

Now I don’t have a country. — Elizabeth Hardwick once said that people write for two reasons: revenge or desperation. I would be so bold as to go further and suggest that writers write for one reason only — desperation. Revenge, the last resort for many people, is, in many ways, simply a form of desperation sublimed…