Member-only story
When Putin Attacked Ukraine, He Betrayed My Generation.
And everyone else who believed in a brighter future.
Most people in the U.S. will find it hard to imagine, but people my age — born in the late 1990s — know no other president except Putin. We were born and raised with one president. One journalist called us “Generation Putin” because we know no other country except Putin’s Russia.
Like everyone else, I first saw Putin on New Year’s — a unique, magical time in Russia, filled with the smell of tangerines, sweets, and, of course, presents.
I still remember my first New Year’s. My mother placed some Olivier salad on my plate and handed me a glass of “kid’s champagne” — fruit soda that looks like champagne from a distance — pointed to the small TV screen on the fridge, and said, “Look. That’s our president.”
The screen depicted an unsmiling bald man in a black suit and red tie, standing in front of the Kremlin, white clouds of vapour coming out of his mouth. Here was a confident, calm man, a true leader. I watched him with astonishment — the president. My 7-year-old brain struggled to decipher what he was saying. But watching my parents glued to the screen, I knew it must have been something important.
