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Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine? It’s Simple — Putin Is Nuts.
It’s been almost a month since the war started in Europe. It’s weird even to write that — or say out loud. The word “war” seems archaic, something you only read in books and watch movies about, not see on the news.
Like any other Russian kid, I was brought up reading about the horrors of WWII. The many (eight) schools in Russia that I went to organized field trips to museums every Victory Day, on May 9th. Students were supposed to make presentations about Stalingrad, the siege of Leningrad, and tell stories of someone their family struggling through the war against Nazi Germany. I told about my great-grandma, who lived with the Germans for several weeks in her little village of Balabanovo, some 150 kilometers from Moscow. The Germans had just entered her house and started living there. She was 14. They almost didn’t touch her — just once, when she dropped hot potatoes on the dirty ground and was strangled by a Nazi soldier — but the memory of pure, animal terror of living with The Enemy, unsure whether she’d see the light of the following day, stayed with her forever.
Now history is repeating itself — only with my country as the villain. I interview people from Ukraine and hear stories of Russian soldiers raping 14-year-olds, shooting innocent people, living in civilians’ houses, shelling hospitals, obliterating whole…
