Thread by @Ukropo4kA

I want to tell you about #Ukraine’s problems - about the war in the #Donbas and what worries people there.
As you know, it’s planned to simultaneously withdraw troops from the demarcation line in some settlements of the Donbas.
I’ll say you honestly: I was surprised -
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pleasantly surprised. Despite the fact that the troops of any of the two sides may carry the threat of shelling (as people say in the occupied territory), they’re concerned about the withdrawal of Ukr troops. For many people there is a fear that Ukraine will abandon
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them (they don’t want it to happen). They think so. People on the other side of the demarcation line have a fear that they can be attacked by Russia (“L/DNR”). In short, both sides want peace to come into their homes. But the first ones don’t believe that Ukraine will not
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abandon them, the second ones don’t believe that the Russians will not occupy their free from war territory.
I spend two weeks in the Donetsk region taking care of the children of my friend who was visiting her father, who died of a heart attack during her visit there, in
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they occupied Donbas.She wanted to bring his body to the free Ukrainian territory in order to bury father not in the occupied Donbas but went through all the stages of hell. As a result, she buried her father there, in the occupied Donbas. Their "local authorities" are just
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terrible people: as*holes and idiots - they didn’t allow to take her father's body to bury him on free from their rule territory of Ukraine.
My confession: for the first time in more than 5 years, I felt the war in the way the inhabitants of the frontline towns feel it.
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The absolutely terrible daily feeling of anxiety didn’t leave me for two weeks and even frightened me. It’s not a feeling of a war in Kyiv. It’s something another. And a heightened feeling of guilt that I’m living in peaceful Kyiv, and they live under the constant
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threat of new attacks. I don’t know why I have a feeling of guilt, but I felt it and feel it now. I don’t have any explanation for this. Maybe I misinterpret my feelings and this is a compassion for the people who have been living in this real nightmare for more than 5
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years. But I never felt something like that. And when my child asks me: Mommy, is there a war? Will these soldiers (Ukrainian soldiers- there are many of soldiers on the streets) protect us?, horror engulfs me and I want to cry.
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To end my story: everything that happens around Ukraine becomes not so important after a visit to the city near the demarcation line. Take my word. And I’m still in shock.
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