Thread by @fascinatorfun

The Russian soldiers “believed they were the good guys, coming to liberate oppressed Ukrainians from their Nazi overlords. They believed the Kremlin, which said they'd be welcomed, thanked.

Instead, they are being berated as "оккупанты" - occupiers…by people who speak Russian…

https://twitter.com/zoyashef/status/1498797424512765953

Look like Russians. Shops that look familiar to Russians. They may have holidayed in Odessa & swum in the Black Sea.

Soldiers who may have family & friends in Ukraine.

Yet they are being told “Go Home. What are you doing here?”

And they are supposed to kill them?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

What does that do to morale?

And what messages will they be sending home….

When they can.

“Now, these troops' eyes and ears are showing them that's a lie. So how do you get infantry - key to wars that are waged in heavily populated and built up areas like these modern metropolises of Kyiv and Kharkiv - to shoot people they've been told they're there to defend? “

Pilots may be able to drop impersonal cluster bombs, but mostly this war is being fought face to face.

“It’s hard to remember that the Ukrainian granny who looks just like your Russian granny with a kerchief around her head and tears in her eyes is some Western proxy.”

And she’s telling you to go home. That you are not welcome here.

“It’s hard to shoot babushka in cold blood”

Another great thread from @zoyashef