Thread by @ichbinilya

Alesya Marakhovskaya, a really great Russian journalist who has left the country, just wrote an impassioned Facebook post about how the war is tearing apart her family.

With her permission, I'm translating into English in this thread. People should see what this looks like. 👇

I recently fought with my close relatives. It began with all the classics about the war. They used words straight out of the darkest depths of propaganda:

- 'They have fascist marches.'

- 'Why is NATO at our borders?'

- 'We gave them their country.'

- 'They write about ‘ancient Ukrainians’ in their textbooks, how do you like that?'

- 'In a store in Ukraine I was told to fuck off for being Russian, so we should fucking bomb them.'

- 'They have bio-labs, haven't you noticed how many diseases are out there? A pigeon flies here, takes a shit, and that's it.'

With these pigeons, I almost passed out from this shit, how quickly and confidently they chose this side.

They ended up saying that it was my own fault, that I got into some trouble and can't go back to Russia. “And you probably don't even want to come back, they’re telling you what to write. You write, you get money, and you don't need to come back.”

But today I talked to my grandmother on my mother's side (they're Ukrainians, but moved to Russia long ago). She cried. Her relatives are in cities that under fire. She cried that I can’t return to Russia, and that she’s 72, and that she’s afraid she’ll never see me again.

It turns out that my relatives have long been hinting to her that I’m an enemy of the people, and taking delight in making up details about what I do and on whose money. And in response to my grandmother telling them what I really do, they wave their hands: “It's not like that.”

I think that if tomorrow my relatives are told to round up and shoot the foreign agents, they’ll get right to it, and nothing will stop them. Not the fact that I’m their beloved niece. Not the fact that I’m the only girl in their family...

...(this used to please them a lot, they kept stressing it), not the fact that I used to help their children with their homework, not the fact that they used to set me as an example to their children about how to study and work hard. Nothing.

Because that's what the TV says. And nothing worse than this sudden dehumanisation can happen to them.

They say you should keep in touch, that people are being held hostage, that they don't know what they're saying. That you have to endure it, that you have to wait it out, that it's a defensive reaction.

And I thought I would try. But no. It's just not possible. I can understand why the TV has had this effect, imagine the position they’re in, and all of that. I can't blame them.

But I can't keep forcing myself to speak with people who, at the snap of the fingers, will take a pitchfork and put all the dissenters on it. Starting with me, no matter how nice a niece and role model I’ve been to their kids all these years.

Fuck.

That's it (back to me again). It's really heartbreaking to read, and it's just one example I've seen in recent weeks and months.

I think this will sound familiar to many Americans, just pitched at a higher and more urgent level. Russians are arguing, Ukrainians are dying.

I don't have any answers, or even ideas. Propaganda. ruins families. It's hard to think of anything more evil, short of doing the shooting yourself. And those who peddle it know exactly what they're doing.

Here's Alesya's original post in Russian. facebook.com/AlesyaMarohovs…

If you read this far, you might be interested in this *excellent* documentary (with English subtitles) about other Russian families who have faced similar trials. It's really, incredibly well done.