Thread by @SasshaPetrova

Russia, today, celebrates the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany, as if it was Russia’s victory alone. This is my grandmother - Paulina Matushkina - who was born in Ukraine and died in Ukraine. She fought in the Red Army and was in the battle for Berlin 1/8 🧵

She received a medal for “participating in the historic storming and taking of Berlin”. That’s what the certificate below says. It blows my mind every time I read those words and see this photo that she wrote “1945, Berlin” on the back of. She’s 3rd from the right 2/8

When my grandma was a girl in Ukraine, she lived through the Holodomor. She told me stories of how she would sit outside restaurants where party officials dined, waiting for potato peels to be thrown out which she would take home and fry. Her little sister died of starvation 3/8

My grandmother was a Soviet and in her passport, her ethnicity was written as “Russian”. But when the Soviet Union broke up in 91, she became a Ukrainian. She lived in an apartment in Severodonetsk, a city Russians have destroyed together with most apartment blocks 4/8

Elderly people in Severodonetsk and across Ukraine, who fought in the Red Army or went through the terror of Nazi occupation or Holodomor, have nowhere to go now as bombs again fall on them, as their cities are occupied. Except now, they are being called Nazis and killed 5/8

by the very people they were once countrymen with. The Soviet Union, not Russia, defeated Nazi Germany. More than 7m Ukrainians fought in the Red Army. These people said “never again”, they told it to their children. But their children are now dying at the hands of the people 6/8

celebrating the defeat of Nazis while lying every day about killing the “Nazi” children and grandchildren of the people who contributed to the victory. But today’s Ukrainians won’t let the Russians steal their victory like they’ve stolen everything else. 7/8

And the world needs to help them. So the children and grandchildren of those heroes who helped rid the world of terror in 1945, can defeat the terror of today. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 8/8