Throwback to 2014

Author: Альона ꑭ Шевченко
Links to this thread: Twitter, PingThread, ThreadReader, Web Archive

I was also studying in France when the russians invaded Ukraine in 2014.

They did it the most vulnerable time, after the pro-🇷🇺 puppets they tried to install fled 🇺🇦

I remember very well the terror and the feeling of being punched in my stomach @nastasiaKlimash describes

In the first months of the Euromaidan in 2013, I was protesting in Brighton where I was studying at the time.

I didn't have any 🇺🇦 friends who could join me so I made this placard and stood at Churchill Square on my own - as my friends back in Kyiv were fighting with Berkut.

✨Jan 2014, I briefly come back to 🇺🇦 & go to Maidan - epicentre the of Revolution of Dignity

Pro-🇷🇺 outlets will call it "a 🇺🇸-supported insurgency against a legitimately elected 🇺🇦 government of Yanukovych" - twitter.com/cryptodrftng/s…

All I have to say to them:

fuck you.

The Euromaidan actually stopped being about the EU association agreement and turned into the Revolution of Dignity very quickly.

It happened as we could not allow Kremlin's puppets to violate our right to peaceful protest.

Freedom is the very core of the Ukrainian culture.

"Winter on Fire" on Netflix is a good place to start if you want to know more.

TLDR - We understand that politicians are supposed to represent our interests.

If they don't represent them, we protest.

And if they push back with violence, we'll kick them out - at any cost.

In Jan-Feb 2014, mornings would start from checking the lists of people who died or went missing to see if any of my friends were there.

Just like these days, I stopped leaving the house. I was overwhelmed with a sense of guilt for not being there for them physically.

Just like now, I was trying to help by doing info support, raising awareness and trying to make sense of what was happening myself.

Wondering how come I have a meme for every situation when it comes to Ukraine? I've been shitposting about this since 2013

At some point this 🇷🇺 propagandist bitch from "НТВ" messaged me asking for another activist's contact details. I told her she could go fuck herself. I couldn't understand how a woman could be so horrible.

The first half of my reply to her references examples of 🇷🇺 fake news.

I cannot describe the pain we felt when over a hundred protesters, known in Ukraine as "Небесня Сотня", were shot down by snipers in the centre of our capital.

I genuinely thought nothing worse could ever happen after this.

But for russians that wasn't enough.

I remember very well this sickening feeling when I was watching russian news

and realised that it was exactly how Jewish people were portrayed in the Nazi Germany's media before the Holocaust.

All these years I was trying to explain to people that the russians have the audacity, never having been accountable for the Holodomor, to invent an imaginary "genocide of RU speakers in 🇺🇦" and label us "Nazis" - so that THEY have an easier time committing genocide AGAIN.

This is a slide from my presentation in 2015 at Sussex University where I was doing Master's.

It was called "From 🇷🇺 With Love: The Hybrid War on 🇺🇦 Freedom".

Back then, it was a ridiculous accusation in 🇬🇧 to say 🇷🇺 was becoming a fascist state.

People laughed at me.

Exactly the same ignorance and arrogance I encounter every day now, I was dealing with the same back then.

I had no platform. No one would listen to a 20yo 🇺🇦 girl who is talking some nonsense saying russians are fascists. How could they be, after all? They are so cultured🧐

Eventually it became impossible to handle - it was just too much for one person. I slowed down with this work which I'll never forgive myself for.

I did all these degrees and went on to work in litigation. Most of the time, I hated it but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.

The whole time I maintained close connections with the 🇺🇦 diaspora in the UK. I've never been associated with any political party or ideology.

I'm called "Nazi" online every day, just like other Ukrainians.

I'm called many things, actually.

In spring 2020, I was diagnosed with a devastating disorder that on average shortens life expectancy by about 25 years.

It requires very complex medical care and causes physical and mental suffering - pretty much every day to some extent. No one can see it.

People are always shocked when I tell them I'm grateful for being diagnosed with as horrible of a condition as type 1 diabetes.

Why would I be grateful for being forever dependent on all this stuff?

It taught me what many older people clearly still haven't learned yet.

I've realised that tomorrow isn't promised.

That things aren't going to just "sort themselves out" and that in order to just survive, I'll have to fight for it every day.

That I have to accept the "diagnosis", but I don't have to accept the very grim "prognosis".

I've also realised that there is nothing more important than deep relationships with people you care about - and that the more you love them, the more aggressively you'll fight to protect them.

And the less you'll care what others think of you as you do that.

Every single day I listen to the bleating of people who should be feeling deeply ashamed of themselves and their governments - they tell me a million reasons why it's ok for Ukrainians to die.

For some reason they are very shocked when they find out I hate them.

Instead of acting to stop #GenocideOfUkrainians all those assholes are quick to point out what we are doing wrong, give advice we didn't ask for + teach us about 🇺🇦 even though they couldn't find it on the map a few months ago. No one feels guilt although many people should.

What angers me the most about all of this?

By the time you idiots who belittle Ukrainians in public, send abuse in DMs and make fun of us, by the time you realise how wrong you were - most of the people and places I loved in this life may be erased from existence.

No words can adequately describe all the pain we are in.

We are expected to be dying for other's safety and to be friendly - so that Germans don't stress out.

Can I generalise and say they go fuck themselves together with all the russians?

Good luck to all those worrying about russians' visas these days.

As @Gicacosta said - russians don't deserve tourist visas. They deserve WAR.

Virtually no one should be feeling sorry for them right now. They did nothing to prevent this from happening. They don't mind.

BTW, people lecturing us about "European values" turned out to not have them themselves.

That's actually why it didn't cross our mind to talk about them so much.

The same assholes who told us we were corrupt traded their whole governments for cheap oil and gas.

We are silenced as we watch the russians being glorified for nothing.

But we still have each other, and we still have friends - at this point that's all that matters.

Btw, our friends don't expect us to be polite and nice. And if you do - you probably aren't one of them. / END