CONVERSATION WITH A FRIEND LIVING IN MOSCOW
3 min read
Yesterday I got a call from an old acquaintance who migrated from Kyiv to Moscow 12 years ago to do business.
He used to be a supplier in one of my companies. Before the war, we would sometimes text each other, wish each other happy birthdays, and call each other once every two years.
Yesterday he called me to see how things were going.
I said, “Things are not good. There’s a war in the country. People are dying, the economy is collapsing. Three rockets landed in the center of Vinnytsia, killing over 20 people, dozens of wounded and missing civilians, and three young children were killed.”
He replies: “You are also shelling our Kherson. Civilians are dying there, too.”
I was shocked and reminded that Kherson is Ukraine.
Then he issued a fantastic narrative: “To stop the deaths of people in Ukraine, you just need to surrender.” At this point, I just hung up. I realized that we had nothing more to talk about in this life.
How could it be that a man who grew up in Ukraine, received a higher education, earned money, traveled around the world, has friends and relatives here, and still fell under the influence of propaganda from zombie TV.
Now he considers the Ukrainians to be his bitter enemies. Thinks that Kherson is “theirs”.
They hate us so much that they rejoice in the destruction of universities, hospitals, and schools, residential buildings and the deaths of peaceful Ukrainians, the murder of children. They justify these senseless crimes for themselves.
It feels as if the entire country has been turned off from critical thinking, common sense, and empathy. Without these qualities, humans are no different from animals. It’s horrifying to imagine that there are 140 million of them and they are our neighbors.
My main conclusion is this. Despite all the pain and rage, Ukrainians even now retain their humanity. Perhaps this is the greatest challenge of this terrible war.
I express my condolences to all the relatives and loved ones of the victims… This is a great tragedy for all of us.
From UWIN:
This text was shared from LinkedIn where Vasyl Khmelnytsky has his entrepreneurial profile and writes in English only. His English is simple as his thoughts.
He writes about the war very discreetly and avoids calling a spade a spade. This restraint is also felt in this text. V. Khmelnytskyi is not a Ukrainian centrist, no doubts. It follows from his biography that Russia is no stranger to him, and if Putin managed to tame Ukraine, our hero would behave in the same way as his friend from Moscow.
The Russians made V. Khmelnytskyi a businessman. We have not found a single word written or spoken by Khmelnytskyi in Ukrainian. Hidden pro-Russianness obviously prevents him from adding his signature to the Appeal.
On Topic (in Russian:
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