Opinion piece: Perspective of a Russian citizen

Perspective of a Russian citizen

It was 3 March when a Russian internet friend, Lenka, messaged me again after months. She wanted to know how my studies were going. Soon the tone of our conversation changed and turned to the war currently going on in Ukraine. I tread carefully because I don't know how much information she has, and whether anyone might read our messages. So instead of telling her what is happening in the news here, I ask her about what she knows.

During our conversation, it strikes me that our worlds are completely different. Keeping news out of her country makes them in Russia feel the sanctions are a false accusation. They are also convinced that the sanctions imposed by Europe on Russia are causing social media to be largely off the air. I try to empathise with her world as much as possible, so I read everything she sends me and immerse myself in the history of Ukraine and Russia. I myself know nothing about history, especially that of Eastern Europe. But the more I read up, the more I understand that for the Russians this war seems like a justified struggle. This is a country where there has been strife for eight years, and where several referendums have been declared invalid, and a president was declared as invalidly elected just after the elections. One thing specifically stood out: she kept talking about the ‘alley of angels,’ as if I should hear that term every day in the media. She forwarded me a wikipedia page to read (read it here). The first notice above this wikipedia page states that the information is not reliable. The sources are all in Russian. The ‘alley of angels’ is a monument created for the children who died in the war in eastern Ukraine, which has been playing since 2014. (Wikipedia 2022) The only source that is a bit reliable (and I can read because it is not in Russian) is UNICEF and they talk about 140 deaths by mines, but whether they are Russian or Ukrainian is not mentioned at all. Yet Lenka does not seem to think that this might be (partly) the fault of the Russian military.

It is a war of information rather than a war of bombs. It is not just the armies that are opposed to each other; we, the citizens of Europe, are also divided by propaganda. Fortunately, at the end of our conversation, I was able to take a breath. She told me she doesn't want to justify anything, war is war. And neither of us wants that. So we were still able to exchange our different worlds. Despite our different lifeworlds, we didn't ask for war, we'd rather want peace. And I think everyone agrees with that.

Why do I, and do we as DWARS Limburg, think it is important to highlight a Russian person's side of the story? Firstly, to show that citizens can do little about the worldview being inflicted on them, and that we should therefore not judge these people too harshly for being Putin supporters. But also to show that polarisation can be countered by talking and listening to these people. By being open to conversation, we can briefly step into each other's worldview.

References
Wikipedia contributors. (2022, March 7). Alley of Angels. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alley_of_Angels&oldid=1075697611