— It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. I went on holiday to visit my family in April 2023. It was the first vacation when I was allowed to go abroad to Ukraine. Somehow they finally figured out the laws on the departure of military staff. Everything was very complicated. It’s as if the ban applied only to people who are registered with the territorial recruitment centers — these are recruiting points, military registration and enlistment offices. Well, we as military personnel did not fall under these rules. But this was only sorted out more than a year later.

I constantly had a fever. I had pneumonia before being sent to the front, and there it appeared again. And I already stopped paying attention to it. And then I started to notice that my strength was decreasing, that those tasks that I had performed quite simply, I was completing with great difficulty. And since I suffered from tuberculosis as a child, my guess was in this way. I passed the examination. It turned out that it was tuberculosis, and I discharged.

It’s not easy for me that people whom I served with are still on the front line. At first there was a feeling of guilt and thoughts that I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital. Clearly this is a stupid idea.

The most difficult thing for me was that I did not see my children and wife. My wife and I met once. She is a Russian citizen and came to Kyiv when it was allowed. I was given three days leave. And I didn’t see the children for a very long time. My oldest child has matured a lot while I was gone. And I saw that my wife couldn’t cope. Of course, I sent money, but this did not solve the problem. Raising children alone, while working and worrying about the husband all the time, is very difficult. Thank God we had Starlink. I went on combat assignments twice a day, and wrote to her constantly before the assignment and after the assignment. She often stayed awake, waiting for messages. I don’t know how she coped it. I was less worried about myself. It’s always more about how she can stay alone here.

— I can’t say that it was my decision to specifically help people who are in Russia. I just had a clear understanding that I would return to the profession. I’m a psychotherapist. I spent eight years studying. And when we came to the Netherlands, I had very little practice. Because people were not yet accustomed to the online world, and I was skeptical as well. From time to time, I had online clients, both Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking.

I earned money here in all sorts of ways. I worked at a factory, during Covid I was a courier, I learned the language and didn’t understand very well what I would do. And in war a lot changes happen in terms of values, priorities and I began to value life differently, my ownlife and the lives of the people around me.

My wife and I decided that I should return to the profession. I had a difficult treatment for tuberculosis with all sorts of side effects. I had terrible migraines, two shell shocks at the front. And in general, I was not very efficient, to be honest. By the end of January, just as I finished treatment, an offer from the Without Prejudice project appeared. And I said let’s do it. I was told that clients could be Ukrainian refugees and Russian citizens.

— Yes, I felt it. Since the economic crisis of 2008, the difference has been very strong. I remember my first impression: they were playing "Singing Cowards" on TV, their songs were such biting political satire. And I was just like, "Wow! was that even possible?!" Because they were shown on some central music channel. It was impossible to imagine this in Russia.

— I remember that, of course. The first Ukrainian Maidan was such a key turning point for me. And this story with NTV, when independent media disappeared in Russia. Well, you know what I mean.

— I think the foundation of this originated in the Soviet Union. I perceive the Soviet Union as a prison of nations, because there is no connection between, say, a Latvian with a Kyrgyz. In general, it is not clear why they belong to the same state.

My dad, a Ukrainian, used to make such chauvinist jokes about Moldovans or Belarusians. He was an amateur. But if he had it from time to time, then in Russia it was clearly felt.

I tried to speak absolutely with no accent. I remember that the letter "Я" in the word "пятнадцать"[1] gave me away. And there was another word by which an attentive person could identify me. Although I studied at a Russian school and my Russian was good. But this attitude, I don’t know, I always observed some harmless jokes around lard. In short, some kind of blowing up. Nobody attached much importance to this.

But I felt uncomfortable in Russia. And it took me a very long time to get used to Moscow, and I didn’t feel at home there. Even with my friends and classmates. It was as if I had to tread on my neck. There was nothing terrible, the people were more or less educated. But when it came to nationality, chauvinism was still observed among many of them. Very few people were free from this quality. It would be impossible to attach propaganda to sterile people. There had to be prerequisites. I see the prerequisites for this.

— This is a rather difficult situation. My friends at the front — we call each other sworn brothers — they react normally. My bn[2] consisted mostly of Kievites. And Kyiv before the invasion was mainly a Russian-speaking city. Now the situation has changed, but that’s how it was. And we all spoke Russian, except for two or three people. From this side everything is fine. But I hear from my psychotherapist that someone in the psychotherapeutic professional community probably wouldn’t understand. I have not encountered this, but I think there is such a story.

I discovered one very important thing for myself. After about a month of working on the project, I realized that I was treated by these people, my clients. I am a Gestalt therapist by training, and we use the senses and the body as the main tool of therapy. We rely on our feelings as a diagnostic tool. Psychotherapy for me is not a place where I can somehow freeze off[3]. On the contrary, I should listen to my feelings as much as possible, be attentive and monitor them to work normally.

I can’t say that I had a primitive or some kind of flat attitude towards people with a Russian passport. But it became wider, more voluminous, and more empathy appeared in the process of work. And it became useful. I didn’t have that motive when I started working. It was important for me just to try to help. But this work has a therapeutic effect for me, as it turned out. Because for a year and a half, the Russians for me were those on the other side of the front. And I can’t say that I have some kind of story that I hate all Russians. But I really began to hate people in Russian military uniform.

At the front, I first ended up in the medical unit. When the territories of the Kyiv and Chernigov regions were liberated, I had to see enough of civilians who were tortured. I saw a grandfather whose arm was smashed from hand to shoulder with hammers. They simply turned his arm into minced meat; the bone could not be felt. It is not clear how he even survived, because this is the pick of crash syndrome. They wanted to find out from this grandfather who served in the Ukrainian army. This is not such a secret information to try to get it so hard. But they seemed to really enjoy it. This is one situation, but there were many of them.

These events, when civilians suffered, and when I had to observe it, for some reason they left the biggest traumatic trace. Well, that is, there are a lot of deaths there. The bodies of Russian soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers. As if I was prepared for the fact that if a person puts on a uniform, he can die. But the civilians and animals who suffered from military operations, from torture in fact — I was not ready for this.

All houses with the sign "CHILDREN" were shot from APC and tanks during the withdrawal. All. There was not a single gate, or a single door, on which "CHILDREN" would not be written and which would not have been shot, on which there would be no traces. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

— I'm not sure if it’s right to think so or not. In my profession, I am used to not divide things into right and wrong. On the one hand, if someone thinks this way, they have a reason for it. It is reliably known that FSB agents carry out torture with the help of paratroopers and other special troops. But on drugs it’s very unlikely. An altered state of consciousness in war is a kind of norm. The person regroups and a few special challenges need to be taken on. The first of the problems is that you can die, and you need to somehow get acquainted with this thought, and be effective, despite this fact. Because a goal number one is to get the job done. This leads to goal number two — to stay alive.

Pretty simple schemes and things. But accepting them takes a lot of work. You can do it harmlessly, or you can do it in many other ways.

I think that if a person has never tried anything sweeter than a carrot in a life, if one has had no experience of some kind of close relationship, if one has never loved anyone and was not loved in childhood, then the case is about subordination, hierarchy, when everything is clear, when actions are more important than motives, it is very exciting, it is a drug. In the army they use drugs on both sides, I’m not going to pretend that this is not the case. But firstly, this is not welcome. As I understand it, from the Russian side too. It does not help.

I think these people had such a life. They grew up like this. The army took those things that it considers as resourceful and strengthens them with the approval and acceptance of such things. And the chekists, it seems to me, never had anything sacred at all, from the very beginning. There is nothing to be surprised there. Don’t try to measure these people by yourself.

— I almost always say this unconditionally. I am sure that it is better to clarify such things on the other side before we start working. Typically, people say there is no problem with this. Some say they are respectful.

There was one incident. The boy’s jaw dropped. It sagged so slowly while I was telling him all this. Quite a young guy. I don’t even remember exactly why he was scared. He was in such a constant state of anxiety because of the draft. He served in the army, he has a military specialty, and he will be drafted. And he told me about all this. I say, yes, by the way, listen, there is such a thing here. I served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and could this be a problem? Of course, he says, it can be a problem! But this was not what he was afraid of. He apparently saw some kind of trap in this or something like that. Well, the USS is looking for him as a potential soldier of the Russian Federation. I don’t know what he was thinking there. But overall, it was fun.

— No, we worked with him for quite a long time. We had five sessions with him. It’s a lot. All was good. We made it clear that I am not the person who is hunting him, that it is simply important for me to inform him about this so that I do not have a grudge against him. It’s always easier to work with clients if you don’t hide anything. And if this is not a psychiatric case, then it is better to be frank.

I think there may be cases where this will be a problem. If, say, some relatives serve. But I’m imagining this, I haven’t encountered anything like this. Half of those who were, well, they didn’t care. This is exactly the wording, oddly enough. More or less. The main thing is that they get help.

— It's still about different types of people. Among my clients there were many who contributed to resistance to the regime: artists, activists. And there were only two cases when they did not associate themselves with the country.

— It's hard for me to understand. I can’t say that I somehow blame them. I probably have some kind of disgust. Well, to be honest. I just really sympathize with the people who have been at the front for more than 2 years. And some have been longer.

Everyone there was very tired. I could not imagine that a person could remain in such conditions for so long. And not even to remain alive, but also capable. It’s very difficult to describe. I have always looked at the homeless people with sympathy. But the life of a homeless person is many times easier than the life of an infantryman in a trench. And, of course, I sympathize more with people who are in the army than with people who are not in the army. And it seems fair to me that, if possible, everyone should take on this burden.

At the same time, of course, I understand that there are different situations in life. Not everyone has the courage. And even here, where the majority were volunteers, we had people who feared what was happening. Mostly shelling. There is such a thing that a specific ammunition causes this syndrome, which is associated with fear, with fright, or rather even. Such people, as a rule, were in the dugout. They loaded the horns and could do nothing else during the shelling. They were just getting pounded.

I’m telling you this because I, of course, understand that not everyone can do this, but for me the different things were hard. When to come to a city on vacation and watch the guys who go to the gym, they are physically well developed. I remember arriving in Kyiv, and two guys were discussing jeans on the subway platform. It felt very strange to me. I didn’t even look at it with condemnation, but it was so different from my world in which I lived. In general, it is very, very difficult to describe my attitude.

I place more responsibility on the state in this sense. And I believe that my state has squandered its most basic resource. They ruined everything that could be ruined in terms of mobilization. They made a lot of mistakes. To a greater extent, they are responsible for this, and not the people who pay money to leave, or swim across the Tisza, or cross the border on foot. Something like this, probably.

— Surely there is, naturally.

—  I think people tend to simplify things. And there is not such a large percentage of people who are prone to criticism, analysis, especially self-analysis. Especially to introspection in the place where you have to admit the unpleasant truth about yourself. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, this is largely a normal reaction. Because if bombs and missiles are flying at you, then you must react somehow. And often it is not a matter of choice.

I have observed PTSD in people who watched TV or YouTube at the beginning of the war. They did not take part in hostilities and were not under fire. But they had such high-quality PTSD. So, it manifests itself differently for everyone. It is difficult to say what percentage of such people are. You go to Twitter, and it seems like there are 100% of them. But this is far from true. Social media is inherently toxic. I wouldn’t rely on such things.

From what I have seen personally, it is clear that this is not representative, but there are probably less than 5% of such people who simply treat all alike. Although such a theme as hatred, yes, it lives in the Ukrainian people now. And this is absolutely normal, of course.— Я думаю, что людям свойственно упрощать вещи. И есть не такой уж большой процент людей, которые склонны к критике, анализу, тем более к самоанализу. Тем более к самоанализу в том месте, где приходится признавать неприятную правду о себе. Это с одной стороны. А с другой стороны, это во многом нормальная реакция. Потому что если на тебя летят бомбы и ракеты, то ты как-то должен реагировать. И зачастую это не вопрос выбора.

Я наблюдал ПТСР у людей, которые смотрели телевизор или YouTube в начале войны. Они не принимали участие в боевых действиях и не были под обстрелами. Но у них был такой нормальный, качественный ПТСР. Так что это по-разному у всех проявляется. Сложно сказать, какой процент таких людей. Заходишь в Твиттер, и кажется, что их 100%. Но это далеко не так. Соцсети токсичны по своей сути. На такие вещи я бы не опирался.

Из того, что я видел лично, понятно, что это не репрезентативно, но таких людей, наверное, меньше чем 5%, которые просто всех под одну гребенку метут. Хотя такая тема, как ненависть, она да, живет в украинском народе сейчас. И это абсолютно нормально, конечно.

— Almost all Ukrainians have either acquaintances, relatives, or family members who died or were wounded. Since people in grief are not inclined to see things in their entirety, they turn their grief into hatred. This is what helps them cope with this grief, helps them not fall apart. And yes, many of them have a generalized hatred of everything Russian, of Russian people, of Russian literature, of Russian soldiers, of the Russian government, of everything that begins with the word "Russian." These are not all people; it is important for me to note this. But there are many of them, and this is a normal psychological reaction.

— No, I haven’t met. This question has never come to me, and I’ve never heard it from anyone else. I’m not exactly a super sociable person; I don’t have a lot of people with whom I keep constant friendly relations. Maybe 10−15 people from my circle of friends. Some of them live in Crimea, some of them live in Europe, about half live in Ukraine. They are sane people, so I have not met such things. Even in the hospital, where I mainly interacted with the military, I did not observe this. Even among people who returned after Russian captivity. And this is a separate story, I won’t tell you everything so as not to shock you. But everything that can be imagined, and even more, all this happened to them. But even among these people I did not see such a thing as "all Russians must be destroyed."

— I imagined it many times, and I imagined it wrongly. Some of my ideas about this now are also erroneous, because no one knows the future. But now it seems to me that this will take a very long time.

— Yes. The war can end with any option. The civil war in Russia, the death of Putin. It’s very unlikely, but it could happen — a victory for Ukraine, reaching the borders of 1991. But not under current circumstances for sure. Somehow this will definitely end someday, but in 10 years or 100 years, I find it difficult to say.

If this ends in 10 years, then it cannot end without consequences in Russia. It won’t be that we fought here and lost so many people, I don’t even remember what losses. To say after this that all the goals of the SMO are achieved, we are going home — this will not happen. And will it end after reaching the borders of 1991? I think no, the war will not end.

— Well, first, I think that it is impossible, what you describe. It’s like a fairy waving her magic wand. No, that definitely won’t happen. I was very impressed by the history of Germany. When there was nothing to eat, to receive food stamps it was necessary to rebury a certain number of dead people who had been lying in the ground for quite a long time. Or to do something else like that.

And it seems to me that there must be either a very, very, very strong motive for a person to see the truth, or a very serious coercion.

— It seems to me that fear is generally about security and the lack of it. This is fear for the life, for safety, for freedom. Fear dictates the need for conformity, the need to belong to this ideology. It seems to people that if they support all this, they will not be touched.

If a person has lived in fear for a very long time, this fear will not evaporate and will not disappear anywhere. It will persist even if the person enters a safe space. More precisely, if safety comes to him. Because if a person leaves somewhere or does something to gain freedom and security, he takes some action for this and takes responsibility for it. And if you imagine some average person in Russia, who seems to be not exactly a cannibal and even a nice guy or girl, and no matter how much he or she does not particularly support murder, but "there is no smoke without fire", and "they bombed the Donbass", and everything else. These are the narratives that help create a feeling of security. Well, why should they suddenly go somewhere?

— Because they are so scared… Loss of identity — for me as a psychologist, at least — it is identical to the fear of death. If I have some ideas about myself, then I will hold on to them. But specifically, I will try not to do this, because I know that it is not useful. My own experience was quite painful. When my ideas about me were destroyed, I felt hurt, ashamed, and unpleasant. I wouldn’t do this at all if I didn’t have a need, I would just live.

This is a complicated thing. If we talk about why it is important for people to learn different points of view, to have complete information, to carry out some kind of analysis of information — why do they need this, then I think that we can find out that this is also somehow connected, firstly, with self-esteem, and secondly, with security. That is, if I understand the events that are happening in the world, then I am safe, the world is predictable for me. But people draw the same conclusion from very contradictory things. Some people believe that if they don’t think about the complexity of the world, then it will also be safe, simply because it is predictable in their head. We all strive for the same thing, by and large. We just use different methods.

For me, this is a much less important question than the point of the actual survival of these people.
Because I know what will happen in the occupied territories. For me this is a disaster, because there will be torture and executions. And not only people who fought in the Ukrainian army and their relatives. But also teachers who teach the Ukrainian language and do it wholeheartedly.

If we talk about moral shock, then people will become depressed. Many people have such deep, high-quality depression.