“How you feel the situation with Putin is going to resolve itself…”

“I’ve become a regular follower of your work and I am wondering just how you feel the situation with Putin is going to resolve itself. Is there any chance that Russia might have another revolution?”

I received this message from a kind follower and supporter of my writing.

I know that many of my current followers and subscribers discovered me after reading my stories on Russia and Ukraine.

A disclaimer, like in my other stories on this topic: I’m not an expert. I don’t claim to have some super proprietary insights. But I’m Russian, albeit in immigration. I have views and opinions on Russia and the current war. I still maintain close connections with my friends and relatives in Moscow. I have relatives in Ukraine too. I have Ukrainian friends.

In the past, I told myself to stay away from politics. I left Russia in 2013 and, as the years went by, I decided that I no longer had the right to be vocal about my ex-home country.

But the war against Ukraine was by far the biggest shock I’d ever experienced in my adult life so I did write a lot about it. The fact that my Mom’s feelings were extremely strong continued to fuel my own sentiment. “I actually now feel Ukrainian, literally”, my Mom told me a few days ago referring to her Ukrainian blood, “It’s a strange feeling”. Her late father was from Ukraine and she still keeps closely in touch with that part of the family (they’re in the town of…