On Ukraine

A few weeks ago I wrote a note about my strong desire to stay apolitical. I don’t want to comment on Trump, Biden, Putin, or whoever. I don’t feel like my voice adds any value or meaning to millions of other voices, who can’t stop arguing in light-minded ways on social media.

With regards to Russia specifically, I stopped expressing my views some years ago. I’m Russian but had spent more than half of my life in the “West” for education and work. And even during the Soviet years — I was a child then — I was as pro-West as one could be in that epoch. My parents were very liberal. They were critical of socialism and the Soviet system even before that system started to collapse. So, expectedly, I was never a supporter of Putin’s regime. However, after I immigrated to America — it will soon be a decade — I decided I have no moral right to comment on Russian politics, from ten thousand miles away, from the comfort of my home in California.

But I can’t NOT comment today, on the 24th of February 2022.

And it’s not because of some pressure to express my opinion. I still reserve the right to be silent about political and geopolitical matters, however controversial.

It’s because of the shock of the situation.

This situation is far different from anything I’ve experienced, save maybe for the September 11th attacks.

“Will there be a war?”, I asked my dad a few weeks ago. Russia’s amassing its forces around Ukraine had already been in the news for some time.