Only now do I realize that my childhood in the 90s with its lack of everything, when my dad was paid his salary with fittings instead of money or wasn’t paid at all, was peaceful and quite fine.
At least, I wasn’t taught that the enemy could shell or bomb our house. I barely had any toys but I was drawing, tinkering, exploring something in a natural environment all the time. That was nice.
Everything is different now...
Sometimes, I am with my family during the air alerts (seldom, because I have a lot of things to do but it happens).
The very moment a siren goes off, my Nazarko (4.9 y.o.) says, "Let's go to the bomb shelter, the mskls have fired a missile".
He says to his younger brother, "Оstap, get dressed quickly, the mskls are attacking".
I ask him later, "Who are those mskls?"
He replies, "the mskls are these nasty NON-humans with missiles, they have attacked Ukraine and they are hurting it, so we need to kill them".
But on the other hand, this kind of circumstances form a significantly different depth of values...
* mskl — moskal (offensive Ukrainian word for a person of Russian origin).
March 3, 2022
Ukrainian Text by Serhii Bryhar. Translated into English by Ukrainianvancouver team – Mar 10, 2022