From Hauer’s Twitter thread:
One thing I noticed in the last week is that almost all Ukrainians I talked to said they blamed not just Putin but also the average Russian for the war. According to the view, they overthrew their corrupt government. Now, they are accepting their murderous one.
Anxiety between average Ukrainians and average Russians has already grown to a great extent. This animosity is only growing with each additional airstrike or civilian death. This war’s effects will continue for many generations.
Here’s what I have to say from Kharkiv [in the Eastern Ukraine, which is more Russian-speaking than much of the rest of the country -EV]. Here, I believe I was exposed to more anti-Russian attitudes than elsewhere in the country. The sense of betrayal here, of ‘how could they possibly do this to *us*’, is incredible.
People we saw crawling out of rubble told us that they didn’t believe their Moscow family. Their videos of the destruction of their home received a resounding ‘it’s fake’ or ‘Nazis did that. *Every* bond between Ukrainians & Russians – familial, cultural, historical – is being broken.
Two poems about this are available starting in 2014, and you should consider the dire situation. See “Together We christened Our Children” (and “We Will Never Be Brothers”)