Transcription from an interview with Yevhen on April 22 2022. 

-Do you consider that Europe is supporting Ukraine?

Not as much as it should. The other day the chancellor of Germany refused to provide Ukraine with heavy weapons. That same day there were Ukrainian troops and civilians in Mariupol locked in a factory, without resources, starving and freezing to death. It was an already accepted agreement, but he personally rejected it. When I heard about it I could not believe it. 

 

-And the rest of Europe? Do you think they don't help either?

Well, relatively. This last week I have seen on social media that the Europeans have started to use the word victory. Previously, they wanted the war to end, to come to peace, but this week for the first time I have read on social networks that European people want Ukraine to win at all cost.  

 

-Do you think the Russians want peace too?

Yes, everyone wants peace, even Putin. Even the one who seeks conflict wants to end it as quickly as possible. He wanted to end the war in 3 days, not to prolong the conflict that much, exposing the Russian army to war conflict and death for so long.

 

-And what do you want? Do you want peace? 

For me achieving peace through a political agreement would lead to the absence of freedom. Only through war Ukraine can achieve potential freedom. We have to fight and win, there is no other option. After all they have done in Bucha and Mariupol I cannot agree to peace without trying to win in this war. The problem is people’s ignorance and indifference. They don’t understand the reasons why we are fighting.

 

-What would be the ideal victory for you? 

The victory for me would be to kick all the Russian military out of the country and to take back the lost lands. Victory would also require the Western world to condemn what is happening. There are many culprits, not only Putin, but also soldiers, Russian civilians and so on. We have people who lost their loved ones or were raped. We Ukrainians have to deal with this reality and fight against the main evil. We cannot go backwards anymore. If we let Russia occupy Ukraine, we would have much more losses. 

 

-What do you think of the Russian propaganda? 

I think it is quite contradictory. The same people maintain 2 different incompatible narratives simultaneously: the army does not kill civilians and Ukrainian civilians deserve the worst. They reproach that 8 years ago the Ukrainian army shelled Donbas in 2014. 

Russian propaganda eliminates the truth. Most Russians say that it is difficult to know the truth, that the facts cannot be fully known and, therefore, we cannot know what is going on. I get the impression that they, not believing in themselves, underestimate their own values and power. When someone says that we cannot know the truth, it means that the person they are talking to cannot know the truth either, and therefore there is no possibility to discuss any argument. It is an instrument of devaluation.

 

 

-Don't you think that many of the people who support the war are victims of propaganda?

-No, I don't think so. The Russian military are not victims of propaganda, they are aware that they are killing civilians. There is a recording of a Russian soldier talking to his mother on the phone: "Mom, I am killing civilians and children. She replied, "No, remember my son, you are killing fascists." Obviously, the mother knows the truth and uses propaganda as a tool to reassure her son. However, I'm sure there are a few cases of people who are victims of the Russian propaganda speeches, like those who are isolated in a lost village who don't even have television.

-Well, I think that a person without television will be much less exposed to propaganda than a person with television. 

-For me it’s different. Television gives you different points of view, depending on the channel you turn on. So people have a wide range of channels available and will choose to watch and believe in one but not another. Therefore, the fault lies on the individual. The Internet is more of the same. 

 

-What do you think about the possibility of having to join the army all of a sudden? 

It scares me a lot, but it scares me even more to think that Kyiv might be invaded by the Russians, run out of supplies, among other things. Just imagining myself preparing food on the fire, isolated in a shelter or in a basement, terrifies me more than joining the army.

 

-Do you think you'll be happy again once you've won?

I don't know. I don't know if I’m able to be glad for my own safety having lost a loved one. I don't have the right to be happy knowing that my friend is no longer with me. If I let myself be happy, once nobody is threatening me, I’d lose a part of my soul while betraying my friend. After the war we have to take revenge, like the state of Israel did. 

 

-I personally consider that with hate you can only generate more hate. With heat you are not going to cool anything. 

For me, revenge does not imply hatred. What is better, to forget or not to forget? The road to happiness will be difficult, even though you will finally be happy. What part of your soul will you lose along the way? For achieving psychological health we might have to prolong the war. The friend who has lost his best friend has to keep going and try to win. Achieving peace can be much more dramatic than following the war.