Are you the Russian emigre Alexei Sorokin writes about here? What's funny is that his friend who stayed in Moscow is more realistic than the anti-western emigre friend. If you're anti-western, here's the fact-based cure and why Peter went to Zaandam: https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-modern-world-a-dutch-invention-the-english-copy-fda9ced7a6b8

Ukraine on the offense, I’m a happier Russian

“You guys are fucked up (ohueli)”, my close Russian friend wrote on our messaging chat. There are five of us on that chat. I mentioned it in a couple of my stories. We’re all Western educated. We’ve been close friends for over two decades. We worked in the West and we worked in Russia.

My friend was responding to the two of us rejoicing and ridiculing Russia’s military retreat, courtesy of Ukraine’s supposed gains. I say “supposed” because I don’t want to overreact to the news. There’s propaganda and fake news on both sides. But it seems that this time it’s real — Russia’s retreating. Ukraine is gaining.

This friend (the one stunned at how we are happy to see Russia lose) is anti-West. I’m simplifying. He lives in the West (the irony!). It’s not that he is pro-Putin, but he is anti-West. He loves to talk about how empires (meaning America) are evil and yet how keeping and expanding an empire (meaning Russia) is the only way to survive. Sometimes he goes off the rails and rants angrily about the West.

We have hundreds of these chats.

I wasn’t the most vocal one today. My other friend was. He’s in Moscow. He’s an entrepreneur. He’s the one ridiculing Russia, its regime, and its military. He keeps saying that the Kremlin’s biggest headache is not Ukraine at all. He says it’s a matter of time before Moscow (meaning literally Moscow) will have to defend from Ukraine’s offense.

I discovered a flurry of messages after I finished my run in the morning. My two friends were arguing. One was ridiculing the Russian propaganda trying to conceal the losses, the other one was saying “So are you happy, are you happy to see Russia lose?” He then said this to my anti-war (simplistic labels, but I’m trying to avoid the names) friend (who’s in Moscow). “So if you’re against the war, why are you still in Russia paying taxes to finance the war?” My anti-war friend had a brilliant response. A little exaggerated but awesome.

“That my taxes are not financing the war I know for sure.’

“How do you know? Do you have control over it?”

“No, I’m judging by the results”.

I later joined the chat and supported my friend in Moscow. I said that of course, I’m happy to see Russia lose this war. I used derogatory terms to refer to the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

“You’re just a Russophob”, my friend told me. Russophobia is a dislike of all things Russia, in case you don’t know.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “It’s the opposite. On a day like this [referring to Ukraine’s gains] I’m a happier Russian”.

“You guys are fucked up”, was the response.

Then our chat went quiet. Then later in the day, I went on a rant that doesn’t matter that much. We rant, we get personal. “No, you must be fucked up to support a bunch of idiots and criminals…”, I started.

Friends and families arguing, being bitter. I heard it’s the same with Trump — there are families where you have two spouses with opposing views. Unfortunately, the context for our debate is different from Trump versus Biden or whoever. The context is death, destruction, and the totally senseless war.

Wholeheartedly, wishing Ukraine to advance further and farther.

I have to explain the image below that I saw on social media earlier today. Ukraine forced Russia out of Izium. Izium in English means raisin.