“Now they have been abandoned without command. They are in some village in the Luhansk region. They need to get out of there because now they are attacked again by an army of enemies. How will they return to Russia? What will happen to them next? We can’t even imagine.”

– Irina, wife of a Russian soldier mobilized in Ukraine

"I'm a fool. I didn't just cross the line, I erased it unintentionally... I think about every child, every mother, and every family. And I also think and suffer about every child on the other side, I dream that there would be no deaths, that children would not die. Believe me, the tear of every baby is my pain, my nightmare. I don't wish death on anyone, anyone."

– Anton Krasovsky, head of the Russian-language directorate of RT Russia

"We hope and pray that you return alive and healthy [and] that you return victorious, having defended the security and independence of our country."

– Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin,
announcing the end to mobilization in the capital.

"Honestly, they will all die there."

– Kirill, a Russian soldier who has fought in Ukraine
offers a grim prognosis of what awaits the new mobilized recruits.

“It’s time to prove themselves in a real fight, I can only welcome this desire.”

– Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, announcing that he was sending his teenage sons to Ukraine

"We are a soldier country, a soldier nation. We will fight, it's not our first time, and so on... I feel that a rather gloomy period is ahead."

– Alexei Levinson, Levada

“I am asking you to include me on the foreign agents' list of my beloved country.”

– Russian pop star Alla Pugacheva, to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation

“All of this is very bitter."

– Russian newscaster Dmitry Kiselev

"I love you."

– Journalist Ivan Safronov after being sentenced to 22 years in prison for treason

“Independence Day will have a different meaning this year. Us Ukrainians love our freedom. We can say what we believe. My friends in Russia say they have a democracy. What kind of democracy is it if you cannot call a war a war?” 

                                   – A Russian living in Ukraine, Tatyana Antonova

“What reason is there for us to do this?” 

                                   – A Ukrainian official speaking on the murder of Darya Dugina

“There was a certain girl here who was handing out some permission to paint to artists, complete nonsense. I gave her this work, and the first thing she said was that it was a very dangerous job, because if Gorbachev saw it, he would not allow the unification of Germany and that she will send it to the senate of West Berlin, which was a different country, for approval.” 

                                   –  Dmitry Vrubel, the artist behind the Berlin Wall's "The Fraternal Kiss"