Dear Roman

When Russia started its Ukraine War in February, Roman Super, a longtime Russian journalist and documentary filmmaker, began to ask his acquaintances in the media about their personal experiences working in Russia’s propaganda industry. He published some of their responses anonymously on his Telegram channel.

Many described their personal turmoil, whether they continued in their jobs, quit, or were fired over publicly opposing the war. As time went on, Super began to receive a greater variety of messages from all corners of Russian society, effectively a snapshot of the feelings of dissent bubbling across the country, though rarely expressed in public. People opened up, describing their fear, their relationship with pro-war loved ones, their horror and despair over what Putin’s government has done.

We publish some of these messages with permission.

Roman Super’s Telegram can be seen at t.me/romasuperromasuper

I live in one of Russia’s cities with over a million residents and work as a journalist. Thankfully, it’s an outlet where you can work without going against your conscience. Over 10 years I have been observing with horror everything that is happening in my country. I am not going to talk about how I am scared to continue living here, how I cry looking at the streets of Ukrainian cities through Google Street View, how heartbroken I am for Ukrainians, and how the lump in my throat feels when I read the news about the war.

I am going to talk about how the state has practically turned my closest relatives into enemies.

My father is a former policeman and my mother works for the Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor. There is a saying, “Children of cops hate cops.” Well, this is true. I have seen with my own eyes how working in law enforcement can break and transform somebody’s personality.

I am so ashamed, this is my personal nightmare and shame, but also I’m ashamed of the shame I feel for my parents’ professions. After all, you don’t choose your parents.

When I was growing up, I had no problems communicating with family. I believed everything they told me. This lasted until about 2011. When the mass rallies on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow began, a civic awareness was born inside me. I started thinking and voicing my opinions to my parents: that the ruling government needed to be changed through elections, that Putin had been in power long enough, and that we needed new leadership. I was 15 and my parents told me: “You don’t understand anything. When you’re 18 you can go and vote for whomever you want, or even run for president yourself, but right now you are nobody.”

A year later they started adopting the first repressive laws, and there was the Pussy Riot case. I clearly understood what lunacy my government was perpetrating. Even then, the election and its result upset me deeply.

By the time I turned 18, it was too late to vote. Russia took Crimea from Ukraine, and then the war in the Donbas began. I watched this on TV with horror: the Sochi Olympics looked like a feast in time of plague. In fact, it was. At the same time, the propaganda machine churned out nonsense about “Banderites,” and I genuinely did not understand: how could people believe this? Why are they rejoicing over the theft of land? Why are imperial ambitions more important for them than their own well-being?

The fights between me and my parents became a daily thing. They escalated into hysterical shouting matches. I tried to persuade my father, to explain to my parents about the transfer of governmental power, and how Russia was wreaking havoc not just at home but in other countries. But they shot down every argument with “you read too much on the internet, maybe we should just turn it off.”

This went on for several years, until I moved out. Since then it has been very difficult to visit and speak with them. And after February 24 it became impossible.

When the war had just started, I spoke with my mother on the phone. She was confused and asked me: “Why did he start this?” I felt a little better – did she finally understand? But no, it turns out they did not.

Just before May 9, I visited my parents and told them that my boyfriend and I were planning to go out of town to avoid the parades, the Z-madness, concerts, fireworks, crowds of people and dancing on the graves. My mother, who just two months earlier had expressed opposition to the war, responded: “Your grandfathers fought, and you speak this way? Z is a good symbol, any military operation should have a symbol. They will cleanse Ukraine of Nazis and everything will be just fine.”

The visit ended with mutual recriminations and a severing of ties. I left them completely deflated. I don’t know when I will ever visit them again. I cannot convince them or my grandmother of anything. Whatever I achieve in life, I will always remain a stupid and ignorant child with zero authority for them. I don’t know how to communicate with these people. But I also don’t know how not to.

I was advised: “Just talk to them about anything except politics.” But I cannot. The war is something that hurts me so much, and I need to talk about this pain.

My name is Anna, I am 29 years old. Two years ago I met a wonderful guy from Kyiv. We communicated for a while and realized that we couldn’t live without one another. We decided to live together in Moscow or St. Petersburg. But then Covid happened, the restrictions. Then I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and hospitalized. He constantly supported me, worked and signed up for a course to learn frontend (web development). Everything to make sure he can earn good money and be by my side. Finally, we decided that he would move to Russia as part of a government relocation program. And then we would keep working and living together.

He translated and prepared all the documents to apply for the program and everything was going well.

And then came February 24.

Lives of ordinary people began to crumble. I remember as if it were yesterday. It’s the morning, I am shaking, there are tears, pain, fear. We began calling one another: how are you? And how are you? More tears.

He was trying to calm me, and so were my friends from Kyiv. Everybody was in shock, confused. For two weeks I was so crushed I only had the energy to get up and have a bite to eat, and went straight back to bed. I had no more energy to cry. Then I found you and many others who are opposed to this madness. It’s a breath of fresh air, a spark of hope in this hellhole.

My parents are completely zombified by the television. It’s difficult to see, and there is no point trying to convince them. For many years I tried to tear them away from the television set, without success. We were and are arguing a lot. I try to keep my mouth shut.

I asked, how could it be that a person carrying a portrait of a veteran as part of the Immortal Regiment procession could be arrested and beaten by our “defenders” because he wrote on the portrait that he didn’t want this war? They responded, it’s all a fake. Serves him right. Why did he show up with his peace sign? His grandfather must have been a fascist.

Why is it my boyfriend and my friends from Kyiv love me, respect me, and support me? Why don’t they hate Russians, while my own family, my mother and father, brainwashed by propaganda, don’t support their daughter? How is this possible?

Hello Roman.

I’m 18. I’ll try to describe from the point of view of a recent adult the feelings and thoughts of these past 90 days.

It is horror, a nightmare, complete hell that doesn’t feel like it will ever end. It is fear and pain from a future that has been murdered, tears and hysterics from the sound of nails being pounded into the coffins of our freedom, careers and dreams. And most of all, absolute confusion over how this could happen. Why have these shitty “adults” – who so love to complain about our “stupid” generation, who call us retarded and unintelligent – destroyed our beautiful country in a moment. They have read books that we haven’t, and to what end? They didn’t understand a word. And what about history, which they ask us to re-read? Did they learn anything from it? No, nothing. They didn’t learn that a “short victorious war” can never be successful, that seemingly weak opponents in fact are sinking all your cruisers, battleships and gunboats in the first days of the war, that a country that starts such a war cannot win, not a single fight. Wake up! The same thing happened over 100 years ago. We’ve seen this movie before. What Nicholas II got in return was the Russian Revolution. So, “adults,” why haven’t you understood this?

At the same time, I am mystified by the other type of “adults.” I’m referring to those who stick the letters “Z” and “V” on their foreheads and dream of dropping a bomb somewhere, preferably on everyone. My father turned out to be like this. A student of the ʾ90s, who very much loves rock music, American brands, and Europe, where “the air is different.” And so I am confused, how somebody who is immersed in European and American culture through and through has decided that bombs are the best solution for all of Russia’s problems. How is it that people like him support this? Listen, “adults,” people are dying over there! People that, like you, spoke your language, that some time ago inhabited the same country as you. And the soldiers of Russia’s army are the same age as me, father!

I am afraid to live with these people. At first I called them Orcs, but then I had the desire to give them all a hug. They have so much hatred toward themselves, their lives, the world. Their feelings are now hurt because nobody likes them. And they haven’t done anything. I want to hug them and say that this too shall pass, and that we need to start building a new, beautiful Russia of the future, together. This should unite people.

God, how I want to go to this Russia. A Russia that is free, beautiful, where our heritage is preserved, where nature explodes not with fires but various tones of green, blue, and other colors, where people don’t hate but love, where there is no xenophobia, nationalism, or other “isms.” Where the country truly is a great state with a strong economy, where Gazprom is not the defining economic power. Where individual rights and freedoms exist and are protected. Where there is freedom of speech, thought, and movement. Where there is everything.

Lord, how I want to go to this Russia.