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russia launched 300+ drones at ukraine last night over the course of 5 hours; one of the biggest attacks of the war so far. the explosions were constant, some of them so close that our building was shaking from the impact. i could hear the buzzing of the shaheds overhead; normally, russia sends around 5-7 of these drones to kyiv every night, but last night, it was around 40. by the time the sun came up, the cloud of smoke that hung over kyiv was so dark that you couldn't see the sky.

but being pulled out of bed at 2 am under threat of ballistics and drone attacks has been an average experience for ukrainians for over 3 years now. they're used to it, they say "I'm from sumy/zaporozhzhia/kramatorsk, this is nothing". it doesn't matter if they're tired or they've been bombed out of their homes, they still have to get up and go to work or school or run errands and do all the things that make their country function while russia tries to grind it down by turning their peaceful skies into fire.

Think of your ordinary life. You go to work, go out with friends, build plans for a summer holiday. You have neighbours, maybe you don't know all of them well but they live next to you and you say hello when you see them. You live in a good apartment, with all amenities, modern appliances and stylish furniture. You pay bills for heating, water and electricity. Maybe you're renting out or it's your own place. You are a part of a globalized world although you don't think about it on such a scale.

And then one day there are explosions in your city. At first it seems shocking and unusual. But you hope it'll end soon. But they don't stop. They become more frequent. You witness your hometown get demolished. The places where you spent your free time or ran errands - the windows get shattered and the walls begin to crumble. It looks weird in the middle of a modern city.

Soon the explosions happen so often that you have to go and live in the basement. You, a person, who has a modern home, must move to a basement, with other people like you, where you don't get enough light or fresh air, let alone enough tap water or a decent place to sleep.

And then you witness death. In fact, many deaths, not just one. You get the news of people you knew, maybe your neighbours or relatives, getting killed. They are just gone. At some point you become so desensitized, the news of a dead body lying outside doesn't shock you. Sometimes you have to go outside and help other people dig out the bodies from under debris or bury them. Sometimes you see other apartments being on fire and you can't do anything. Nobody can and there's no point.

The shops are closed and you become so desparate that you start hunting pigeons for food. You share tiny portions with other people because, even though the conditions are terrible, you remain a human.

Request made by @/Asatsukii_(on Twitter) for @voicesfortheblade

Nostalgia- Scars and Soil

Carolina Reaper by Amélie Farren

Close-ups and lineart under cut

People think us delusional, but we know that ceding is dooming people living there to repressions, to suffocating all their cultural identity, to burning books that are deemed nationalistic propaganda (like a Ukrainian alphabet, for example), to torture chambers, to reeducation.