#kiyev

I am from Croatia. If anyone here doesn't know, we've declared our own independence around the same time as Ukraine did. We are a young democracy, barely 30 years. We had a brutal civil war that resulted in many dead, many scarred, displaced, bitter, and more than anything, betrayed by the heartless government decisions of what is supposed to be our brother nation.

My father is a war veteran. My mom gave birth to my sister and had to live in fear not knowing whether or not her father will be there to see her grow up. Had he not returned I wouldn't be here.

I never lived to see the war, it having ended ages before I was born, but I was shown the results. I've seen the bulletholes in walls of a city that still hasn't recovered fully to this day. I've seen what it means to be in war, have lived and still live in instability of the economic crisis that it brought to my homeland, combined with the incompetency of my own government.

I hope that any and all people from Ukraine, especialy young people that carry the future of the country on their backs, know that we shared your pain and many are still alive to remember it as if it happened yesterday. I hope that you can get out of this blatant disrespect of everything that is human with the least amount of casualties. I hope that your spirits stay alive and well. I hope. I hope that cowards that call themselves your allies show teeth to Putin and finally end this animal's reign of terror on both you and his own people.

I am but a student, an art student on top of that. I don't have much to offer besides my words and my wishes for you to live through this, remain strong in the face of opression. I hope that your ancestry remains intact, your present strong, and your future secure.

We won't forget. I won't forget. How could I? There is so much horrifying crimes going on in the world, we are not born with capability to take all of it in, it's too much. But we have capability to care for those close to us.